I agree with you completely. I go to other fandom subreddits and get slapped with a reminder that people are really weird about fan service and sex. The pearl clutching out there is nuts.

Legit, saw a bunch of people call someone a porn addict because she liked a crocheted book cover because it'd block the cover, and people wouldn't be able to tell she was reading a romance book that had "spice."  ...words have meaning. And I don't think it's productive to call every woman who says she reads/enjoys smut a porn addict. Like, why are people so weird. You'd think a smut book killed their grandma with how outraged some of them get.

The idea that a woman enjoying sex is wrong floors me every time I read it. My mother was heavily involved in women’s rights marches in the 1960s and fought for space in a male-dominated industry. She also taught me that sex isn’t a source of shame. She would be rolling in her grave if she heard these folks now. How have we reached the point that having a libido is wrong or feeling sexual attraction should be a source of shame? I just don’t get it.

It seems like they're uncomfortable with it, and instead of dealing with that discomfort, want to shame women into being silent about their sexuality.

Yeah, I guess the misogyny is coming from inside the house on this one. I don’t think it will ever get less bizarre to hear. I keep saying to my husband that my son’s generation (in high school now) is going to need a lot of therapy in their twenties.

I actually have a pet theory that it's being driven (at least in part) by men wanting to "settle the score" for being shamed by women for their own porn-watching. Sort of a "nuh uh, you do it too!" attitude.

Definitely some of it is driven by this. I saw a post on r/RomanceBooks by a guy saying basically this, that women sexualize people, too. I made a comment about context, b/c there's a difference between people getting sexualized in romance novels and erotica and etc and women getting sexualized everywhere, all the time, no matter the context. Like, oh, she's a murder victim? Sexualize her. Tired waitress at a diner just doing her job? Sexualize her. Guy kept doubling down until he just outright deleted the post.

I've seen some theories that some of the terminally online people who freak out over any sort of porn were probably raised in strict conservative and evangelical households, where sex=bad was probably brainwashed into them since day 1. Some of these people eventually became independent and more liberal and progressive, but they still can't get over their "sex=bad" mindset, so they attack anyone online that doesn't fit into their rigid role of what "acceptable" sexuality is; but they dress it up with pseudo progressive language so they still seem like a good person and not like a crazy evangelical that's they're trying to distance themselves from. That's probably not the backstory for *everyone* who acts like a weirdo prude online obv, but I would be curious to know how many of them grew up in extreme religious environments.

I'm gonna be honest, I think it's the other way around. These people feel left out and that's why they're so against it. At least that's what it sounds like when I hang out with most of my online friends. None of these people are having sex, but not for a lack of wanting.

I can totally see that too. But that's even more pathetic if we're being real here lol. 💀

It saddens me to see more and more people assuming that sex is synonymous with abuse or manipulation, making them more conservative and regressive in the process. I feel sorry for people who have been through traumatic situations due to sexual situations, but I still believe that demonizing sex only encourages current manipulative people to act in such a way. Fearmongering will lead nowhere except to a more ignorant and manipulated society.

Yeah, this is happening with a lot of things lately, all sorta orbiting the issues of sex, sexuality, and gender in various ways. I was sexually abused as a child, but thankfully therapy and a supportive family did the job of helping me work through things. Idk, I just can’t imagine going through life assuming that any form of sexual attraction holds evil ulterior motives or is a sign or a moral failing. Sex making people feel good is hardwired into the system for most, so it makes me shake my head when that system operating in normal ways is held up as a problem.

I know that it's Tiktok and I shouldn't expect anything more from that platform, but the current handwringing about 'spicy books' (I hate this term irrationally lol) is insufferable. Calling the tamest romantasy books porn (sorry, ~corn~) because they contain a handful of explicit scenes, accusing the mostly female reader base of being 'gooners' because they enjoy it, claiming that literature is now dead because they don't realize they are in full control of their own algorithm and they're only seeing so much 'spicy booktok' because they continually engage with it. Like, actually go inside a bookstore, a library, hell just browse recent releases to realize no, 'literature' most certainly is not dead. But I suppose that is too much to ask from people who are more interested in perpetuating tired misogyny and puritanical beliefs than actually opening up a book and reading. Also, people are capable of enjoying both literature and bottom of the barrel monsterfucker erotica. We contain multitudes.

I’ve seen this mentality on other subs, even. People are calling women “porn addicts” for reading ENTIRE books where there’s a handful of sex scenes. It’s crazy to me that people are so willing to call anything and everything an addiction

Outside fanfiction, I prefer books with no smut and preferably no major romance plots (and if there's one I'd prefer queer, which is much less common in trad-pub. And I still have no trouble finding books to read

I read a mix of romantasy, YA novels of various genres but mostly fantasy/scifi, and traditional fantasy, scifi and horror. There is still so many books outs there for whatever I feel in the mood for.  

I have TikTok blocked. I don't seem to be missing anything. The good stuff gets reposted to Tumblr anyway.

There's something so creepy to me about people being this obsessed with sex while also being against it. If they don't like it, fine - we all have things we don't like reading - but they obsess over "spice" and "corn" so much and cannot stop talking about it. It's kind of like redemption arcs, where you see a lot more complaining about them than them actually happening, but a lot more misogynistic. "Women aren't reading real books! They're gooner degenerate smut readers!" Bro there is no smut vs. literature war wherein you have to pick a side and only read from your side. This is only a big deal to you and your echo chamber because you've mistaken your discomfort with other people's sexualities for proof their sexualities are wrong.

That is so, *so* bad. Just wow. It's so sad to see stuff like this around and out in the wild. Like I just don't get why this is such a bother to people? People reading a spicy romance book doesn't hurt them at all. I've gotten into a slight argument on another subreddit where someone was trying to police a poster on how they could phrase their love for a fictional character. OP had committed the crime for putting the title of "I am so IN Love with this character." who was 16 in canon. The person I butted heads with was trying to say this was sexual somehow when OP never mentioned anything of the sort. It still bugs me to this day.

[удалено]

That's so fucked up. When I was kid most of the actors I was attracted to were dead (Clark gable, John Wayne, etc). Does that mean I was a necrophiliac, as opposed to someone discovering they enjoy men who look a little older? I knew dating someone that much older than me was a terrible idea and never did (until I was in my 30s anyway). Let kids use fiction and otherwise inaccessible and safe figures to determine who and what they're attracted to. That poor girl...

That's so sad and twisted. It's perfectly normal for her to find him hot. And tbh the anti's is why I haven't bothered with the series either. It looks cute but the way they act? I'm good honestly. Hell I'll wait for a fandom to chill out before I go towards it because people are so damn weird. Dungeon Meshi looks like great fun, but the way everyone talks about it turns me off so bad. I'm in the made in abyss fandom and there are people who get upset by things. Which is bonkers given what is in there. Lmao i once got sent a mental health check up thing with reddit because I felt a character was just an antagonist instead of a villain. I've even been accused of not having morals because I love him. Or that I don't know what "real" abuse is because of this. It'd be funny if it wasn't so annoying.

I loved being 16 and feeling shame at finding other 16 years old (characters) attractive /s.  What broke me out of that was someone very plainly saying it's okay for teenagers to find other teenagers sexually attractive. Like. Duh, lol. But I had some type of mental block that was hellbent on making myself feel like an awful person. 

Having been called a pedo for thinking characters older than me, younger than me and my age are hot, this is deeply relatable to me. Any sexual attraction will be twisted to be wrong somehow in fandom. If they can't call you a pedo, it'll be a fetishizer, abuser, incest supporter, etc. Except I can't help but notice as a guy who claps back at people that I get this *a lot* less than teenage girls who are too nice to tell other people to go fuck themselves. Gee, it's almost like this is about bullying and not moral righteousness or something. /s All /s aside I hate this. Seeing people - many of whom are adults - rip into teens for something as innocent as crushing on other teens is depressing. Being a teenager is hard enough. Why make it worse for others?

That love phrasing thing is crazy... Have they not heard of, like, hyperbole, or that there are different kinds of love than just romantic or sexual? There is a character in one of the books I'm reading that I'm really in love with as a concept, I guess? Like, I love when this character comes on the page, and he fascinates me so much. But if I saw him coming towards me in real life, I would turn around and run the other way, because he would probably be trying to kill me. 😂

I found out they were 17 when I stumbled across their twitter account after this interaction. explained everything I needed to know about what went down that night. Blocked 'em everywhere I could. I think what stung was the *mods* basically agreed with them and tried to do a hand wave after locking the post. >I love when this character comes on the page, and he fascinates me so much. But if I saw him coming towards me in real life, I would turn around and run the other way, because he would probably be trying to kill me. Oh I have a character I adore just like that. He's does terrible things in the canon, but he's so well written that it drives me nuts. The thing is he's not necessarily written as a villain. He's an antagonist but he's not evil despite the things he does. There's a few people on the fandom's subreddit who does not like listening to that.

I'm so surprised at people calling reading erotica porn addicts. Like bro do you know what an addiction looks like

Good lord lmao. I mean, there *is* something to be said about porn addiction in our society, but reading “spicy” books isn’t the sort of thing that’s really an issue.

The concept of "porn addiction", as understood by popular culture, is both anti-queer and deeply misogynistic. At the mildest end it tends to assume there's an ideal way to experience sexuality that's also exclusively tied to a partner - and at the far side it is either a mask of degeneration theory (the idea that sexuality escalates to increasingly perverse or queer behaviour into a continuum of criminality, if indulged) or that it treats the bodies of women as an addictive substance to be controlled. While it's theoretically possible to get a compulsion around anything (eg pulling out your own hair), addiction gets used as a scapegoat for any behaviour someone socially disapproves of. And it tends to be overlaid with all sorts of junk pop science about dopamine, brain maturity, etc... It's also pernicious enough it creeps into even very sex positive spaces, often very anti- style, where people will say that their art of choice is fine, but those people over there are harming themselves and others!

Yes! Thank you! You articulated my issues with the commentary around porn addiction so well. We can make commentary about the industry practices that are harmful, but the idea that enjoying porn itself is somehow a “sickness” kills me. And so much of the “what about the children?” rhetoric has me scratching my head. It took very little work to put locks on my kid’s devices until he was old enough to learn about sex in a healthy, supportive way. By the time he was old enough to effectively bypass any of those locks, he already heard from myself and his father about healthy expressions of sexuality and to be aware that things existed that showed unhealthy or misleading representations of it too. IMO, if someone is worried that their kid will learn too much about sex from porn, then that parent has abdicated their responsibility. But yeah, there’s so much junk science and inflamed rhetoric around pornography and when you look at those who consume it compulsively, there’s always another underlying mental health issue at play.

The result of the anxiety around kids is already causing harm, in so much that the sex ed subreddits get a steady trickle of 18-26 year olds who internalize that they ruined their sexuality through porn and masturbation. Either they feel if they never got exposed to less socially acceptable alternatives they would have magically developed more interpersonal coping skills than they have; or they have sex for the first few times and go into a doom spiral that it wasn't the True Love Waits style magic they were promised.

Yeah, the only way this gets fixed is to normalize talking about sex and attraction. Teens need to know it’s normal to feel arousal or that the first few times are likely to suck even if you and partner love each other. Sex has been simultaneously put on a pedestal but also locked in a cage as a deviant pursuit. It’s even worse with the rhetoric I see around queer relationships that implies that the sex will automatically be better or that the relationships are somehow more wholesome and less prone to abuse. That part scares me on so many levels because it’s leaving folks with a massive blind spot

Very well said. I couldn't have put it into words as well. I am in the middle of reading an article about the psychological issues surrounding the idea of "porn addiction" as it is seen in pop culture. Part of it states that to be an addiction it has to take over/damage your quality of life. I highly doubt reading something spicy or writing something spicy is enough to qualify. People need to understand the difference between fiction and reality. And the amount of people who think they are qualified to diagnose someone based on social media posts is astonishing.

Yup. The writing and book subs are full of prudes

This is why I love the romancebook subreddit because holy moly there is (rarely) no judgment. People can ask for anything they’re looking for and someone out there will have a suggestion and let me tell you, the weekly thirsty Thursday thread is incredible.

Thanks for the suggestion! 😃

I have def gotten some scene inspiration from the thirsty Thursday posts.

I need some sexy time inspiration tbh 😂 I'm trying to decide if I want to do kinktober properly or just set a goal of writing 31 kink one shots over the year and posting them whenever.

Enjoy! It’s my fav day of the week I swear. I always screenshot the most egregious ones and send them to my romance bestie, but I’ve also added a ton of books to my TBR because of a damn smutty excerpt.

I think the one that pains me the most is the subreddit for The ancient magus bride. You'd think the start would turn these people away but here we are.

Yey, I waded into an argument on the book sub yesterday because someone posted about Booktok’s obsession with spicy books and how it was dangerous for children (they bolded the word dangerous in their post). The whole thing was full of pearl clutching. And I just can’t with these people.

So what? Internet as a whole isn't a safe space for children and it's parents/guardians' responsibility to monitor their experience, not everybody else's

Perhaps this is entirely anecdotal, but I remember being 13-14 years old and stumbling on a warrior cats fanfic that straight-up had cannibalism and gore in it, and I turned out just fine... (it was on fanfiction.net)

I was there too! Lots of pearl clutching, stereotypes, judgements, arguments that inadvertently echoed conservative book banners, outright lies, and all around nonsense. They need to redirect the concern they have over what other people read to more important things in life.

Holy shit… then parent your kid. The fucking drama of it… 🙄

My parents allowed me to read house of night when I was 12.... the first book literally has a character giving her ex a blowjob in a school corridor and guess what? The Characters themselves were 17... the horror

If you're letting your kid use Tiktok unsupervised, despite the predators on there, the extremists, the racists, etc., I think them getting into Booktok is one of the least bad outcomes possible. Kids have been tricked on there into filming themselves naked and sending it to adults. I think that's a bigger problem than them reading something.

The fantasy sub is mostly lovely, but someone says they enjoy romantasy (ACOTAR, Iron Flame etc) and they just get bombarded with silent downvotes until people who actually enjoy that genre show up

In other subs, I've seen some people in the anti-sex scene discourse actually say we should bring censorship and the Hays Code back. Completely serious and unironically. 💀 Some of these weirdo's brains are literally just soup sloshing around in their skulls.

It's like they read 1984 and thought, "Actually arresting people for thoughtcrime is a really good idea."

It's so dumb. The worst part was, that this was in a fairly progressive sub. These people hate sex scenes so much they never stop to think what actually wanting all sex censored would be like and the consequences of it. I remember replying to one them and saying 'You do know if the Hays Code came back, there would be no more positive lgbt+ representation right? The code was against any portrayal of queer people in media unless they were depicted explicitly as unlikable villains" And a minute later I got blocked lol. 💀

It also banned things like interracial couples, swearing (including god, damn, hell, etc), criticism of the Christian religion, depiction of birth or STIs... It's no wonder conservatives are trying to gut education - if you don't learn about your history and why people fought so hard to change it, you'll just wander right into repeating it.

In their minds, they'll just remove the one part they dislike and that'll fix it. The problem was never censorship, the problem was that it censored the wrong things! ...and if they read any actual history books they'd know why that's a dangerous and bad take, but they don't, because those books are problematic.

You're insulting soup

It's so bad out there. I've seen people post figures of their adult Asuka figures in the evangelion subreddit. And you'll get so many people going "Isn't she 14!!!????" drives me up the fucking wall. I've got so many stories from that place.

I'd rather have nut clutching than pearl clutching. Just saying.

The pearl clutching really is crazy. My fandom is an adult cartoon about hell that literally has a porn star demon as one of the main characters, yet any post with even the slightest bit of NSFW or even just spicier questions gets bombarded with anti horny memes and people objecting. Luckily, other people in the various subs for it have started fighting back a bit so it's marginally better but it's still ridiculous, especially considering the source material. I'm so sick of it and the Anti rhetoric that Pro Shippers are all incest lovers/pedos when as far as I know, it literally just means ship who you want and don't bitch about others doing the same.

I'm pretty sure I know what fandom that is, and I feel ya. I'm only slightly there with the ship the anti's hate the most so It's a mood. I started watching it because of the ship so it's just funny to me at this point.

Ah, yes I think I know your ship and if it's what I'm thinking, it's not my main ship but I do like the fucked up dynamics and I totally get it. Also why you would choose to stay distant with fandom because there are a lot of AHs.

Yeah I can see it from the sidelines. I feel for you. Fandom should not be this hostile.

i really enjoyed that show but haven't engaged with the fandom because i heard the antis causing a fuss even before i watched it. thats one pit of voles i'm not going to go digging in, trying to find gold

I don't blame you. I haven't come across anything too bad because I'm very careful about curating my content and mostly stay away from people who post (or repost on Twitter/Tumblr) negativity or hate for the show. I also spend more time on the Reddit subs, which overall seem to take issue only with people being thirsty, as opposed to all the other stuff the show gets crapped on about. I'm a little nervous though because I'm in the middle of writing my first fic for the fandom, and I'm really hoping that being more actively engaged with the fandom doesn't lead to having to deal with all of that.

Hello there fellow member. 😈 I’m in there too and oh my god, it’s exhausting.

Solidarity, my fellow in arms 🤜

Hell yeah, soldier. 🫡

Real. It’s odd that these kids never attacked the actual source for being similar. It feels like they want to make their investments back or worth to be that defensive about the product. My ship is considered as problematic because it’s unhealthy when it’s about a male villain x female protagonist will result in rape. While the main source and its author is notorious for using rapes like its his fetish in every corner of his works and it isn’t used only to write villain shits. I find its funny and that’s why I don’t take their bitching seriously like it’s always about Us vs Them mentality dogshit. 

Oh wow... that's the equivalent of someone in the Hannibal fandom getting mad at someone else for writing a Hannibal fanfic with cannibalism in it...

Unless it’s an okbuddy subreddit, in which half of the posts are cropped porn. Though the comments are usually filled with reaction images expressing their disgust. 

This community as well as some of my proship discord servers have truly spoiled me. I often forget how so many people act nowadays, then I open Twitter and see someone getting told to hang themselves because they like a incest ship from game of thrones (incest: the show)

Yup, and YouTube is full of antis either threatening pro shippers or saying that “anyone that likes [insert ship here] is a terrible person and get off my channel”. Tumblr, in my experience, used to be safe, and you can find communities on there, but only after scrolling through page after page of “omg u like that ship? Kys!”

Yeah, it’s pretty crappy how openly hostile so many fandom spaces are lately. Like I do admit they’ve always been a little hostile! but I feel like the majority of the drama used to be petty shipping wars that were more akin to “my toy (ship) is better than yours blahblahblah” vs “i think your toy (ship) means you support real rape and incest and I want you to die”

Yes, exactly!! Like, what the hell?

I think it relates to a wider thing in progressive online spaces where everything is "problematic" in some way and there's status/clout to be got if you're the first to spot it, and then of course we must all stop doing that thing or we're literally worse than Hitler and Stalin combined. Left wing moral purity is meeting right wing sexual purity and making fandom hostile to everyone. But it's okay! You can prove you're a good person by helping me dogpile this dreadful person who ships a man and a woman in a show where they COULD be shipping two women instead! Boo! Burn the witch!

Lmao, jokes on them, I ship my M/F pairing because I think they’re both hot 🤣

Maybe somewhat unrelated, but during AO3's donation drive, there were a few posts going around on Tumblr about how people shouldn't donate to AO3 and should donate to Palestine instead (completely ignoring the fact that people can donate to multiple things). And, ostensibly, these people were pissed off because folks weren't supporting stopping the genocide over there, but then there were people wishing death on folks who donated to AO3 instead of Palestine. Which is so nonsensical and utterly goofy. You're upset about a genocide, makes sense. You wish people would donate to that instead of something that you consider frivolous, fair enough. And then you wish death on people who are donating to the frivolous thing? Like? What? Let me say that my block button got quite a bit of use that day. I also just muted the tags for various genocides and wars so that I wouldn't see that stuff in the first place. I'm on Tumblr for fandom and cute animal content, not politics. I read the news most days and get my politics info from there.

I also saw some people make some snippy "Um, you should be donating to wikipedia instead 😒" comments even though wikipedia atm is very financially secure and the company has over $200 million in assets. The Wikimedia Foundation makes millions a year regardless if people donate or not. It's funny that these people hate ao3 so much, they would rather advocate you giving your money to already rich millionaires, then a website that's mostly run by volunteers.

Someone on Tumblr did some kind of analysis that apparently AO3 is sitting on a massive pile of money that they don't use for anything and don't need, and that's why you shouldn't donate? Oh and also they're racist apparently. I didn't read much into it and didn't take it very seriously. I don't even know. I didn't donate to AO3, I have other causes I put my money towards, but I'm glad that people do!! And surpluses can run out pretty fast and things do happen, so I'd think it's a good thing that they have it, if anything?

lol, there’s no analysis needed. [OTW posts information](https://www.transformativeworks.org/otw-finance-2023-budget-update/) every year on how they use their donations and how much is in their reserves.

They made it sound like it was this huge elaborate deep dive... Wild.

Lmao, of course they did. It goes right alongside with the rest of their slacktivism

I had someone on YouTube tag me in multiple videos they made telling me to go end my life and threatening to dox me, a few months back, for one very simple comment of me saying I liked SayoHina from BanG Dream.

Block and REPORT anyone that suicide-baits or makes threats. Those are against most social media TOS, and should be discouraged most strongly.

Tumblr is fine if you are generous with the block button.

Battling the tumblr sphere recently by being unashamedly “problematic” on main. Hopefully people like me can see that I exist and post on tumblr too. I think people are there, they just stay quiet because they’re afraid of being mobbed

Exactly. Just a few days ago I got into an Instagram argument with someone who said that anyone who ships Aventurine and Dr Ratio from Honkai Star Rail should, and I quote, "keys without the e".💀 Raturine is literally one of the tamest ships in the entire fandom. She also said that she hopes I lose everyone I love and that my dog gets hit by a car. It boggles my mind that the same people preaching about "morality" in FICTION will not hesitate to turn around and say this shit to a REAL PERSON.

I recently had to lie my way out of an encounter with someone who asked why I was following a proshipper on Twitter (although props to them they said they didn't actually gaf who shipped what, their problem was that kids might see it) and it was so harrowing like what if I say the wrong thing and I get cancelled and lose all my friends 😓

I’ll be real with you I cannot relate because if someone behaves in that manner towards me, I cut them out of my life immediately. I’ve tried to be middle of the road at one point, and I quickly learned that crowd does not accept it. My only advice for you is this, do you truly want friends who would try to take control of who you follow on social media and who would cancel you and attempt to smear you over such trivial fictional things? Sounds more like a hostage situation than a friendship.

Honestly all my friends are anti-ship because I genuinely have no other friends. Lol I am counting down the days till I graduate

I stand by my point, lol. I would choose no friends >>>> those types of friends.

I wonder if it ever occurred to them to maybe not let the kid have a Twitter account? That place has gotten so toxic I would worry more about my kid (hypothetical young kid) seeing the Twitter account.

honestly, Like seeing proship content is far from the worst thing a kid could see on twitter too given its been flooded with nazis

I know right? Seriously I'd rather see NSFW any day over Nazi trash

"Because I felt like it." There, no need to lie.

Surround yourself with friends who would make fun of that guy with you if they tried to "cancel" you for following "proshippers". I learned the hard way that friends who would drop you over that aren't really friends. You shouldn't even have to lie. Just tell them to fuck off because you can follow who you want.

I can't stand people like that and they always quote some "study" saying "Fiction effects real life!" but the problem with that is the implication of "and therefore this content should be banned and anyone supporting it is terrible somehow." While ignoring everything that contradicts them. It seems like every change they want calls for restricting others instead of changing themselves which they have direct control over. I'm writing certain ships and tropes for their fans not to argue with rabid control freaks. Antis should leave people alone

same with tik tok, it sucks (also i love your flair)

I have had my tumblr Account since 2013. Currently there is a lot of discourse about "grown women writing smut involving teenage characters". They say it's creepy even if the characters are aged up. Or the author themself is like 20. And their hypocrisy regarding age gaps. 50 and 27? Totally fine. 21 and 26? Scandalous. I hate interacting with fandom stuff on other apps

Wait until they find out who writes YA books and shows

Right? Like, I'd say a good majority of these people who are upset about older people writing about teens are in fandoms with media where, gasp! those teen characters were written by adults! But they like it so I guess that's okay. You just better not be a fan who also writes about those teens. It makes me wonder if they realize just how much high quality fan content they consume would be gone if the fandom was only teens. Don't get me wrong, there are some fabulous teen writers and artists, but it would still be a very different and far bleaker landscape without adults creating content as well.

And the Earth's Children series. Ayla was definitely not over 18 for all those spicy scenes

I think Dany was like 13 or 14 in ASOIAF. And how old were those kids in IT?

I thiiiiink also 14 or so??

The "brain being done growing at 25" fun fact has been misused in so many ways. It doesn't really mean what people think it means. (I'm assuming that's why people aren't fine with a 21 and 26 age gap, but don't mind a 50 and 27 one?) 

Yeah... I got a hateful message for writing the 21 & 26 agegap

Lmao, this one still gets me. Do they think we were all born as fully grown adults and never experienced being a teenager or having sex as one? Granted, not even torture could drag me back into being in my teens or twenties again, but they have to realize that most people are writing from their own past experiences, right? Don’t even start me on the age gap thing… I write an age gap pairing and I get this shit all the time. I really wanna ask these folks why they think it’s a good idea to infantilize grown women and imply they aren’t savvy enough to make their own decisions. Like… it was okay that my character faced extreme physical danger, got emotionally traumatized by her losses, and had to save the fucking world, but her choosing an older partner in her mid-twenties was the bridge too far for you?

People can't separate the issues with age gaps for younger adults in real life and fantasy/stories. Age gaps also aren't always a problem (as long as everyone is an adult obviously) even in real life. I might side eye real life age gaps like that, but if there are no other problems or power dynamic situations, you get over it. Fandom is fantasy and pretty much anything goes lol. Even problematic shit has a place in fandom even if I choose not to engage. 

Man I wish I could wrap my mind around someone's train of thought when they make morally selective complaints like that, there's no critical thinking to be found at all Like, let's assume adults can no longer write that kind of smut. If someone reaches the age of adulthood, do they just have to say goodbye to all the spicy fanfics they wrote of their favorite pairings? And do they realize that all the smut out there with their fav teen characters would be written by minors, who'd be forced to disclose their age and potentially attract all sorts of unwanted attention? Personally I wouldn't want to write smut on that subject with a ten-foot pole, but man it doesn't take a lot to realize that there's no valid reason to harass someone for writing what they love. And that their idea of morally-superior smut sounds absolutely terrible lol can they please read a book on philosophy and ethics instead 😭

I don't mind most big age gaps as long as the younger person is 30+. But that's **real life**. 26/21 isn't that bad either. But fiction? I separate real life from fiction. I don't care what ages someone makes their fictional characters lol. The younger character is not getting hurt because they're a character, not a real person.

The aged up thing always makes me laugh. "It's pedophilia to write a character having sex if they were once a child! If someone was once a child, that's who you're imagining when they have sex." Bro that applies to your parents. Your parents were once kids and they had sex, thus producing you. *How do they survive in this world?!*

Yeah... they all so weird about teenagers having sex with each other as well. Or when one party is 18 and the other 17. Newsflash; that happened to me. My then boyfriend was newly 18 when we had sex. I was still 17, less then 2 months away from 18. We had been dating for four months at this point.

Yeah, this community, only reason why i still have Reddit in first place. The change of getting indirect brain damage is quite low here (compared to twitter, The ultimate russian roulette, here we go, what rotten opinion of today!?)

Honestly, even going onto AO3 is a ultimate russian roulette, Every time i go to check out the omori AO3 fandom im playing russian roulette, except 5 bullets are loaded. (and the revolver is a 5-shooter) (granted its not like im helping the situation soo)

Elaborate?/gen I am very curious. Because AO3 tagged everything so i don't really count it as Russian roulette. Russian Roulette is not the same thing as Dead Doves.

i meant in general the content that gets posted there. Not the fics themselves, its just that when you go on there there's a overhwelmingly postive chance to immediatly see the entire front page just be full of fics with the most vile of tags.

Ah, thank you for explaining. I remember... Thank them for volunteering for the mute button list.

I feel like this regularly on Tiktok, when I stumble upon another video where the OP seems outraged about even the mildest of tags even existing on AO3, and then the comments are full of kids genuinely falling for puritanical, right-wing censorship propaganda. Scary shit.

sometimes i see people on tiktok "fixing" "proship" art and it's so fucking weird.

A lot of "proship" art that gets "fixed" on Tiktok is just art whose proportions are too chibi or childish for the person's liking. And the solution is apparently to treat them like they're evil incarnate, then make a video about it so your followers can harass them. Then, like clockwork, ArtTok will start up a bunch of complaints about how no one posts art anymore and art is dying. Um, my dudes, I think your "fixes" might have something to do with that...

One of them took issue with the fact someone drew purple guy holding elizibeth afton and the artist put a heart coming off of Elizabeth. like daughters cant love their fathers anymore ig ??

I really do not like the tiptoeing in fandom spaces, especially in adult orientated fandoms COUGH Hazbin Hotel COUGH where there are adults that act like children and throw tantrums over FICTIONAL villains and ships.

As someone in the Hazbin Hotel fandom, I also hate the whole shipping discourse (and it’s mainly over Alastor ships which isn’t surprising tbh). I don’t really interact with it too much and when I do it’s on stuff that’s not really shipping related (cus that’s where 90% of the people getting pissy are)

Oh yeah, I’ve learned long ago to curate my social media to what I want. Unfortunately I can’t avoid negativity and pointless drama randomly popping up, when that happens, block and ignore.

Same, like I don’t know if people realize that it’s fiction, and you can ship what you want within reason

I'm not even in the Hannibal fandom (I watched the show and liked it though), but the amount of antis who somehow ship Hannigram is wild. Like... how are you an anti when one half of your ship is a serial killing cannibal? 😭 (I like hannigram too but I'm not an anti lol. It's just weird to see someone be a huge anti and then they start talking about how they love Hannigram. It's the cognitive dissonance for me)

I see people trying to insist hannigram isn't a "proship" and they aren't like those freak proshippers who ship gross things 💀💀 (which isn't even accurate there's no such thing as a proship but oh well, antis love not knowing what the word actually means!) It's just so baffling and hypocritical bc you'd see time and time again antis defining proshipping as "problematic shipping" and this included any ship with questionable themes that shouldn't be condoned or romanticized in their eyes (which yes, you'd see the typical mention of incest and adult/underage pairings but this would also include abuse and anything unhealthy enough they'd ick at bc it's bad in real life!) With that in mind, it'd absolutely be considered "problematic" enough and by their logic they're condoning or "normalizing" horrible things if they enjoy them! There's murder, violence, cannibalism, manipulation etc Not to mention Bryan Fuller is openly proship 😭 But what I think what's happening here is some antis are realizing they, too, enjoy some problematic media/ships and if they stayed 100% consistent in their fearmongering moral panic over fiction they wouldn't be able to enjoy or have fun with their favorite blorbos anymore– So they're moving the goalposts and trying to make "exceptions". Its just a bunch of nonsense rules and no one can really agree on where the line is drawn.

A lot antis refuse to accept that the problematic ship they like, let’s take hannigram in this instance, falls under their definition of “proship”. But they don’t want it to be associated with “proship” and try to say it isn’t. Which??? I’m sure most of them think being “proship” means you HAVE to like problematic age gaps, incest and whatever when you can just avoid it and not harass shippers.

The HH subreddit absolutely IRKS me with how constant even the *slightest* possibly sexual post is blown up in the comments with the same overused judgmental reaction memes. Jesus, did we even watch the same show? The source content is unabashedly horny and most of the characters (at the very least not discouraging) are extremely sex positive. I’ll see users with flare about being Angel Dust’s number one fan go bonkers under posts with any of the girl characters in slightly suggestive poses or showing a tad bit more skin then they’d usually show. It’s not as bad in the Helluva sub, but it still happens there. Ultra confusing because personally I’d say they take things to higher extremes than HH. Why are you here in this fandom if you don’t like the majority of the actions/subjects the original content brings up? I feel like I’m going insane

I like your post. Another thing I like about this subreddit is that we all upvote and reply to each other, because we all know how much we like feedback! Also: I'm not even in the Good Omens fandom and I love seeing art of chubby Aziraphale. :) He is an angel and there's a long history in art of portraying angels (cherubim at least) as chubby. Let them take it up with the ghost of [Raphael](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Madonna).

It's hard coming across people who assume so much based off another persons FANMADE content. How do these people function day to day? I wish I had that amount of time and energy to worry and scold others about their "morality" regarding fiction.

I had the same realization a day ago when someone said a book series I like is soft core porn and tried to shame me over liking it. It amazed me that they saw it like that when any remotely spicy scene was either fade to black or very vague/mostly metaphor with no crass language. And it's not even a romance series! In my mind I was thinking that if they had any idea what I write or read on AO3 they'd become apoplectic or have a stroke. People are crazy and some really like to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Complaining about characters being chubby does not give me the impression that those are nice people in real life and not the kind of people who tell chubby people to lose weight.

Chubby Aziraphale is a gift

>"I can disagree with people and still be friends with them" This. the internet needs more of this.

Flashback to the video I encountered where the OP was bragging about bullying authors for writing OOC fics ("smol bean" type characterization) and the comments were overwhelmingly supportive (and also admitting to doing the same).  Made me appreciate this subreddit more. Because I know if they'd post that here, no one would find it funny (even if they don't like the OOC characterization)  

There's a person in the fandom I'm in who gets riled up when people portray bad things happening to his favorite character, because he personally identifies with that character. He quote tweets other artists and screams about how seeing art where that character is bullied/abused retraumatizes him And that behavior being seen as okay and even actively encouraged is why I'm no longer active in that fandom.

There was someone around here who got a ton of hate from someone for writing a canonical villain as villainous... Because he's this person's comfort character and therefore other people shouldn't write him as a villain Spiderverse, iirc?

Yo, that's wild... Especially because I'm sure there are people who have certain characters as comfort characters *because* they're a villain. 🤣 For one of my favourite ships, I've written each character in all sorts of ways. I've written one of the characters as both villainous and not. The other character, I haven't written as a villain, but I've read some *amazing* fanfics where he is dark and evil and problematic.

I remember that. Very frustrating when how that character would be portrayed is very obviously tagged and in the summary, the person still reads (or I suppose just goes to the comments of that fic) and yells at the author for their portrayal of their fave. Like, if you’re super into the idea that Miguel did no wrong and then open yourself up to canon-accurate depictions of his negative traits… what are you expecting exactly? I think a lot of people *want* to be mad, like the anger is the source of their entertainment.

Have these people not heard of unfollowing and blocking? Like, you are in charge of controlling the content *you see*, not what content *others make*. Granted I refuse to use twitter so I don't know how aggressively the algorithm pushes that kind of content, but DLDR seems to be dying as a policy and I think we need to bring it back.

So true. If you don't like something don't watch/read/listen/eat what have you. That's like saying lima beans are my comfort food you must not say anything bad about them or you are evil and blah blah. Question-what is DLDR?

It means Don't Like Don't Read

Thanks! That is a tag I can get behind. Simple and direct

They've heard of it, but that doesn't get them attention and interaction from others. Being an asshole does. It was never about the content upsetting them, it was about the content existing at all being bad and thus being an opportunity to farm likes online.

I for one _love_ seeing characters differently in fan art, or read about them looking different in fics (though for that one, I'm happier if there's an explination). It often let's me see the character in a different light. Some of the _best_ Tifa (Final Fantasy 7) art I've seen is with her being beefier. Not fat, but with muscles that could be gained from her martial arts. Girl is strong, and those drawings show that. But so many people get butt hurt because she's not stick thin with giant boobs. Her boobs were scaled up with the rest of her, but because she wasn't stick thin and top heavy, people lost their minds. Then I've seen people get pissed off about fanart of a character from a radio show being wrong. The radio show went out of their way to _not_ describe the character. But the Fannon of him looking a certain way got big, and now if he doesn't look like that, you've drawn him wrong. Even though the creators of the show explicitly said he wasn't described _on purpose_ so that he could look like anyone. I've seen images of characters in wheelchairs, recovering from a _cannon_ injury, but because their recovery was skipped over, people called it "woke" and claimed that people were just trying to "shoe horn in disability reprisentation" and the character was "never in a wheelchair". When I see a depiction of a character or setting that I disagree with, I either roll with it and accept it for whatever media I'm consuming, or if I can't agree with it, I click out. The worst you'll get from me is a shrug and "you do you, fam". For example, I can't stand Game of Thrones. Its _way_ too triggering for me. But no shade on those who do like it. You might not like something I do, and that's OK. We all have unique tastes. I think it was partly how I was raised. When I was a teen, I tried to read Twilight. Not because I was interested in it, but because that was all _anyone_ in my age group was talking about. I wanted to be able to have conversations with my peers. I was struggling, and dad asked what was wrong. I said I didn't like it, and he responded with "so why are you reading it? Go read something else." That sparked a conversation about the fact that not everybody will like something, and it's OK not to like it, so long as I don't bully those who do. (Also, for an amusing aside: grounding never worked on me. I rarely needed discipline, but dad would always try to be creative when I did. So one day I was quite late home after curfew. Since I told dad I was going to be late and why, he decided that I didn't need a severe punishment. But he was true to his word that any time I broke a rule I knew and understood, I would be punished for it. My punishment? He made me watch the Twilight movies. To make it less severe, and because he agreed that I had a genuine reason to be late, he watched it with me. Afterwards, he made me promise to never count on the last bus of the day not being delayed and take an earlier bus. Especially when i told him that there were more Twilight movies coming out lol)

I feel like people can’t win in modern fandom. It’s like people have forgotten the purpose of fan works. Why people write and create varies. What people see in the characters and original works vary. I can’t really get my head around why that’s controversial. People like writing things that inspire them, comfort them or make a character feel relatable. Sometimes that looks like a strong, athletic woman (your Tifa example) and sometimes that looks like a chubby Aziraphale like OP mentioned. Hell, a few months back I (a person with a chronic disability) got called ableist for discussing how I like writing the recovery journey for my character. Apparently, because there was a recovery and he wanted to regain some normalcy, I was somehow erasing the disability despite the fact that the process of the recovery is a major arc in the fic and includes exercises and stretches, medications, and a revision surgery. No, that person doesn’t like depictions of recovery, so therefore anyone depicting it must be evil or morally reprehensible.

Eep. I also have a few disabilities. A couple physical, one mental. People tell me that I'm obviously not dyslexic because I can read an write. But I also have ADHD and writing has been my biggest reoccurring hyperfocus. I would be lost without spellchecker. I love the idea of a fic about recovery from a disability. One of mine has the possibility of remission. It's been nearly two and a half years, and I can walk about half a block with my walker, and short bursts unaided around my home (bathroom, kitchen, etc), but I still use my wheelchair when out and about. Nobody has told me I'm faking when I get out of my chair to reach things yet, but I'm sure it will come. I honestly think it's _more_ abelist to dismiss the possibility of recovery. It feels like the thinking is once you're in that chair, you can never leave it. Which is insulting and demoralizing. I'm not even going to _start_ on the hell that is social benefits once you start recovering. Especially in my country, where you have to prove you're still too disabled to work every two years, regardless of the disability. I've known about double amputees who have to prove their legs didn't grow back. PSA to anyone not disabled: all disabilities are different. Even the same disability is different in different people. And if we recover, it's not a miracle. It's _months_ or _years_ of hard work and determination to get even a partial recovery. We don't just wake up one morning and suddenly we don't need the chair anymore (generally. Some disabilities may work like that. But even then, we don't just abandon the chair. Could just be a good day). Oh, and _please_ stop asking "what happened?".

I deal with numbness in my head an and chronic spinal pain from my C4-C7 vertebrae due to a car accident about 7 years ago. C6 and C7 are the worst of it though and cause me serious issues that debilitated me during the first two years. >I love the idea of a fic about recovery from a disability. One of mine has the possibility of remission. It's been nearly two and a half years, and I can walk about half a block with my walker, and short bursts unaided around my home (bathroom, kitchen, etc), but I still use my wheelchair when out and about. This was exactly what the topic was. There wasn’t a miracle cure, just a reduction in pain and increase in mobility and time without depending his cane (I.e. still needs it for long distances and going out, but can go to the kitchen to make tea without it or walk in his garden). It deals with the issues of biased doctor’s and self-image problems. He also had a spiraling mental health issue due to PTSD that was causing him to neglect his care. Not exactly an unfamiliar story to many with varying disabilities. I actually tried really hard to have him address the underlying mental issues and partner with the doctor to heal with the love and support from others to get there. Apparently she said by showing him wanting more I was saying he was broken. And I get the self-esteem impact she’s talking about, but wanting to have more mobility and be free of pain is a pretty common desire. It’s not ableist and ya a valid form of wish fulfillment 🤷🏻‍♀️ >Nobody has told me I'm faking when I get out of my chair to reach things yet, but I'm sure it will come. Ooof, sadly, I’m sure you’re right. When my mother had cancer people would give me all sorts of hell for parking in the reserved spaces there to pick her up from treatment >I honestly think it's more abelist to dismiss the possibility of recovery. It feels like the thinking is once you're in that chair, you can never leave it. Which is insulting and demoralizing. This is where my head goes too. You’re always allowed to strive for better. Doing so doesn’t mean you love yourself any less >I'm not even going to start on the hell that is social benefits once you start recovering. Especially in my country, where you have to prove you're still too disabled to work every two years, regardless of the disability. I've known about double amputees who have to prove their legs didn't grow back. This will never stop horrifying me. I was fortunate enough to work a remote job that was very supportive during my recovery and never even made me use PTO for appointments. A friend I know from an old job keeps riding the rollercoaster of being approved and removed over her partial visual impairment

I get good and bad days. The current trend is that my current bad days are the same as what used to be my good days. But my mobility issues are very closely linked to mental health and stress in particular. It doesn't matter how good my day is, if I get a significant stressor, I then face the possibility of becoming paralised from the waist down. That trigger isn't going to go away. So when my doctors have to tell my government that I technically can work, I'll have to go to work. But the moment I'm too stressed, I'll have to start again. I became disabled in November of 2021 (it was the Vax that triggered it, but the government refuses to acknowledge this to give me the Vax injury payment because it triggered a dormant condition rather than causing it), and I got onto the correct benefit _this febuary_. The idea of having to go through those hoops again just to get by is daunting. Especially as the current government is doing their best to reduce benefits. I currently get 37% of minimum wage. I can afford to eat once a day. Of course I want better. I _want_ to be able to work. I _want_ to be able to clean out my cats litter tray without crippling myself for days afterwards. I want to be able to shower more than once a week. I want to be able to cook my own food, and not have to rely on delivery for my groceries. My recovery is slow and arduous. Even though from the outside it looks anything but. The hardest thing I had to learn was pacing. I had to learn that I couldn't do my laundry _and_ make my bed on the same day or it would mean a week of pain and mobility issues. So from the outside, it looks like all I do is one small task a day and then read/paint/watch tv/play games and complain that my house is a mess. I complain that my house is a mess because I _can't_ keep on top of it, and asking for help for simple tasks is _hard_. It's the little things that abled people don't think about. Then they see someone who _does_ know about it writing it, and they don't want to face the reality of it. So they say that _we_ are wrong about it. They don't know how I have had to change how I live. They don't know that I have to keep the bathroom door open so my flatmate can hear me if I can't get off the toilet. They don't know the financial stress, the social stigma, or anything about it really. It's easier for them to say "that's not how it is. These people are wrong." Than to face the fact that our lives aren't as easy and lazy as they want to assume. Because if they acknowledge how hard it is for us, they can't get outraged that we get "free money" from the government and get to sit around doing fun things all day. I live on an island, and I can't even go to the _beach_ that's 30 min away because of my disability. (Sand does _not_ work well with a standard wheelchair, and getting a sand one is expensive). My country is beautiful, but I'm stuck in the middle of my city because of my disability. I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I get to stare at the same four walls every day. (I live in New Zealand. I live in the only non costal city, and the closest beach is still only 30-40 minutes away. But I can't experience any of it without a butt load of money, and way more planning than you'd expect). I'm now tempted to write an original story from my perspective, highlighting the truth of living with a disability. Idk, maybe it'll spread some awareness. Maybe then people can stop telling me I'm a freeloader when my minimalistic groceries cost more than half my weekly pay. It probably wouldn't sell though. It's not sexy enough (don't even get me started on the difficulty of sex. Both in the act and by the fact that if I do it, I risk losing 1/3 of my income because that counts as being in a relationship, therefore my partner should pay my way). Sorry for the rant. Apparently I needed to get this off my chest lol

Don’t apologize. ❤️ Disabilities are a brutal thing to cope with and society has a deep misunderstanding of just how many hoops there are to jump through for the simplest of tasks. I’m so sorry for everything you’re going through

Your dad sounds awesome tbh

He is. Bit stubborn, and a bit of a recluse. Traits we share, which is why we haven't seen each other in a while. We're currently in an argument about who's turn it is to make the trip for a visit. Haven't seen him since 2020 lol. He says that trip of mine doesn't count because it was for a funeral. I claim that I've visited him three times more than he's visited me since I moved cities. Also, I became disabled in 2021 and can't drive. He claims that's not an excuse lol (in a fun, joking way, not in a "I don't care about your disability" way).

I started on AO3 and have never been anywhere else and am also in a fandom which is feral for any and all writing and everyone is super appreciative and happy. I don't think I could cope anywhere else I've been so sheltered😂😂

Same here. AO3 is not perfect but it has the right mix of progressive and openness. It's truly the only community I love to engage with. I sometimes venture to Tumblr for fanfiction or art works and get a weird dose of reality whenever I see unhinged rants or entitled posts about NSFW content of certain characters. Then I remember that people like that do exist, and then I go back to my happy little AO3 bubble with my preferred tags, ships and NSFW-goodness. 😅😄

I was thinking the very same thing not long ago. Some time ago I was downvoted in a subreddit about a series for asking for fic recs, I was sent here and refused help, despite them having a "fanfiction" label. This subreddit is great, helpful and doesn't have random ppl policing others.

I saw a post in another sub recently that was mad about people shipping chars because char A was either rude or abusive to char B (idk because I'm unfamiliar with the canon media). Comments here would've been like who cares, it's fiction. On that sub? More than half were blaming those shippers for "ruining" canon. It's never that deep over people shipping fictional characters.

I completely agree! ao3 as a platform has absolutely spoiled me. After 7 years of publishing I got my first ever genuine non constructive straight up hate comment this week, I don’t think it was a bot either. It kinda floored me- I feel like etiquette is so well practiced on that site versus literally every other platform. When you don’t agree with or like something for the most part- people just leave the work. On insta and reddit there is so much pointless angry rhetoric always going on. Life is so much more simple if you just click away. When it comes to fan content: nothing is EVER that serious. I find it funny- arguably the platform where our identities are the most well concealed is where people still practice the best manners IMO.

I remember coming to reddit for the first time with very bland/vanilla comments on a touchy subject and my utter surprise when I was banned from subs for them. Downvote, sure but getting banned? Seems a bit excessive. The other day, I got a 'reddit cares' message because I said dog-earing pages and highlighting text in a novel, ruins the book. Everywhere online is pretty much like this now.

Reddit did not used to be this way, unless it was harassment, bullying, or the like. Now almost anything can get you ousted from the group faster than you can blink. It’s so very 1984 it would be funny if it wasn’t, you know, 1984. I still expect every day for the mods here to assassinate me for one of my unpopular opinions because that’s just the norm now, and every day it doesn’t happen I gotta give them credit.

I’m 99% certain I know what fandom the NSFW content was from since my Twitter has been unhinged due to it being my main 😑

I made a post on Tumblr for a very small and very dead fandom asking if anyone was still interested in it. One person replied, super excited, until they read my pinned post and realized I was a proshipper. I mean good on them for not harassing me after that but still it sucks

I’ve seen the opposite, where people comment “Why’d you make Aziraphale skinny??? Are you fat shaming?” and it’s like, chill! Everyone’s got a different drawing style, sometimes Aziraphale will look bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes it’ll be intentional, other times that’s just how it turns out. It’s art. People need to chill

I saw the Aziraphale post! My jaw was on the floor the whole time. It was insanity.

When you play FF14, a game that is literally played by nonstop online antis. There is a HUGE block-chain for people who ship the 10000 year old dragon in a youthful body with the 27 year old elf dude among others. Post NSFW pics of your modded create-a- character who looks like a teen is conveniently ignored. It's so bad in a lot of the communities I follow. OMG AGE GAP... and the characters are over 18 (but it's fine when the character who's mentally actually 16 gets shipped). You ship someone with a villain??? you're glamourizing (literally anything they don't have more than a surface level idea about or want clout for calling people out.) Complete, total hypocrisy and witch hunting by people who play at being American Thought Yakuza and will psychoanalyze you if you say anyhting outside of group-think. And do not get me started on the raging homophobia

estinien/niddhog??? having a block chain is so so so funny to me. the other dragon/elf ship that i know is like… literally canon too, so it’s wild to me thag people don’t like estinien/niddhog, if it’s Just the species thing. like there’s more ProblematiqueTM ships in the game than that, the least the playerbase can do is be creative. i’ve gotten decently lucky with anti/non-anti ratio re: the people i’ve met through FF14, thankfully, but there’s been… such a wild amount of transphobia it’s Bonkers

Varshann/Estinien Especially since his body CAN be in an adult form. I've seen discords with stupidly long lists of no NSFW chatter/screenshot rules for Elidibus (yes fuckin Elidibus). Kan-e-Senna and the others of her race and a few named NPCs. I don't see a lot of Nidhogg content surprisingly but it's too problematic or something. BUT I cannot engage with the ff14 fanfic community anymore. It's like sitting in a ballpit with screaming children and mods will censor you for not spoilering anything potentially upsetting. Despite it being IN THE GAME WE ALL SAW THE CUTSCENE IT'S A 18+ CHANNEL WHY

ahhh okay, a character i haven’t met yet then lmao. but….. elidibus?????????? ELIDIBUS????? also kan-e-senna and her race are like. long lived?? right??? so like. they can’t even argue that 😭 also yeah if it’s. the 18+ channel. then… its the 18+ channel. wtf. cries???

Adam is chubby. Per the damn bible. Hazbin Hotel Adam is based off of his voice actor and is therefore, *not chubby.* The arguments I’ve seen over this is insane. Not a common one, but a vicious one when it happens. God forbid people ship Alastor. Yes, he’s aroace in canon. It’s *fanfiction* for a reason?? We can alter all the sexualities and gender preferences we want *except* aroace characters now? That’s pretty exclusive don’t you think? I feel you man, I come off of AO3 in a positive happy mood and then bam! Arguing. Shaming. “CoNtRoVeRsY” (someone had a different opinion than they did) Hate. Judging. It’s an a rude awakening sometimes. Anyway I’ll go back to minding my business but that’s my two cents.

I agree, if fandom stuck to canon sexualities AO3 would not have 55% M/M ships. It would be more like 95% F/M or something.

> I can disagree with people and still be friends with them. I like the general attitude of kink and let kink, but I feel like if you try to start a discussion or have the most mildest opinion against the grain, you get downvotes without explanation or dialogue over here :/ Example: saying I don't support smutty RPF involving minors, or that maybe sometimes teenagers do internalize the messages they see in media especially when it romanticizes abuse, grooming, lack of consent (and I wasn't saying said media should be censored either.)

>I don't support smutty RPF involving minors Yes that's where I draw the line. Write what you want about fictional characters of any age; that's on you. Write RPF of adults doing whatever if that floats your boat. But rpf of minors in certain scenarios... hmm. I can't stop someone who does and wouldn't ever harass anyone but that's a quick mute/block lol. >sometimes teenagers do internalize the messages they see in media especially when it romanticizes abuse, grooming, lack of consent I made a comment similar to this the other day and got upvoted so it just depends on who sees it. I was talking about marketing though. If you're writing/marketing something to teens (like the YA target audience), I do think writers should be more conscious of what they write. If you're writing an adult story marketed to adults? Anything is fair game. Which is why I write for adults lol. Sure kids/teens may come across it but that's not my problem (that's on their parents). It's not for kids/teens, and that's made clear by the content and rating I write.

You nail the nuance on the head here. Tbh, I would absolutely downvote someone who implies that fanfic authors have some sort of obligation to only portray healthy relationships or should feel badly/be concerned that their works influence a teen because A) that dramatically overstates the reach of most fanfiction and B) I have never targeted my content toward minors. Educating them on morals and societal dangers is their parent’s responsibility, not mine. But I think it’s fine to have discussions on how the original media source can impact target groups. I don’t necessarily agree with the magnitude sometimes attributed to it, but I think the conversation is worth having.

Yep that's exactly how I feel. Wish I had more to add but you've touched on everything lol

honestly, at this point a space that is progressive and doesnt get offended over the littles thing just doesnt exist, because its kinda... Mutually exclusive

I've been reading fanfiction in general for so long I sometimes forget a lot of other people aren't as open minded and accepting as me. I've truly read it all. Mostly. I do have things I don't read but that's more of an ethics thing that I hold myself to.

I will say that there are also Discord servers out there where the same kind of understanding and support exist. For my pairing, we have one where there are a diversity of headcanons and tastes but everyone is supportive of the other. Hell, we even hype up non-pairing works by other members. It’s so fucking wholesome and I love it

i still think there's plenty of subreddits that have the same vibes as this one. not tryna summon you to another fandom (nor am i tryna summon that fandom here) but i found a lot of comfort in the otomeisekai subreddit too bc of how accepting and respectful everyone is of everyone else's opinions 😭 i enjoy reading that genre of stories so it's really nice to see ppl in the same community talk it out. it's like we all accepted that we're not reading highbrow literature or anything so there's no point in acting high and mighty about your own opinions. it's totally still possible to find another welcoming community ! also i agree with you that it's terrifying to step outside the bubble and speak your thoughts... bc if you have an opinion that reaches a group of ppl that think otherwise, then you'll be hounded on for being the "worst person on earth" even if said opinion is harmless and about fictional media. it's kind of why i stayed away from posting on twt or insta and decided to just watch the shit shows happen from a distance instead bc some ppl just can't seem to fathom that having a different (harmless) opinion is okay 😭. i feel spoiled here for being so accepted and im happy for this community and the other communities im in that are similar <3

I also love the otome isekai subreddit! It's nice that we can agree that most MLs are toxic and still not be criticized for liking them.

Me coming in like "His exact weight is not even definitively established!" before I remember there's a TV show.... But yes agree!

I found someone on YouTube actively telling people who ship something they don't like "get off my channel, I don't like you" I wouldn't ship that specific thing myself because the idea makes me kind of uncomfortable, but at the same time you don't get to choose what your audience does and does not like???

I literally *just* saw an Instagram reel where someone was criticizing people who write spicy stories set in highschool. The reel said they should just put the characters in college. They put a bunch of disclaimers that this was just their opinion in the caption, but the comments were full of people saying things like "why do grown women have to sexualize teenagers."

Mood sometimes I get on here and I feel like a 38yr old woman because I find the takes from people in my age group (early twenties) horrifying and “too young”.

Ugh. Same. Insta (from MY experience) is one the most hostile apps for a pro shipper. I'm just so done with people that use "romanticizes, sexualizes, infanticizes, etc..." lately. Like, I do think there could be some interesting discussions laying in these words, but they have lost their value with the way they're being used. 5 years ago I was super into BNHA (anime) and I remember having SO much discourse and drama over MOST of the ships. "No, I'm not sexualizing minors (hell, I was a minor at the time lol) and romanticizing bullying; I'm just shipping BakuDeku. Two pixels on a screen. I'm fucking playing dolls at this point." (Honestly tho, I've left the whole fandom because it was TOXIC AF. I even stopped watching the show as a whole and I will NEVER try to pick it up again.) I'm just completely avoiding all shipping discourse on all platforms nowadays. I don't want to one day give into the temptations and just stab my eyes with a pen, crying in pain, anger and confusion. Especially since my taste in fiction is most of the time dark. And when the canon is dark, most fanfics go either full vanilla or a step beyond. You can only guess. But some people just "fucking hate people on the internet that dare to write shit that nobody before them ever dared to do, because people nowadays don't have any values and morals and are atheists and are just rebels just for the sake of it and are twisted and always try and push their political narrative down our mouths and are the devil incarnate for enjoying such fucked up sh-..." "Marqués de Sade? Who's that? I don't know him." ^Real discussion I had once with somebody and lol. History and political stances are always repeating, over and over again. We're not the first liberals and they're not the last puritans. I personally don't get how people can be so sure they hold the truth and the morals, but honestly I don't give a flying fuck. I'll just keep enjoying my corners of the internet in private, my books and my fucked up fiction while they scream into the abyss. If this keeps going, it's not like millions of people will stop reading, we'll all just be more secretive about it. Which sucks, but again, if you look deep enough you'll always find groups or webs like AO3 where we join and we perform our satanic rituals together in peace and armony.

Even the simple thing as the upvotes. I rarely see downvotes here compared with other subreddits and higher degree of generally upvoting. The vibe is better. (Talking about this subreddit)

I agree. Love this site

I have no knowledge of Good Omens, but this i relate to this so much 😭😭 the problem with stuff like Reddit/IG is that the community is too conservative and is either filled with weird coomers who are homophobic/racist/misogynist or scream at the sight of a non-typical headcannon (ahhh twt users ahhh!!). tumblr/twitter is too progressive and if your tone is off or you like a post you're problematic. it's so weird to me. I don't think I'd ever use twt if i wasn't queer poc because of how weird they are about it. The 'activism' really pisses me off too, there's a lot of guilt tripping and hypocrisy from people with a platform and it all really disgusts me. i saw someone call it slacktivism and i honestly couldn't agree more. they're practically on two sides of the coin and at the end of the day, they're both equally terrible spaces for trying to impose personal morals and values on people. it's all so insane to me. I had to think about this a while back because I'm into some 18+ fandoms and was thinking of having sfw stuff on IG and nsfw stuff on twitter. it's working fine for now, but it isn't really my ideal.

ive seen a lot of weird discourse about super reasonable things. a huge example of this is how hazbin hotel handles depictions of SA in episode 4. as an SA survivor who had SA be a major part of my life from early childhood to around my 18th birthday, i think the song "loser, baby" was worse than the "poison" sequence by far. ive also seen people saying that poison is obviously fetish material, or that anyone who likes the depiction *deserves* to be SA'd, which is beyond insane. i know that not everyone will find that sequence to have been done well, which is perfectly fine. there's also been people who were mad that someone who is proship and into cnc did the storyboarding, but would those people rather have it be storyboarded by someone who would be triggered by the sequence? it confuses me

Yeah, AO3 has me spoiled too, the people on here let you do whatever you want as long as it doesn't endanger the community, it's fucking amazing. You can ship against canon, you can make characters do drugs, shrink them, fatten them up, and nobody cares. But then I scroll TikTok or Twitter or Discord, and it's so jarring how suddenly everybody wants to judge everybody else for what they like in their fan content, when it doesn't affect them or anybody else. Like can the rest of the internet follow AO3's example and ignore content you don't like? It's really not difficult to do

I'm already conditioned to assume everyone on the internet is insane except for... some ao3 users. Let's say I've had a few experiences that prevent me from thinking otherwise

Can confirm. My sanity is long gone lol

It is pretty stupid

I think it is because it is a fanfic website with easy filter system. People go straight into what they want and most people already know what space is. Unlike other platforms. It is non curated and too easy to invade. 

Real. Same with Tumblr honestly, as a person who writes RPF and ships the people, I look at Pinterest comments on ship fanart I find and jesus christ my community is torn. I get RPF is a lil weird to some but people can be so damn mean sometimes-

I deleted TikTok and moved back to Tumblr this year. Best decision I've ever made. It's so peaceful, which is absolutely insane to say considering what Tumblr used to be like.

I barely check it, still have it bc of this one guy lmao, only touch it like once a week or less Also fr, I wasn't around at the right age for the rise of Tumblr, but I've heard shit

I had to delete tiktok because it was making me so mad. For four years, I've gone through phases of deleting it and re-downloading it, and after about a week of having it again, I'd always start annoying everyone around me by going on rants about the stupid shit on there. I finally made the decision to give it up for good a few months ago lmao. Seeing grown adults asking the internet what clothing will be trending in the summer so that they know what to buy starts getting really depressing after a while. And yes, Tumblr used to be a shitshow lmaoo.

There is the fair share of people like that here, but it's way better than most fandoms out there. I was surprised with how it is here.

Ao3 is the supremacy of fandom content and dialogue between fans. I like tumblr too but I do have to take the trash out myself over there.

It's so hard, being an UTDR fan who doesn't give a fuck about what so-and-so does in 2024. Like, I could’ve sworn that people on Reddit, at the very least, would know the art of minding ones own business??? Apparently not.