In their original contexts, "Proshipper" merely denoted someone who was against harassment over shipping while an "Antishipper" was simply an alternative term for hater. If we're going by those old definitions, I am technically both. I do believe that people have the right to ship whatever they want however they want, regardless of whether it's wholesome and fluffy or dark and disturbing—how I feel about the pairing is irrelevant. At the same time, that doesn't change that there are some ships I dislike or even hate for X and Y reasons, and I am perfectly in my rights to express that dislike or even criticize said ships so long as I'm not shaming people for enjoying them or calling for their censorship.

Unfortunately, years of internet flame wars have warped the terms Proshipper and Antishipper to the point that they have lost much of their original meaning—they are no longer simple descriptors for the mentalities of individuals who participate in fannish communities, but labels for two opposing movements that have consumed fandom and oftentimes make them miserable places to be in. The strawman Antishipper is a pearl-clutching puritan fascist who is offended at the mere idea of "problematic" media existing and actively calls for the censorship/banning of whatever it is that so offends them. By contrast, the stereotypical Proshipper is a hormonal degenerate whose preferred fiction is a reflection of who they are as a person—they condone pedophilia, incest, and abusive relationships in real life and most if not all of them are creeps who prey on innocent teenagers who venture into fannish spaces.

Of course, the reality is that the matter is not so black and white as people make it out to be. The majority of Proshippers are perfectly well-adjusted people who know damn well that unhealthy/toxic/abusive relationships are wrong in real life—they simply enjoy exploring them in fiction. Likewise, many Antishippers are actually against censorship—at worst, they simply want to see sensitive/disturbing topics approached with more tact rather than glorified or romanticized. There are Proshippers who don't like or are even against fictional relationships with dark/disturbing elements, and there are Antishippers who enjoy relationships with toxic/unhealthy traits. And, of course, there are people on both sides who don't believe in harassing the other side just because they said something they don't agree with. If you don't like it, block it and move on—end of story.

The greatest irony this is knowing that, despite Antiship and Proship being such opposing ideologies, there are a lot of the same people on both sides. The ages of proshippers and antishippers can range from older adults to younger teens, with their members including members of the LGBT+ community, racial minorities, and victims of various horrific traumas. Both groups weaponize morality, guilt, and shame to drive home their arguments, and they're also highly performative in their activism and don't actually bring about any meaningful change. And it goes without saying that neither side is truly anti-harassment—while cases of antishippers bullying proshippers are well-documented, there have been plenty of incidents of proshippers harassing antishippers or even chasing their fellow proshippers out of their spaces for saying something too "anti."

And that is ultimately why I choose not to identify as Proship or Antiship; while both sides have points that I agree with, there are also a number of arguments I don't vibe with and the constant yelling of the extremists who won't stop hurling insults and accusing the other side of being blech and blah drives me absolutely nuts. All you need to know is that I am anti-harassment and pro-criticism; I respect your right to ship your out-of-character incest ship and create fanart/fic of it, but I am still allowed to complain about it and potentially even criticize it if I feel like it's warranted. Why? Because everyone has their personal preferences and telling people sit down and shut up if they encounter something they don't like is just as egregious as going after someone because they had the gall to ship a pairing where the characters have an age gap larger than two years.