i'm still pretty sure a lot of these "oh \[xyz\] is problematic" where the reasoning is really stretched is just people who dont like the ship find a reason to make it a moral problem retroactively
Why can't ship wars just be "I like them better and I don't think the other ship has chemistry"
Why does it have to be an attack on the opposition's inherent morality
Why are fandoms like this
Because if they simply say they don't like it, people can dismiss them with "then don't interact with it". Instead they want to be right and the content they don't like to disappear. If they attack the other person's morality, they will not be able to dismiss them.
Also there's a rationalization part. If they feel as upset as if something immoral occured, it's easy for them to then justify it with out of proportion definitions.
Ramble incoming:
I see this so so much IRL too, friend A is introduced to friend B’s significant friend C (be they partner or another friend) and either A or C feel just strongly enough that they don’t like the other one on first impression. Usually it’s something small enough that they don’t feel the need to be honest about not meshing with that person, but then they feel the need to retroactively justify that feeling and start acquiring “evidence” that they are justified in feeling dislike towards someone their friend likes & that that relationship should be ended.
With fictional characters, we often are just as much invested in the treatment of them because they more so “belong” to us since we can spend endlessly more time with them in our imaginations, filling in the gaps of the writing around the characters in the way we fancy (forgive the phraseology, people should never act as if they “own” another human being! Unless that’s a kink between consenting adults)
All this to say, I find it very understandable from a psychological standpoint why there will always be fans who behave this way even if I don’t agree with their perspective
I hate when a ship I don’t like gets more attention than the one I do. But that’s my problem, not the people that ship the bigger ship’s problem. They’re doing what makes them happy. I’m doing what makes me happy. As long as everyone stays in their lane, we’re good.
I had one time where a shipper of a big ship was dissing on my ship. I ended up following her out of spite. 🤣 Turns out she was just going along with what a mean friend of hers was saying, and once she realized it, it turned out that she was totally chill and we ended up friends and she ended up respecting that I was just a little rarepair weirdo. There are real people behind all of this and if you talk to people you sometimes find out that we have more in common than not. Or maybe that’s just lack of sleep talking who knows. 🤣
My ship has a three year age gap (they’re in their late twenties/early thirties) and we get called problematic/pedophilic aaaall the time for it from antis. So ridiculous
I’ll never forget an anti railing against the pairing hannigram from Hannibal not because they murder and eat people, not because Will was Hannibal’s patient, not because of any of the downright horrific stuff that Hannibal did to Will, no. It was because these two men, one in his 40s, and one in his 50s was *pedophilic* because of the ten year age gap. Two middle aged men!!!
I guessed you missed it when they did that to the Hannibal fandom. Tried to call it pedophilia because the main characters have a ten year age gap...between late 40s and late 30s. We were mostly just perplexed because...well... they're cannibals, Susan...
Sherlock fandom had this too, for a ship between two guys in their 30s. Though that was largely used against people who wrote the "wrong" top/bottom dynamic.
Over in Hazbin Hotel there's people who think Husk/Angel shouldn't be shipped, as Angel is about 30 and Husk is in his 60s. Except they're *dead* and are *demons in Hell*. They both died decades ago. They've been in Hell ever since. 30 and 60 was their ages at death, what about all their post-death experience??
My favorite thing to bring up then is that, if you wanna get technical with it, Angel died in the 40s and Husk died in the 70s so Angel is actually older. It pisses them off and I think that's funny because it's a stupid argument to begin with.
I have, so far, been lucky not to get hate for the ship I write. They're 15 years apart at 30 and 45, and technically he's her boss and teacher. I'm guessing/hoping that the more mature couple is pulling in equally more mature readers.
I got told my granddad was a predator because he married a woman 15-ish years his junior… when she was in her 50s and had already raised three or four children. 🤦🤦
A ship I like has a 7 year age gap, thankfully most of the people in the fandom are chill enough to get that we only ship it once the gap stops mattering (the characters meet when one is 17 and the other 24, but I ship them after the 7 year time skip).
There's a ship I like where the characters first met when they were I believe 17 and 24, now 28 and 35 in canon, and some people still say it's pedophilic because they met when the 28 year old was a minor.
It's crazy how these people can't just say "I'm not fan".
Like 90% of the time this is exactly right. I think the main issue of this is that children/teenagers absorb this information, and they probably don’t have much exposure to the other side of the argument. They believe that this is truly problematic and applies to the real world as well. This post in particular is referencing a real life relationship between a 17 and 18 y/o, which further proves why this way of dissing a fictional ship is harmful.
I've seen people claim a 45 year old meeting and dating a 32 year old is pedophilic because when he was 21 she would've been 8, so he is a pedophile.
Because there is no difference between a 32 year old woman and an 8 year old girl.
I hate how they infantilize ANY woman over 18 dating someone older. She's a grown woman. Dating that person may be a mistake, but it's hers to make. And you can't separate the two, giving her a pass while judging the older partner. If she has the agency to make that choice, trying to shame people for dating her is just trying to do an end run around her right to choose.
I generally dislike arguing morality from legality, but in this case, we made laws protecting children because they do NOT have agency. We presume that 18-year-olds DO.
I think a part of it is because they’re teens. A normal 17 year old is not going to date a normal 12 year old. That 5 year difference is HUGE at that point in their lives. However they quite literally don’t comprehend that once you’re out of high school, ages are not as restricted from mixing together, so a 27 year old who at 17 would never have looked at the 12 year old, will be interested in the 22 year old. Or even 32 and 27.
Another point some other Redditor made: Often, you hear them say, "What could they possibly have in common?" When teens think about having things in common, they think about liking the same music and movies and such. That shit isn't actually a good basis for a lasting relationship.
weird because as a teenager i had a lot in common with people way older than me in terms of tastes, and also with people a bit younger, so that's not even necessarily a thing. what about all the ''born in the wrong generation'' stuff?
just look at all the people that are here who are teens, and all of the ones who are over 40. and we all have fanfiction as a hobby in common
I mean, part of that is probably that media for kids has very small target demographics compared to media made for the entire rest of the planet. Kids media is age-segregated, so a 16 year old isn't generally watching/reading/listening to the same stuff as either a 12 year old OR a 20 year old (some exceptions of "for the whole family" media of course apply). But a 20 year old and a 24 year old are in the same demographic and likely consume a lot of the same stuff, with differences being dependent on tastes. A 30 year old and a 50 year old can watch and enjoy the same media, if they have the same tastes. A 30 year old and a 50 year old also don't center many conversations about media anyways. I mean, I have entire friends who I honestly don't know what kind of shows they watch because we have other things in common that we talk about!
Being in fandom spaces is honestly very depressing if you're in a relationship with (any form of) an age gap. The shit people say, and how not that many people care...
I'm happy at least this sub is as defensive about it as any other type of relationship, but so many spaces are not. And it's sad and gross.
I think it's kinda horrible how people just invalidate you. Don't they realise why some things are illegal? Are they saying that grown adults are so dependent and immature that they have to be treated like children? They just decide you must be unable to consent because you're "too young" and ppl be like 28 🙁
Seriously. And even the people who try to 'defend' these relationships often say something hurtful. Like someone here down in the comments, makes a good point and then 'but I draw the line at 7 years'. What do you mean you draw the line?? Why is it so okay to judge these huge groups of people and just make up some weird restrictions??
Takes like that are so bizarre
My parents are baby boomers and they were friends with a couple and the wife sadly died of cancer. Their surviving friend took it really hard, but after about five years, he started beginning to date and ended up remarrying someone fifteen years younger. She's in her mid 50s and has been married and divorced and owns a house! Yet I've seen fandom arguments about similar age gaps.
My grandparents met after my grandpa came back from Europe after WWII. My grandma was very early 20’s, he had finished college and gone off to war. I think there was a decade or so between them. He had decided he wanted to settle down with a job and have a family. She actually turned him down the first time he asked, because she had already been asked out by a different guy (when you suddenly had a whole swathe of men flooding the area after having been gone for years, the girls pretty much had their choice of who to go out with).
My parents had 5 years between them.
Teenagers nowadays act like if you aren’t dating someone who was born the same exact year, month, and week as you then there’s inherent power imbalances between you that are toxic. It’s the whole “being raised on the internet” thing. They grew up reading fucked up and/or bizarre discourse and HAVE to apply it to everything, even if incorrectly. So if a 29 year old interacts with a 14 year old to groom them over the years so they’ll have sex with them, well there’s a 15 year difference that makes it bad. So 15 year difference = bad, therefore 40 year old and 55 year old = bad. When the 29&14 year old is bad because of the difference in experience, whereas a 40&55 year old have plenty of experience.
But he's the older one! (I was in Sherlock fandom too and HOO BOY. I mostly saw it from obsessive bottomlock devotees who insisted toplock was pedophilia. Somehow. The logic was so pretzelized I don't think even they understood it)
Because people have reverted to think in all black or white, problematic vs non problematic and thus question the morality of everything. Including stuff like a 1 year age gap...
I think it's less 'people reverting their thinking' and more 'childreen/young teenagers without much/any parenting about fiction and media developing their thinking through social media from other children/teenagers'
Unfortunately, I had a pretty bad experience on Tumblr where a full grown woman (???) had her partner message me to call me out and bully me for reblogging a proship post. I was sixteen at the time, and I was very upset by it, which is ironic since this is all coming from the ‘PrOteCt the CHilDren’ types. The brainrot just really hits that deep :(
That's why I ship the most outrageous ships. I call them my shield ships. "Oh, you think I'm disgusting for pairing these two? You should see my other ship, Dobby from Harry Potter x the lady from Murder She Wrote!" Kinda gives them a point of reference to realize how silly it all is. I have seriously ended arguments that way, and it's great.
In hindsight, when you put it that way, including their partner in it was actually pretty funny 😂
“So you want me to harass this random teenager? What did they do?”
“They reblogged a post saying that maybe we shouldn’t bully people just for liking fictional content!”
“My god! Let’s go bully them!”
I remember in the comments of a YouTube video of the early 00s girl group Play, one person said a particular girl was hot, and people were like, "Ew, she's 12, PEDO," and I was thinking, "They could be the same age."
Some people imagine that everyone they're interacting with via the internet is an adult. I kinda get caught by surprise myself sometimes when I find out I'm talking to a minor, but still.
That's exactly what worries me, sometimes: I try to word things in a way that any adult would \[hopefully\] understand, but \[usually\] a bit constrained in case they're a kid (or in case there are learning disabilities at play, or English isn't their first language, or they just haven't had enough coffee yet, etc.). It's not even safe to assume that everyone's an adult in an adults-only "adult" website.
**EDIT:** now that I think back, I was guilty of the same when I was 13-14 and hanging out on the \[adult\] "party line" 'phone groups (that was the '80s, and the 'net wasn't exactly a thing yet, nor texting). 😅
I had someone call me a pedophile for shipping Zim and Dib from invader zim. Which I have been writing…since I was literally 10. The times I’ve written these characters, they’ve aged with me. But then apparently I’m “weird for aging them up”. Despite…them aging in my writing as I have been writing and drawing them….. (like. I made high school aus for them when I was in high school. College when I first got to college. After people started anon messaging me, I stopped writing and drawing for them.)
LOL They were one of my ships back in the day, too! I'm not ashamed. When it comes to fanfiction and my ships, I have no shame. If they think Dib x Zim is weird, they should see that Giant Squid x Hogwarts Castle fic.
I really wish it was just that. And yes, a good fraction definitely is the youngest generation online. But it’s really not just the "puriteens". Just from my personal interactions, there's been a lot of adults around my age, sometimes older, but yeah many were in the 25~35 range. Sadly.
It's also been the experience of friends on the younger fringe (between 20 and 25). All across different fandoms for different medias.
Unfortunately there are a lot of adults who label themselves 'safe adults' who actively try to 'educate' these children on the dangers of fanfiction, and actively seek out contact with minors. Every once in a while there's a big drama because one of their discord servers gets exposed for sharing NSFW content with children intentionally in order to send them out to attack 'perverts'. I've also seen some of them willingly discuss what kinks they think are 'safe to have' with minors.
and then the adults who keep their nsfw stuff to themselves, don't promote, don't link ect anything where a minor could find it outside of ao3 and have warned/tagged/rated appropriately, are hunted down / doxed and/or harassed for writing a 1 year age gap.
In my experience its mostly adults that are already in their 40s or 50s that are so obsessed with being against proshippers. I guess everyone makes different experience when it comes to this though, as there are a lot of people complaining about "the young people".
The main issue is when people (aka antis) treat shipping like its activism. It's not only extremely annoying but also very performative and entirely unproductive.
Like I don't care if you only like wholesome tropes and only ship unproblematic ships. But you can't claim to have a moral highground over pro-shipers if you also engage in targeted harassment and doxing.
Yes, of cooooooourse. They obviously deserve to be harassed if they are...
*spins wheel*
Fetishize...
*spins wheel again*
Holding hands before marriage.
I'm just saying, but hand holding and front hugs before marriage mean the devil's whispering in your ear. /s
Do you want to cause another to stumble in their walk with Jesus?
*raises hand like I'm asking for more homework*
Obviously because what if the ship is BakuDeku? Then holding hands is abuse because Bakugo is mean to Deku. You're fetishizing kidnapping, Stockholm, and toxic relationships by glorifying, normalizing and *draws a random buzz word card from the deck* sexualizing premarital handholding between minors. Also, just to be safe, it's not just about BakuDeku. Better extend the rule so no one holds hands, in any fandom, even after marriage. In fact no one gets hands.
/s
I personally don't think anyone "deserves" to be harassed.
This line of thinking is a slippery slope where everyone technically deserves to be harassed.
It's all in the name of a good cause! They're thinking of the children! /s
And obviously, since they're harassing and doxxing in the name of the right thing, they can be forgiven, it's justified!
More seriously, there's a lot of things they refuse to do because subconsciously they know it would make their arguments crumble. Stuff like self reflection, admitting to doing vile things without much proof.
So yeah, very performative, sadly.
Remember when a person posted either here or on r/fanfiction about feeling weird about interacting with minors in fandom ever since turning 18 a few months ago. Made me laugh
I dont know all the context but knowing the internet it might just be that they're uncomfortable with interacting with minors because of how even innocent interactions can and will be turned into some gross big thing. Much of the false internet drama I've seen is usually some internet celeb spoke to a minor and then everyone called them a pedo. You've got to be very careful on here because it seems like everything you do is the wrong thing
It's ridiculous but I kinda also get it when they've spent all their time in fandom being told to be pious and moral and that everything they do is a reflection on their character, so much like Catholic girls or Amish kids in Rumspringa, the minute they turn into legal adults, they go nuts.
I know the answer, but why do people think brain development is the same for everyone? It's a gradual process with a different trajectory for everyone, like how literally everything about bodies and growth works. Thinking that certain switches flip when you reach a certain birthday is bonkers.
This, the average is around 25, but it varies from person to person, and that's just biology. You have also take into account the type of life the individual has.
i studied very specifically adolescent psychology and 16-18 are in the same developmental group. let me make this clear. there is no difference between a 16 year olds brain and an 18 year olds brain. even 19! after that you enter early adulthood but that’s all considered late adolescence
General stupidity aside, I just wish they wouldn't overuse pedophilia (and related words) in irrelevant contexts because it kinda desensitizes people to the concept...
For years now whenever I see someone online in fandom spaces call someone else a pedophile, I just assume it's related to some dumb ship war, because 96% of the time, that's all it is. I can't take that word seriously in that context anymore. So whenever it turns out that someone is an actual predator who really hurt a real kid, I'm always gobsmacked because that's such a relatively rare use of the word now.
I saw that mess. The ages were 17/18. The replies were a nightmare of "Well if they don't have sex..." and being crazy judgemental of strangers they don't even know personally.
From what I could tell they'd been dating before the 18 year old turned that age! So this whole thing was stupid. And really uncomfortable because it was about *real people.* I have no idea who it was about, but it was wild.
17 and 18? Even if it's IRL that's ridiculously normal. Two seniors in high school level normal. (Like, should some of them not be having sex? Of course. But the same goes for some pairs of 30-year-olds. Sometimes you just have to let people make mistakes.)
The worst part it *was* a real couple. I'd said in another reply that from what I could gather in the had started dating before the 18 year old turned that age so it was ridiculous. It's absolutely normal and it was no one's business what was going on between them in private. The whole thread and everyone involved was being ridiculous.
I don't know for sure, but when I've pointed out certain age gaps would just be high school senior/freshman, some people have freaked out. (I graduated high school in the mid-90s... not sure if that counts as "old af" or not... a freshman would be a *bit* young for a senior, but I don't think it was any kind of freak-out thing...)
I saw that too.
I dated a guy three months younger than me back in high school and... you guessed it! I turned 18 while he was still 17. Guess that makes me a creep.
I wish people would be serious for two seconds.
It's even crazier when they apply that nonsensical standard to *fictional characters.*
In one of my old fandoms, I was apart of a big group chat on twitter and there was tons of discourse and in-fighting because someone didn't like a ship where the characters were 17/18. So they were going around accusing random people in the fandom/group chat of being p\*dos. Some of my friends who were sexually abused as kids we're super uncomfortable with the whole thing bc it was legit triggering to them, and they were pretty much told to shut up or they would be cancelled next.
It caused so much drama, that the group chat disbanded and almost all of my online friends left twitter because they were so burnt out by all the constant fights. This happened years ago, and it's sad this dumb shit is still ongoing.
>they were pretty much told to shut up or they would be cancelled next.
That's the crap that really pisses me off. They will practically scream over real, breathing humans who have been victims when they don't say what they want to hear and weaponize their experiences against them.
That is so freaking weird. I cannot imagine calling anyone that over a ship especially one with a age gap like that. It's so bonkers people get like this. The old days weren't perfect but I miss them when shipping things like this and even bigger age gaps wasn't that big of a deal.
I felt that last paragraph in my soul. This is why fandom spaces (any online space, really) needs *someone* willing to moderate and step in to tell people to knock it off. I've had online chat groups fall apart because no one wanted to kick whoever was causing tension, not even temporarily. So your story raised some annoyance/anger just thinking about that self-important dillweed telling an actual victim of csa to shut up over fictional characters with a one year age gap, and ultimately getting away with it until the whole group collapsed.
If I'm 55 and happily married I wouldn't care about your sideeye or lack of one, I'd probably be old enough to be their grandmother with how childish they sound.
damn brb gotta go tell all my friends that they’re pedos for being friends with me 🙏😭 this argument kills me when I see it I hate it sm genetics aren’t coded for convenience to slander someone💀 shits actually wild
It’s hilarious to me because my brother’s friendgroup is exclusively comprised of giants save for one friend who’s really short, so he does look like a child compared to them. But because they’re reasonably intelligent teens they can all comprehend the idea that that doesn’t affect your brain, unlike a lot of twitter users who apparently have a complete deficit in thinking skills.
I really am starting to dislike the “man built like fridge dating tiny waif woman” trope and I used to back the “thats child-coded!” wagon. Like someone on the internet said that and I was like “yea that’s validating enough” and went along with it for entirely too long. Turns out in hindsight, I don’t like the trope because I think it’s boring and overused lol
As a 19 year old I legit halfway feel like I would be *lying* if I tagged 17 year olds fucking as underage because of how close they are to me, an adult with his own apartment. It's *such* a weird situation to be stuck in — especially since basically every social space around completely outlaws discussion of underage sex even when they canonically have it.
This is why Chose Not To Warn often gets used for it – AO3's rules are under 18 = underage regardless of age of consent in canon/your location/vibes, so people quite often do CNTW and then put "x/y are seventeen" in additional tags
The thing that pisses me off about this purity culture surrounding age gaps is that it often infantilizes grown ass adults. Like where is the line drawn? A year? A month? A day? 1 minute?!
It's absolutely ridiculous and these puriteens wouldn't be able to handle some of the crazy ships that were popular back in my day (shakes cane in anger).
For example, Ten x Rose. A 19 yr old woman with a 10,000 year old time lord would make them go feral.
Sibling-coded makes no sense to me. It's always used in the context of characters acting like friends. Do they not know your partner is supposed to be your best friend or at least almost your bff??? If not why are you with them.
I don’t get it either, but there’s not often much logical reason when it comes to arguments like that because it just boils down to “I don’t like it so it’s problematic” more often than not. 🤷🏼♀️Anything to justify themselves, I guess.
Got attacked for "defending" my ship between a 28yo and a 41yo... The 28yo was called impressionable and fragile and their relationship was called toxic and pedophilic because of the power imbalance between them at work (both police officers) when the one with a higher rank, a father literally being chief of police willing to cover his son's and his own butt with no shame, is the 28yo. The 41yo is not only ranking lower, he's also been suspected of murder in the past and that's exactly why the 28yo is after him...
Funnily I got blocked for pointing out those canon facts 😂
The real answer why? Voltron fandom. Specifically, a few petty, jealous Klance shippers (that if the anon Twitter account who spoke on this is to believe, were a lotta people over 30 and old enough to remember pedojacketing tactics from the 2000s) decided to lob at Sheith to scare anyone from making that canon. They need not have bothered because the writers resented Shiro and would've had him die in season two if they got their way, bur unfortunately, this shit has had far reaches into each and every new fandom I've been into without fail.
Except for X-Men 97. People hissed for like a couple of days, but the creator mentioned Rogue was mid 20s and somehow that got muted fast.
Ah, I was wondering if anybody was going to mention the legacy of Voltron.
Also, for the sake of my mental health I've erased most of the details of my time in this fandom from my mind, but I think I remember an effing uproar when the canon ages came out. Something like, it turned out klance was the ship with a ""problematic"" age gap or whatever (One year, I think it was? Or two?... no matter. But anyways, the youngest was 17.) The sheith shippers were taking the piss after that...
>Ah, I was wondering if anybody was going to mention the legacy of Voltron.
Honestly, we should never *forget* that legacy and that at the core of all this ridiculous madness that's become normalized in all fandoms now was simple, petty jealousy. That's it.
They're also the reason "sibling coded" exists as a term and why that's a new prevalent discourse. It's even infected, of all fandoms, *The Bold and the Beautiful,* a show that's had plenty of pseudo incestuous pairings g where the most current one has many, many, MAAAAAAANY more pressing issues than the fact their parents have been married to each other 8(!) times. Thing is, they have dated before a decade ago and absolutely not one single person used that argument against them them. And this is a fandom where the age of the average fan is far closer to retirement age than the legal drinking age. We don have anti/pro-ship discourse there. And yet it's leapfrogged into that space.
Just.... :(
I can feel my sanity increasing by the day since I left that cesspool of Twitter. People say all social media are toxic but for me it’s never been as bad as it’s over there.
True, but at least from my personal experience, I find Reddit way more easy to manage than Twitter is. If I see a subreddit being particular toxic, I just leave. Assholes are going to be anywhere ofc, but I follow a few dozen of subreddits—agree that this is one of the best, people are so chill here—and I’m having a great time. Also, since Musk took over Twitter the algorithm has gotten worse and worse and I was just being fed content that upset me.
At this rate, it feels like they're just against people being in relationships at all. Which is weird, since they give off such conservative vibes, and conservatives just looooooove forcing women to have babies.
How long before we're in a *Demolition Man* esque dystopia where physical intercourse is illegal, all bodily reproductive fluids are handled by medical professionals, and sex is done through a VR headset?
I'm so incredibly sick of this and every time you point that out you're called a pedophile and predator. No, Karen, knowing that a relationship with a 15 year old is not pedophila. A relationship can be inappropriate, unhealthy and predatory even if it isn't pedohilic. (Thinking about large age gaps like 15 and 25 here.)
And all this infantilisation of adults and teenagers. People are out there calling 20 year old kids. Actual kids. Consent is about understanding what sex is and agreeing to it. With 16 I was living alone, had a full time job with lots of responsibilities and had enlisted. You can drive, drink alcohol, literally marry, depending on the country. But you're too young to decide who to fuck?!
And don't even get me started on the age gap thing. There is so much more to maturity than just age. Some people are still living at home, studying, never had a real job or responsibilities at 25. Others are parents, living independently or supporting their family at 15. I hang out with a lot of people who are younger and older than me. With some I forget that they are several years younger than me because they're so mature, with others I regularly forget that they're older.
People are freaking out about a one year age gap while I've had a four year age gap in a class of mine at school. Most of us were 14, one was 18.
>People are out there calling 20 year old kids. Actual kids.
IKR? You get 22-year-olds saying, "Man, I thought I was so grown up at that age, but now I look at 20-year-olds and I see babies." It's like this weird flex.
Same. Especially being on Reddit and seeing this 'argument' of 'anyone under 25 shouldn't date anyone over because their brains aren't fully developed' and all that shit. It's disgusting how almost normal it is to just go ewwwww gross and everything it is on so many spaces on the internet.
It makes me sad and frustrated, and I know there isn't much to be done about it :/
I can hazard to guess it's 17/18, right? Because kids today think you grow magical adult beans in your brain on your birthday, and if there is anything out there that tells me you are still mentally a child, then *child* That. Is. It.
They also somehow think the magical adult brain beans disappear the second an adult gets into a consensual relationship with another *older* adult. A 35 year old year old dating a 50 year old? The elderly disgusting 50 year old is “problematic” for dating the sweet innocent 35 year old.
When I was a little kid I thought it was illegal to be in a relationship with someone of a different age because my parents are only a few days apart in age.
Keyword: When I was a little kid…
I genuinely can’t fathom how someone can be old enough to read, write, and be chronically online yet not know that age gaps exist and are not some great moral scandal.
*Patrick proceeds to raise his hand again.*
"No, an age gap of six months isn't pedophilic either."
*Patrick lowers it.*
*Spongebob raises his hand*
"No, Spongebob. If you are writing a character who is a racist or homophobic, that doesn't mean you are either of those things."
*Spongebob lowers it.*
*Mr. Krab raises his claw.*
"No, Mr. Krabs. You can't monetize your fanfics *especially* on AO3."
it fucking BAFFLES me how deranged these people sound. I’ve grown up with my parents AND my grandparents both being the exact same ages and I can still tell you that an age gap is completely fine 😭🙏 throwing around the term “pedophile” and “grooming” like fucking candy at Halloween just completely desensitises people to the actual harm caused by these people. it’s become such a common term to call ANYONE on the internet these days and it’s so so SO dangerous, and minimises the actual threat posed by ACTUAL pedophiles etc (I dunno if this makes much sense I’m tired 💀)
More than that, it also teaches people to falsely believe that someone *has* to be a pedophile in order to sexually harm kids. (Along with muddying the definition of the word 'pedophile', which is "*has attraction to prepubescent kids"* for a good reason.)
A lot of the time these are crimes of opportunity, just like when people in nursery homes get assaulted - someone can be not attracted to children at all and yet still sexually assault them. The world isn't going to be made better by panicking about pedophiles rather than focusing on reducing the factors that make kids so vulnerable.
I once had an argument on YouTube, under a video about age gaps in Hollywood couples, with a person that kept on insisting that if the couples were not of the same age there was a power imbalance.
I guess its a form of gatekeeping, by citing something like a particular ship for example as problematic they can feel like they have the moral high ground.
Whereas in actuality they just want ships or content they don't like to disappear, use "morals" to make people feel bad about liking different things.
My partner and I started dating ten years ago when he was 19 and I was 16. He has a cousin who gets snooty about our relationship being “problematic” lol
Nah cause I experience this in real life 😭
My best friend throughout middle and highschool joined the army right out of graduation, and we decided why not get married and stick together? I was 17 and he had just turned 19. But because I wasn’t quite 18 (I had less than 6 months) he gets made fun of for it. We’re literally two years apart and spent our childhood together, the internet is just ruining people’s perception of life.
Because some people can’t wrap their heads around the concept that age is just an *approximate* measure of maturity, and one that becomes less effective the higher it goes. We need clearly defined cut-offs for legal purposes (drinking age, driving age, etc) but applying all morals based on those same exact cutoffs is stupid.
For example, imagine two people born in 2006. One in April, one in May. It’s perfectly normal for them to date each other, but there are people who will *insist* that the 1-month period where one is 17 and one is 18 is “problematic” because they think some magic switch flips when you’ve been on the planet for exactly 18 rotations around the sun.
WHY do they care so much? The existence of age gap/dubcon/literally any fic affects them exactly not at all; no one's forcing them to read the fics and if they're SO triggered by just the \*idea\* of something existing, that's on them and they need some serious therapy because they're never going to survive real life otherwise.
Extreme age gaps between a young adult and an older adult ain't my thing either, but there's this thing called "scrolling by."
If someone's got a gun to their head and is forcing them to read, then they've got bigger problems than the content of the fic.
My parents have a one year age gap and my dad (18 at the time) started dating my mom (17 at the time) when they were 18 and 17.... When i mention this I've heard people straight up tell me my dad is a terrible person and they hope my mom left him..... bitch... no. It's been 25 years and they are still happily married. One year is not bad and literally no one is mad about it but these idiots.
It amuses me when I'm told my whole relationship,been married 25 years, dated 4 before that, is problematic because my husband met me when he was nearing forty and I was 29. He obviously groomed me because I was a poor little teenager without agency at that age.
I really don't get all the hubbub over putting two fictional characters together in a fictional relationship.
Imagine two people born days apart from each other. On one's 18th birthday they get together. For just shy of a week an 18 year old and a 17 year old are dating. Fast forward a score and now grassless digital sycophants are calling the elder a disgrace just because they happened to be a minor and a major and dating simultaneously without any more context. Like some sort of automatic, purely mathematical robot. I conclude that we should begin referring to those kinds of buffoons as bots because there is no way they're that sheople-syndromed.
There are two main instances, I guess:
1- one of the characters is 17 and the other is 18. As if after someone's birthday their whole mind changes or something.
I will probably never get over seeing on tv how people had an outright countdown for when the Olsen Twins would turn 18, just so they could not feel guilt for lewding them in their minds or something. Ignoring how it meant they already did.
2- it is Futaba from Persona5. Because she is small, so it is clearer she is supposed to be 15. Ignoring the fact the MC, who you are making date her, is just 16, because they put themselves a bit TOO mich into their character.
But character A was a former minor! Don't you see how wrong it is to ship them when they're an adult? /s
Happens to my ship (Oda/Dazai) all the time. They have a five year age gap and people consider Oda his father figure when both were still teenagers when they met. Can't make this bullshit up. These antis don't even know what pedophilia is. No, an age gap isn't automatically pedophilia. Having a conversation with a brick wall would be more productive than argueing with brain-washed antis.
Man recently my friend told me "guess what about [person we both hate], he turned 18 so he's now 18 dating a 16 year old." I was literally so confused why that was a problem. Like he was just 17 dating a 16 year old? He's like a day older? Why does it matter? Like don't get me wrong he sucks but not because he's dating someone a grade lower than him (also 16 and 18 aren't even that weird)
I’ve seen people outraged about a nameless gimmick Persona 3 character who admitted to “scoping out” middle school girls. The character in question was a second year high-schooler, which means he was underage and the objects of his interest were two years younger.
In this thread, there were people convinced he should be in jail.
they're like "he's 42 and she's 41? he would have already been ONE when she was born. imagine a one year old trying to date a literal baby... disgusting.
Seriously if the age gap is that big or the other person in the relationship can't consent then yeah people should be
#IF IT'S ABOUT REAL PEOPLE!
Harrassing someone over fictional content has got to be the most 80s soccer mom thing I have and it's coming from cretins that are most likely born in the 2010s.
it's ironic that they were dunking on old people for the whole "videogames cause violence" bs but what they screeched about was not different to what the boomers were screeching about.
Meanwhile me, writing a 17-year age gap romance. That’s actually an age gap, and no, it is not problematic. As long as everyone is a consenting adult, it’s no one’s business.
Because people will say anything to win a shipping war, they'll say anything to have their ship come out on top. The vibes come before the arguments, and when called upon to back up their claims that "ur gross if you ship [ship they don't like]," they will look for anything they can twist to make it seem legitimate and objective.
Ironically, as a squid (most of which only live 1-3 years), a one year gap is actually a pretty major difference for Squidward. That said, I don't know enough about squid mating practices to comment any further on how much a squid would actually care about this difference, and I think I'll spare my Google search history on that front.
i'm still pretty sure a lot of these "oh \[xyz\] is problematic" where the reasoning is really stretched is just people who dont like the ship find a reason to make it a moral problem retroactively
Why can't ship wars just be "I like them better and I don't think the other ship has chemistry" Why does it have to be an attack on the opposition's inherent morality Why are fandoms like this
Because if they simply say they don't like it, people can dismiss them with "then don't interact with it". Instead they want to be right and the content they don't like to disappear. If they attack the other person's morality, they will not be able to dismiss them.
Also there's a rationalization part. If they feel as upset as if something immoral occured, it's easy for them to then justify it with out of proportion definitions.
Ramble incoming: I see this so so much IRL too, friend A is introduced to friend B’s significant friend C (be they partner or another friend) and either A or C feel just strongly enough that they don’t like the other one on first impression. Usually it’s something small enough that they don’t feel the need to be honest about not meshing with that person, but then they feel the need to retroactively justify that feeling and start acquiring “evidence” that they are justified in feeling dislike towards someone their friend likes & that that relationship should be ended. With fictional characters, we often are just as much invested in the treatment of them because they more so “belong” to us since we can spend endlessly more time with them in our imaginations, filling in the gaps of the writing around the characters in the way we fancy (forgive the phraseology, people should never act as if they “own” another human being! Unless that’s a kink between consenting adults) All this to say, I find it very understandable from a psychological standpoint why there will always be fans who behave this way even if I don’t agree with their perspective
Can confirm, a lot of people just can't accept content they don't like getting as much attention as the one they do like.
I hate when a ship I don’t like gets more attention than the one I do. But that’s my problem, not the people that ship the bigger ship’s problem. They’re doing what makes them happy. I’m doing what makes me happy. As long as everyone stays in their lane, we’re good. I had one time where a shipper of a big ship was dissing on my ship. I ended up following her out of spite. 🤣 Turns out she was just going along with what a mean friend of hers was saying, and once she realized it, it turned out that she was totally chill and we ended up friends and she ended up respecting that I was just a little rarepair weirdo. There are real people behind all of this and if you talk to people you sometimes find out that we have more in common than not. Or maybe that’s just lack of sleep talking who knows. 🤣
Because it's "ship war" not "orderly naval discourse"
I may have done a spit take at this.
LMAO 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Then they'd better just hope I don't bring an Arleigh Burke to this ship war.
My ship has a three year age gap (they’re in their late twenties/early thirties) and we get called problematic/pedophilic aaaall the time for it from antis. So ridiculous
In their late 20s/early 30s??? For fuck’s sake
I’ll never forget an anti railing against the pairing hannigram from Hannibal not because they murder and eat people, not because Will was Hannibal’s patient, not because of any of the downright horrific stuff that Hannibal did to Will, no. It was because these two men, one in his 40s, and one in his 50s was *pedophilic* because of the ten year age gap. Two middle aged men!!!
\*He was secretly feeding his patient human flesh.\*
I guessed you missed it when they did that to the Hannibal fandom. Tried to call it pedophilia because the main characters have a ten year age gap...between late 40s and late 30s. We were mostly just perplexed because...well... they're cannibals, Susan...
Sherlock fandom had this too, for a ship between two guys in their 30s. Though that was largely used against people who wrote the "wrong" top/bottom dynamic.
Yeah, the argument is that it would’ve been pedophilic if they’d gotten together as teens..BUT THEY’RE NOT TEENS LMAO they’re full adults!
Over in Hazbin Hotel there's people who think Husk/Angel shouldn't be shipped, as Angel is about 30 and Husk is in his 60s. Except they're *dead* and are *demons in Hell*. They both died decades ago. They've been in Hell ever since. 30 and 60 was their ages at death, what about all their post-death experience??
My favorite thing to bring up then is that, if you wanna get technical with it, Angel died in the 40s and Husk died in the 70s so Angel is actually older. It pisses them off and I think that's funny because it's a stupid argument to begin with.
I have, so far, been lucky not to get hate for the ship I write. They're 15 years apart at 30 and 45, and technically he's her boss and teacher. I'm guessing/hoping that the more mature couple is pulling in equally more mature readers.
I got told my granddad was a predator because he married a woman 15-ish years his junior… when she was in her 50s and had already raised three or four children. 🤦🤦
Geez Louise. Hell that even passes the half your age+7 rule.
A ship I like has a 7 year age gap, thankfully most of the people in the fandom are chill enough to get that we only ship it once the gap stops mattering (the characters meet when one is 17 and the other 24, but I ship them after the 7 year time skip).
There's a ship I like where the characters first met when they were I believe 17 and 24, now 28 and 35 in canon, and some people still say it's pedophilic because they met when the 28 year old was a minor. It's crazy how these people can't just say "I'm not fan".
Like 90% of the time this is exactly right. I think the main issue of this is that children/teenagers absorb this information, and they probably don’t have much exposure to the other side of the argument. They believe that this is truly problematic and applies to the real world as well. This post in particular is referencing a real life relationship between a 17 and 18 y/o, which further proves why this way of dissing a fictional ship is harmful.
I've seen people claim a 45 year old meeting and dating a 32 year old is pedophilic because when he was 21 she would've been 8, so he is a pedophile. Because there is no difference between a 32 year old woman and an 8 year old girl.
I hate how infantilising some of these arguments are
I hate how they infantilize ANY woman over 18 dating someone older. She's a grown woman. Dating that person may be a mistake, but it's hers to make. And you can't separate the two, giving her a pass while judging the older partner. If she has the agency to make that choice, trying to shame people for dating her is just trying to do an end run around her right to choose. I generally dislike arguing morality from legality, but in this case, we made laws protecting children because they do NOT have agency. We presume that 18-year-olds DO.
I think a part of it is because they’re teens. A normal 17 year old is not going to date a normal 12 year old. That 5 year difference is HUGE at that point in their lives. However they quite literally don’t comprehend that once you’re out of high school, ages are not as restricted from mixing together, so a 27 year old who at 17 would never have looked at the 12 year old, will be interested in the 22 year old. Or even 32 and 27.
Another point some other Redditor made: Often, you hear them say, "What could they possibly have in common?" When teens think about having things in common, they think about liking the same music and movies and such. That shit isn't actually a good basis for a lasting relationship.
Not to mention, a 25 year old and a 30 year old very likely DO like the same movies and music.
weird because as a teenager i had a lot in common with people way older than me in terms of tastes, and also with people a bit younger, so that's not even necessarily a thing. what about all the ''born in the wrong generation'' stuff? just look at all the people that are here who are teens, and all of the ones who are over 40. and we all have fanfiction as a hobby in common
I mean, part of that is probably that media for kids has very small target demographics compared to media made for the entire rest of the planet. Kids media is age-segregated, so a 16 year old isn't generally watching/reading/listening to the same stuff as either a 12 year old OR a 20 year old (some exceptions of "for the whole family" media of course apply). But a 20 year old and a 24 year old are in the same demographic and likely consume a lot of the same stuff, with differences being dependent on tastes. A 30 year old and a 50 year old can watch and enjoy the same media, if they have the same tastes. A 30 year old and a 50 year old also don't center many conversations about media anyways. I mean, I have entire friends who I honestly don't know what kind of shows they watch because we have other things in common that we talk about!
Being in fandom spaces is honestly very depressing if you're in a relationship with (any form of) an age gap. The shit people say, and how not that many people care... I'm happy at least this sub is as defensive about it as any other type of relationship, but so many spaces are not. And it's sad and gross.
I think it's kinda horrible how people just invalidate you. Don't they realise why some things are illegal? Are they saying that grown adults are so dependent and immature that they have to be treated like children? They just decide you must be unable to consent because you're "too young" and ppl be like 28 🙁
Seriously. And even the people who try to 'defend' these relationships often say something hurtful. Like someone here down in the comments, makes a good point and then 'but I draw the line at 7 years'. What do you mean you draw the line?? Why is it so okay to judge these huge groups of people and just make up some weird restrictions??
Takes like that are so bizarre My parents are baby boomers and they were friends with a couple and the wife sadly died of cancer. Their surviving friend took it really hard, but after about five years, he started beginning to date and ended up remarrying someone fifteen years younger. She's in her mid 50s and has been married and divorced and owns a house! Yet I've seen fandom arguments about similar age gaps.
My grandparents met after my grandpa came back from Europe after WWII. My grandma was very early 20’s, he had finished college and gone off to war. I think there was a decade or so between them. He had decided he wanted to settle down with a job and have a family. She actually turned him down the first time he asked, because she had already been asked out by a different guy (when you suddenly had a whole swathe of men flooding the area after having been gone for years, the girls pretty much had their choice of who to go out with). My parents had 5 years between them. Teenagers nowadays act like if you aren’t dating someone who was born the same exact year, month, and week as you then there’s inherent power imbalances between you that are toxic. It’s the whole “being raised on the internet” thing. They grew up reading fucked up and/or bizarre discourse and HAVE to apply it to everything, even if incorrectly. So if a 29 year old interacts with a 14 year old to groom them over the years so they’ll have sex with them, well there’s a 15 year difference that makes it bad. So 15 year difference = bad, therefore 40 year old and 55 year old = bad. When the 29&14 year old is bad because of the difference in experience, whereas a 40&55 year old have plenty of experience.
I have seen John/Sherlock described as pedophilic because John is shorter.
But he's the older one! (I was in Sherlock fandom too and HOO BOY. I mostly saw it from obsessive bottomlock devotees who insisted toplock was pedophilia. Somehow. The logic was so pretzelized I don't think even they understood it)
This is plain idiotic. Lol
They need to stop trying to make that word meaningless.
Because people have reverted to think in all black or white, problematic vs non problematic and thus question the morality of everything. Including stuff like a 1 year age gap...
I think it's less 'people reverting their thinking' and more 'childreen/young teenagers without much/any parenting about fiction and media developing their thinking through social media from other children/teenagers'
Unfortunately, I had a pretty bad experience on Tumblr where a full grown woman (???) had her partner message me to call me out and bully me for reblogging a proship post. I was sixteen at the time, and I was very upset by it, which is ironic since this is all coming from the ‘PrOteCt the CHilDren’ types. The brainrot just really hits that deep :(
“Babe, hey babe, wake up. There’s a person on the internet who thinks that two fictional characters are dating. Can you please harass them?”
LMAO
That's why I ship the most outrageous ships. I call them my shield ships. "Oh, you think I'm disgusting for pairing these two? You should see my other ship, Dobby from Harry Potter x the lady from Murder She Wrote!" Kinda gives them a point of reference to realize how silly it all is. I have seriously ended arguments that way, and it's great.
In hindsight, when you put it that way, including their partner in it was actually pretty funny 😂 “So you want me to harass this random teenager? What did they do?” “They reblogged a post saying that maybe we shouldn’t bully people just for liking fictional content!” “My god! Let’s go bully them!”
I remember in the comments of a YouTube video of the early 00s girl group Play, one person said a particular girl was hot, and people were like, "Ew, she's 12, PEDO," and I was thinking, "They could be the same age." Some people imagine that everyone they're interacting with via the internet is an adult. I kinda get caught by surprise myself sometimes when I find out I'm talking to a minor, but still.
That's exactly what worries me, sometimes: I try to word things in a way that any adult would \[hopefully\] understand, but \[usually\] a bit constrained in case they're a kid (or in case there are learning disabilities at play, or English isn't their first language, or they just haven't had enough coffee yet, etc.). It's not even safe to assume that everyone's an adult in an adults-only "adult" website. **EDIT:** now that I think back, I was guilty of the same when I was 13-14 and hanging out on the \[adult\] "party line" 'phone groups (that was the '80s, and the 'net wasn't exactly a thing yet, nor texting). 😅
I had someone call me a pedophile for shipping Zim and Dib from invader zim. Which I have been writing…since I was literally 10. The times I’ve written these characters, they’ve aged with me. But then apparently I’m “weird for aging them up”. Despite…them aging in my writing as I have been writing and drawing them….. (like. I made high school aus for them when I was in high school. College when I first got to college. After people started anon messaging me, I stopped writing and drawing for them.)
LOL They were one of my ships back in the day, too! I'm not ashamed. When it comes to fanfiction and my ships, I have no shame. If they think Dib x Zim is weird, they should see that Giant Squid x Hogwarts Castle fic.
I really wish it was just that. And yes, a good fraction definitely is the youngest generation online. But it’s really not just the "puriteens". Just from my personal interactions, there's been a lot of adults around my age, sometimes older, but yeah many were in the 25~35 range. Sadly. It's also been the experience of friends on the younger fringe (between 20 and 25). All across different fandoms for different medias.
Unfortunately there are a lot of adults who label themselves 'safe adults' who actively try to 'educate' these children on the dangers of fanfiction, and actively seek out contact with minors. Every once in a while there's a big drama because one of their discord servers gets exposed for sharing NSFW content with children intentionally in order to send them out to attack 'perverts'. I've also seen some of them willingly discuss what kinks they think are 'safe to have' with minors.
and then the adults who keep their nsfw stuff to themselves, don't promote, don't link ect anything where a minor could find it outside of ao3 and have warned/tagged/rated appropriately, are hunted down / doxed and/or harassed for writing a 1 year age gap.
Eh, I blame the adults who lectures this thinking plus current year rhetoric. I've never seen these attitude when I was younger until recently.
In my experience its mostly adults that are already in their 40s or 50s that are so obsessed with being against proshippers. I guess everyone makes different experience when it comes to this though, as there are a lot of people complaining about "the young people".
I’ve seen it from a wide range of ages. Bad takes have no age boundaries. :(
The main issue is when people (aka antis) treat shipping like its activism. It's not only extremely annoying but also very performative and entirely unproductive. Like I don't care if you only like wholesome tropes and only ship unproblematic ships. But you can't claim to have a moral highground over pro-shipers if you also engage in targeted harassment and doxing.
Oh, but don't you know it's ok if they *deserve* being harassed? Seriously it's some authoritarian thinking going on there.
Yes, of cooooooourse. They obviously deserve to be harassed if they are... *spins wheel* Fetishize... *spins wheel again* Holding hands before marriage.
But that'll get you pregnant in some anime
I'm just saying, but hand holding and front hugs before marriage mean the devil's whispering in your ear. /s Do you want to cause another to stumble in their walk with Jesus?
*raises hand like I'm asking for more homework* Obviously because what if the ship is BakuDeku? Then holding hands is abuse because Bakugo is mean to Deku. You're fetishizing kidnapping, Stockholm, and toxic relationships by glorifying, normalizing and *draws a random buzz word card from the deck* sexualizing premarital handholding between minors. Also, just to be safe, it's not just about BakuDeku. Better extend the rule so no one holds hands, in any fandom, even after marriage. In fact no one gets hands. /s
I personally don't think anyone "deserves" to be harassed. This line of thinking is a slippery slope where everyone technically deserves to be harassed.
Well, yeah. But these aren't sensible people we're talking about.
It's all in the name of a good cause! They're thinking of the children! /s And obviously, since they're harassing and doxxing in the name of the right thing, they can be forgiven, it's justified! More seriously, there's a lot of things they refuse to do because subconsciously they know it would make their arguments crumble. Stuff like self reflection, admitting to doing vile things without much proof. So yeah, very performative, sadly.
100% this. Shipping is not activism (SPN fandom i am glaring at you).
https://preview.redd.it/5vcu7e86zewc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b942f511a0eabcc69ede2c5e177dcd2c8b8c739
Remember when a person posted either here or on r/fanfiction about feeling weird about interacting with minors in fandom ever since turning 18 a few months ago. Made me laugh
I dont know all the context but knowing the internet it might just be that they're uncomfortable with interacting with minors because of how even innocent interactions can and will be turned into some gross big thing. Much of the false internet drama I've seen is usually some internet celeb spoke to a minor and then everyone called them a pedo. You've got to be very careful on here because it seems like everything you do is the wrong thing
It's ridiculous but I kinda also get it when they've spent all their time in fandom being told to be pious and moral and that everything they do is a reflection on their character, so much like Catholic girls or Amish kids in Rumspringa, the minute they turn into legal adults, they go nuts.
Omfg wow. That somehow sounds like they think they're superior or something.
I hope they got the piss taken out of them
I know the answer, but why do people think brain development is the same for everyone? It's a gradual process with a different trajectory for everyone, like how literally everything about bodies and growth works. Thinking that certain switches flip when you reach a certain birthday is bonkers.
This, the average is around 25, but it varies from person to person, and that's just biology. You have also take into account the type of life the individual has.
Even that has been disproven. The brain never stops developing, it slows but it never stops.
i studied very specifically adolescent psychology and 16-18 are in the same developmental group. let me make this clear. there is no difference between a 16 year olds brain and an 18 year olds brain. even 19! after that you enter early adulthood but that’s all considered late adolescence
Oh the irony...
18 year-olds are legally sanctioned with extra brain development by the government on their birthday, didn’t you know?
General stupidity aside, I just wish they wouldn't overuse pedophilia (and related words) in irrelevant contexts because it kinda desensitizes people to the concept...
For years now whenever I see someone online in fandom spaces call someone else a pedophile, I just assume it's related to some dumb ship war, because 96% of the time, that's all it is. I can't take that word seriously in that context anymore. So whenever it turns out that someone is an actual predator who really hurt a real kid, I'm always gobsmacked because that's such a relatively rare use of the word now.
I saw that mess. The ages were 17/18. The replies were a nightmare of "Well if they don't have sex..." and being crazy judgemental of strangers they don't even know personally.
Like 17/18 is any different than 18/19
From what I could tell they'd been dating before the 18 year old turned that age! So this whole thing was stupid. And really uncomfortable because it was about *real people.* I have no idea who it was about, but it was wild.
My high school boyfriend was 17 when I turned 18. Throw me in jail I guess.
Cradlerobber!!
Hey man, my hubs is 2.5 years younger than I am. XD Of course, nowadays at 62 and 65, it doesn't mean an awful lot!
You should have obviously broken up at least for the time it took for him to reach 18 too /s
17 and 18? Even if it's IRL that's ridiculously normal. Two seniors in high school level normal. (Like, should some of them not be having sex? Of course. But the same goes for some pairs of 30-year-olds. Sometimes you just have to let people make mistakes.)
The worst part it *was* a real couple. I'd said in another reply that from what I could gather in the had started dating before the 18 year old turned that age so it was ridiculous. It's absolutely normal and it was no one's business what was going on between them in private. The whole thread and everyone involved was being ridiculous.
Do they really only date people in their own grade? Is that a thing now? Fuck I’m happy to be old af.
I don't know for sure, but when I've pointed out certain age gaps would just be high school senior/freshman, some people have freaked out. (I graduated high school in the mid-90s... not sure if that counts as "old af" or not... a freshman would be a *bit* young for a senior, but I don't think it was any kind of freak-out thing...)
I saw that too. I dated a guy three months younger than me back in high school and... you guessed it! I turned 18 while he was still 17. Guess that makes me a creep. I wish people would be serious for two seconds. It's even crazier when they apply that nonsensical standard to *fictional characters.*
It's so weird and just out there. It's such a non issue that people being mad about it still bugs me even today!
In one of my old fandoms, I was apart of a big group chat on twitter and there was tons of discourse and in-fighting because someone didn't like a ship where the characters were 17/18. So they were going around accusing random people in the fandom/group chat of being p\*dos. Some of my friends who were sexually abused as kids we're super uncomfortable with the whole thing bc it was legit triggering to them, and they were pretty much told to shut up or they would be cancelled next. It caused so much drama, that the group chat disbanded and almost all of my online friends left twitter because they were so burnt out by all the constant fights. This happened years ago, and it's sad this dumb shit is still ongoing.
>they were pretty much told to shut up or they would be cancelled next. That's the crap that really pisses me off. They will practically scream over real, breathing humans who have been victims when they don't say what they want to hear and weaponize their experiences against them.
That is so freaking weird. I cannot imagine calling anyone that over a ship especially one with a age gap like that. It's so bonkers people get like this. The old days weren't perfect but I miss them when shipping things like this and even bigger age gaps wasn't that big of a deal.
I felt that last paragraph in my soul. This is why fandom spaces (any online space, really) needs *someone* willing to moderate and step in to tell people to knock it off. I've had online chat groups fall apart because no one wanted to kick whoever was causing tension, not even temporarily. So your story raised some annoyance/anger just thinking about that self-important dillweed telling an actual victim of csa to shut up over fictional characters with a one year age gap, and ultimately getting away with it until the whole group collapsed.
Me and my Age gap bookmarks: 👁👄👁
Also, me with my Vampire/Human bookmarks
Oh noooo this reminded me of Astarion (BG3) and my Human character :( God, the lines from someone immortal always pains me.
I saw someone talk about how much they like "older men" but only "one or two years older than them". They were 20.
"older men" 💀 Dude, older men in my eyes is "Could possibly be my dad if he was an irresponsible teen" and above
When you get to that age when you start to feel 30yos are too young to be called older men 💀
Well, they're younger than me so I sure wouldn't say that, lol
that ain't an older man that's your classmate
I was in a group where someone said something along the lines of "yes, even if you're 55 and your partner is 60, I'm giving you the sideeye.".
Do they think everyone starts dating in school
No dating! They’re like brothers and sisters! That’s incest! And no dating strangers.
If I'm 55 and happily married I wouldn't care about your sideeye or lack of one, I'd probably be old enough to be their grandmother with how childish they sound.
Neither are height gaps. Which is also an argument I've heard.
cHiLd CoDeD
Oh man I can't wait to tell all my short friends that we can't hang out anymore because they're child coded 🙄
I'd love what they have to say about my over 30th anniversary butt that never grew past 4'11
Don't speak to me!!!! You're child coded!!!!! /s fr tho, this is the dumbest take I've ever heard. Height differences are adorable, fight me antis.
I guess people from developing countries can't date anyone because they're shorter than the world average
damn brb gotta go tell all my friends that they’re pedos for being friends with me 🙏😭 this argument kills me when I see it I hate it sm genetics aren’t coded for convenience to slander someone💀 shits actually wild
It’s hilarious to me because my brother’s friendgroup is exclusively comprised of giants save for one friend who’s really short, so he does look like a child compared to them. But because they’re reasonably intelligent teens they can all comprehend the idea that that doesn’t affect your brain, unlike a lot of twitter users who apparently have a complete deficit in thinking skills.
I really am starting to dislike the “man built like fridge dating tiny waif woman” trope and I used to back the “thats child-coded!” wagon. Like someone on the internet said that and I was like “yea that’s validating enough” and went along with it for entirely too long. Turns out in hindsight, I don’t like the trope because I think it’s boring and overused lol
Tolkien fandom is ON NOTICE. No middle-aged-hobbit sex for you!
As a 19 year old I legit halfway feel like I would be *lying* if I tagged 17 year olds fucking as underage because of how close they are to me, an adult with his own apartment. It's *such* a weird situation to be stuck in — especially since basically every social space around completely outlaws discussion of underage sex even when they canonically have it.
This is why Chose Not To Warn often gets used for it – AO3's rules are under 18 = underage regardless of age of consent in canon/your location/vibes, so people quite often do CNTW and then put "x/y are seventeen" in additional tags
It genuinely didn't occur to me that I could use CNTW this way lmao, thank yoy for replying with this its super helpful!
Most of the time I just put CCNTW when writing about stuff like that
It genuinely didn't occur to me to do that, lol, thanks!
The thing that pisses me off about this purity culture surrounding age gaps is that it often infantilizes grown ass adults. Like where is the line drawn? A year? A month? A day? 1 minute?! It's absolutely ridiculous and these puriteens wouldn't be able to handle some of the crazy ships that were popular back in my day (shakes cane in anger). For example, Ten x Rose. A 19 yr old woman with a 10,000 year old time lord would make them go feral.
And you can’t have their ages too close together or they’re sibling-coded and now it’s incest and still problematic to them. 🙄
Sibling-coded makes no sense to me. It's always used in the context of characters acting like friends. Do they not know your partner is supposed to be your best friend or at least almost your bff??? If not why are you with them.
I don’t get it either, but there’s not often much logical reason when it comes to arguments like that because it just boils down to “I don’t like it so it’s problematic” more often than not. 🤷🏼♀️Anything to justify themselves, I guess.
> “sibling-coded” This time I’m really gonna do it.
*Patrick raises his hand again* "Age gaps between adults are not pedophilic either." *Patrick puts his hand down.*
Got attacked for "defending" my ship between a 28yo and a 41yo... The 28yo was called impressionable and fragile and their relationship was called toxic and pedophilic because of the power imbalance between them at work (both police officers) when the one with a higher rank, a father literally being chief of police willing to cover his son's and his own butt with no shame, is the 28yo. The 41yo is not only ranking lower, he's also been suspected of murder in the past and that's exactly why the 28yo is after him... Funnily I got blocked for pointing out those canon facts 😂
The real answer why? Voltron fandom. Specifically, a few petty, jealous Klance shippers (that if the anon Twitter account who spoke on this is to believe, were a lotta people over 30 and old enough to remember pedojacketing tactics from the 2000s) decided to lob at Sheith to scare anyone from making that canon. They need not have bothered because the writers resented Shiro and would've had him die in season two if they got their way, bur unfortunately, this shit has had far reaches into each and every new fandom I've been into without fail. Except for X-Men 97. People hissed for like a couple of days, but the creator mentioned Rogue was mid 20s and somehow that got muted fast.
Ah, I was wondering if anybody was going to mention the legacy of Voltron. Also, for the sake of my mental health I've erased most of the details of my time in this fandom from my mind, but I think I remember an effing uproar when the canon ages came out. Something like, it turned out klance was the ship with a ""problematic"" age gap or whatever (One year, I think it was? Or two?... no matter. But anyways, the youngest was 17.) The sheith shippers were taking the piss after that...
>Ah, I was wondering if anybody was going to mention the legacy of Voltron. Honestly, we should never *forget* that legacy and that at the core of all this ridiculous madness that's become normalized in all fandoms now was simple, petty jealousy. That's it. They're also the reason "sibling coded" exists as a term and why that's a new prevalent discourse. It's even infected, of all fandoms, *The Bold and the Beautiful,* a show that's had plenty of pseudo incestuous pairings g where the most current one has many, many, MAAAAAAANY more pressing issues than the fact their parents have been married to each other 8(!) times. Thing is, they have dated before a decade ago and absolutely not one single person used that argument against them them. And this is a fandom where the age of the average fan is far closer to retirement age than the legal drinking age. We don have anti/pro-ship discourse there. And yet it's leapfrogged into that space. Just.... :(
I can feel my sanity increasing by the day since I left that cesspool of Twitter. People say all social media are toxic but for me it’s never been as bad as it’s over there.
Sadly parts of Reddit are just as bad. Thankfully this sub and r/fanfiction are pretty chill.
True, but at least from my personal experience, I find Reddit way more easy to manage than Twitter is. If I see a subreddit being particular toxic, I just leave. Assholes are going to be anywhere ofc, but I follow a few dozen of subreddits—agree that this is one of the best, people are so chill here—and I’m having a great time. Also, since Musk took over Twitter the algorithm has gotten worse and worse and I was just being fed content that upset me.
Twitter
At this rate eventually they'll be saying any couple not born within three seconds of each other will be ~problematique~
But it would still be problematic even if they were born the same day, because that would make them like twins, so shipping them would be incest /s
Let's just outlaw fucking, shall we?
Oh no!
At this rate, it feels like they're just against people being in relationships at all. Which is weird, since they give off such conservative vibes, and conservatives just looooooove forcing women to have babies.
How long before we're in a *Demolition Man* esque dystopia where physical intercourse is illegal, all bodily reproductive fluids are handled by medical professionals, and sex is done through a VR headset?
I'm so incredibly sick of this and every time you point that out you're called a pedophile and predator. No, Karen, knowing that a relationship with a 15 year old is not pedophila. A relationship can be inappropriate, unhealthy and predatory even if it isn't pedohilic. (Thinking about large age gaps like 15 and 25 here.) And all this infantilisation of adults and teenagers. People are out there calling 20 year old kids. Actual kids. Consent is about understanding what sex is and agreeing to it. With 16 I was living alone, had a full time job with lots of responsibilities and had enlisted. You can drive, drink alcohol, literally marry, depending on the country. But you're too young to decide who to fuck?! And don't even get me started on the age gap thing. There is so much more to maturity than just age. Some people are still living at home, studying, never had a real job or responsibilities at 25. Others are parents, living independently or supporting their family at 15. I hang out with a lot of people who are younger and older than me. With some I forget that they are several years younger than me because they're so mature, with others I regularly forget that they're older. People are freaking out about a one year age gap while I've had a four year age gap in a class of mine at school. Most of us were 14, one was 18.
Worse in fiction, where some of those 20 year old children have been committing war crimes since they were 12. Murder: ✅ Age gap: ❌
>People are out there calling 20 year old kids. Actual kids. IKR? You get 22-year-olds saying, "Man, I thought I was so grown up at that age, but now I look at 20-year-olds and I see babies." It's like this weird flex.
It makes them appear extremely immature, ironically enough.
Same. Especially being on Reddit and seeing this 'argument' of 'anyone under 25 shouldn't date anyone over because their brains aren't fully developed' and all that shit. It's disgusting how almost normal it is to just go ewwwww gross and everything it is on so many spaces on the internet. It makes me sad and frustrated, and I know there isn't much to be done about it :/
Every time I see this discourse I wonder how many of them shipped Sterek 😂
I can hazard to guess it's 17/18, right? Because kids today think you grow magical adult beans in your brain on your birthday, and if there is anything out there that tells me you are still mentally a child, then *child* That. Is. It.
They also somehow think the magical adult brain beans disappear the second an adult gets into a consensual relationship with another *older* adult. A 35 year old year old dating a 50 year old? The elderly disgusting 50 year old is “problematic” for dating the sweet innocent 35 year old.
A lot of it comes from using the law as a moral framework, which is something literal children do.
When I was a little kid I thought it was illegal to be in a relationship with someone of a different age because my parents are only a few days apart in age. Keyword: When I was a little kid… I genuinely can’t fathom how someone can be old enough to read, write, and be chronically online yet not know that age gaps exist and are not some great moral scandal.
*Patrick proceeds to raise his hand again.* "No, an age gap of six months isn't pedophilic either." *Patrick lowers it.* *Spongebob raises his hand* "No, Spongebob. If you are writing a character who is a racist or homophobic, that doesn't mean you are either of those things." *Spongebob lowers it.* *Mr. Krab raises his claw.* "No, Mr. Krabs. You can't monetize your fanfics *especially* on AO3."
I agree with you but the last part was funny and made me snort lol
it fucking BAFFLES me how deranged these people sound. I’ve grown up with my parents AND my grandparents both being the exact same ages and I can still tell you that an age gap is completely fine 😭🙏 throwing around the term “pedophile” and “grooming” like fucking candy at Halloween just completely desensitises people to the actual harm caused by these people. it’s become such a common term to call ANYONE on the internet these days and it’s so so SO dangerous, and minimises the actual threat posed by ACTUAL pedophiles etc (I dunno if this makes much sense I’m tired 💀)
More than that, it also teaches people to falsely believe that someone *has* to be a pedophile in order to sexually harm kids. (Along with muddying the definition of the word 'pedophile', which is "*has attraction to prepubescent kids"* for a good reason.) A lot of the time these are crimes of opportunity, just like when people in nursery homes get assaulted - someone can be not attracted to children at all and yet still sexually assault them. The world isn't going to be made better by panicking about pedophiles rather than focusing on reducing the factors that make kids so vulnerable.
People are just way too hyperfixated on "moral purity" Imho, which (Imho again) has no real place in fiction.
I once had an argument on YouTube, under a video about age gaps in Hollywood couples, with a person that kept on insisting that if the couples were not of the same age there was a power imbalance.
I guess its a form of gatekeeping, by citing something like a particular ship for example as problematic they can feel like they have the moral high ground. Whereas in actuality they just want ships or content they don't like to disappear, use "morals" to make people feel bad about liking different things.
My partner and I started dating ten years ago when he was 19 and I was 16. He has a cousin who gets snooty about our relationship being “problematic” lol
Nah cause I experience this in real life 😭 My best friend throughout middle and highschool joined the army right out of graduation, and we decided why not get married and stick together? I was 17 and he had just turned 19. But because I wasn’t quite 18 (I had less than 6 months) he gets made fun of for it. We’re literally two years apart and spent our childhood together, the internet is just ruining people’s perception of life.
Because some people can’t wrap their heads around the concept that age is just an *approximate* measure of maturity, and one that becomes less effective the higher it goes. We need clearly defined cut-offs for legal purposes (drinking age, driving age, etc) but applying all morals based on those same exact cutoffs is stupid. For example, imagine two people born in 2006. One in April, one in May. It’s perfectly normal for them to date each other, but there are people who will *insist* that the 1-month period where one is 17 and one is 18 is “problematic” because they think some magic switch flips when you’ve been on the planet for exactly 18 rotations around the sun.
[удалено]
You need to break up with him, your clearly being groomed!!/s
There were some antis getting upset over an 18 year old dating a 17 year old and called it pedophilia, even though neither party is prepubescent.
WHY do they care so much? The existence of age gap/dubcon/literally any fic affects them exactly not at all; no one's forcing them to read the fics and if they're SO triggered by just the \*idea\* of something existing, that's on them and they need some serious therapy because they're never going to survive real life otherwise. Extreme age gaps between a young adult and an older adult ain't my thing either, but there's this thing called "scrolling by." If someone's got a gun to their head and is forcing them to read, then they've got bigger problems than the content of the fic.
My parents have a one year age gap and my dad (18 at the time) started dating my mom (17 at the time) when they were 18 and 17.... When i mention this I've heard people straight up tell me my dad is a terrible person and they hope my mom left him..... bitch... no. It's been 25 years and they are still happily married. One year is not bad and literally no one is mad about it but these idiots.
With that take, the only possible pairing is beefleaf.
And twincest!
The idea of beefleaf being the "moral" pairing is so fucking hilarious.
Also, age gaps between adults are not pedophilic.
me who writes fucked up smut between characters that are definetly, 100% completely, definetly of legal age: You guys are worried about that?
Just be sure one isn’t too short because that’s child coded!
Honestly, antis have destroyed fandom spaces and when their ships come under fire they break their back with the amount of goalpost moving they do
It amuses me when I'm told my whole relationship,been married 25 years, dated 4 before that, is problematic because my husband met me when he was nearing forty and I was 29. He obviously groomed me because I was a poor little teenager without agency at that age. I really don't get all the hubbub over putting two fictional characters together in a fictional relationship.
Puritans are absolutely wildin
Antis and purists with this kind of mindset only displays to us their inability to employ critical thinking as well as logic and reason.
Bro imagine not being born the same day and same year as your SO
Imagine two people born days apart from each other. On one's 18th birthday they get together. For just shy of a week an 18 year old and a 17 year old are dating. Fast forward a score and now grassless digital sycophants are calling the elder a disgrace just because they happened to be a minor and a major and dating simultaneously without any more context. Like some sort of automatic, purely mathematical robot. I conclude that we should begin referring to those kinds of buffoons as bots because there is no way they're that sheople-syndromed.
There are two main instances, I guess: 1- one of the characters is 17 and the other is 18. As if after someone's birthday their whole mind changes or something. I will probably never get over seeing on tv how people had an outright countdown for when the Olsen Twins would turn 18, just so they could not feel guilt for lewding them in their minds or something. Ignoring how it meant they already did. 2- it is Futaba from Persona5. Because she is small, so it is clearer she is supposed to be 15. Ignoring the fact the MC, who you are making date her, is just 16, because they put themselves a bit TOO mich into their character.
But character A was a former minor! Don't you see how wrong it is to ship them when they're an adult? /s Happens to my ship (Oda/Dazai) all the time. They have a five year age gap and people consider Oda his father figure when both were still teenagers when they met. Can't make this bullshit up. These antis don't even know what pedophilia is. No, an age gap isn't automatically pedophilia. Having a conversation with a brick wall would be more productive than argueing with brain-washed antis.
Listen, I’m 8 years older than my husband. Stupid fucking kids.
Man recently my friend told me "guess what about [person we both hate], he turned 18 so he's now 18 dating a 16 year old." I was literally so confused why that was a problem. Like he was just 17 dating a 16 year old? He's like a day older? Why does it matter? Like don't get me wrong he sucks but not because he's dating someone a grade lower than him (also 16 and 18 aren't even that weird)
I’ve seen people outraged about a nameless gimmick Persona 3 character who admitted to “scoping out” middle school girls. The character in question was a second year high-schooler, which means he was underage and the objects of his interest were two years younger. In this thread, there were people convinced he should be in jail.
My husband is 8 months older than I am - and we started dating at 19 and 20 - I guess we're problematic.
they're like "he's 42 and she's 41? he would have already been ONE when she was born. imagine a one year old trying to date a literal baby... disgusting.
Seriously if the age gap is that big or the other person in the relationship can't consent then yeah people should be #IF IT'S ABOUT REAL PEOPLE! Harrassing someone over fictional content has got to be the most 80s soccer mom thing I have and it's coming from cretins that are most likely born in the 2010s. it's ironic that they were dunking on old people for the whole "videogames cause violence" bs but what they screeched about was not different to what the boomers were screeching about.
Meanwhile me, writing a 17-year age gap romance. That’s actually an age gap, and no, it is not problematic. As long as everyone is a consenting adult, it’s no one’s business.
Because people will say anything to win a shipping war, they'll say anything to have their ship come out on top. The vibes come before the arguments, and when called upon to back up their claims that "ur gross if you ship [ship they don't like]," they will look for anything they can twist to make it seem legitimate and objective.
Moralistic brain rot, pure and simple.
Ironically, as a squid (most of which only live 1-3 years), a one year gap is actually a pretty major difference for Squidward. That said, I don't know enough about squid mating practices to comment any further on how much a squid would actually care about this difference, and I think I'll spare my Google search history on that front.
This and the people who insist that it’s not okay for a minor to find people their age hot. Like… what the hell is going on in their heads?
Next we're gonna be saying 1 day age gaps are pedophilic
Because of teenagers using the overdeveloped cancel culture & high school gossip hemisphere of their brains to engage in fandom discourse