I'm gonna say it.
It's unhinged to assume that someone's taste in fiction equates to what they believe is moral or good, or is something they want to see or experience in real life.
That is a bonkers assumption to make.
I'm tired of humoring people with long arguments about it when the simple fact is it is a totally fucking absurd reach to accuse someone who enjoys something in fiction of being in favor of it in real life.
I'm tired of pretending like this is a legitimate position to hold-- that they should be afraid of fiction's dire influence on a reader's moral decay or that it's a sign of what the author secretly wants for realsies in real life.
Saying “this niche, properly tagged, warned, and rated piece of fiction could theoretically hurt someone” is not a good argument. This properly labeled cookie with the allergen information at the bottom that contains gluten could theoretically harm me very badly, but only if I consume it. Tags are like nutrition labels, and warnings are like allergy information. If you know you have an allergy to something, the logic is to stay away from it. It is the same with fiction. I’m not running through stores yelling at people to take all the products with gluten off the shelves just because it could hurt me. Instead I ignore it and go to the gluten free section and find cookies that are right for me. And if running through a grocery store yelling sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Stop doing the same with fiction.
I hate you shipping discourse I hate you unnecessarily aggressive DNI banners I hate you dehumanization of those you disagree with I hate you harassment over ships or favorite characters I hate you purposeful lack of nuance I hate you false equivalencies I hate you policing how people engage in fandom I hate you actively trying to make fandom spaces hostile I hate you refusal to filter your feed I hate you making it everyone else’s problem
🎼 You would not believe your eyes, if 10 million fireflies ended up in the header of your AO3. 🎶
It's been a while since I tried glow effects, but I saw the fireflies and I couldn't resist.
CSS code and instructions for adding a skin to your account can be found posted on AO3 here.
the origins of the “what are you two FUCKING talking about??” meme is almost funnier then the meme itself
you gotta be able to say "die"
you gotta be able to say "suicide"
you gotta be able to talk about "sex"
they're uncomfortable topics, YEAH for SURE
because LIFE is uncomfortable. Death and suicide and sex and pain are straight up going to happen. not having words for the way it discomforts you doesn't make it more comfortable, it just makes you less able to reach out about it.
even more vital, you gotta be able to say words like "rape", "abuse", "queer" or "racist". cause we fought fucking hard to name those experiences. to identify "rape" as distinct from "sex" and "racism" as distinct from "acceptable behaviour" and "queer" as distinct from "invert"
like the function of communication is not to minimise immediate discomfort. we gotta be able to talk about stuff that's hard or sucks or causes difficult conversations.
You want more minority representation in media but if they have flaws its problematic and if theyre perfect theyre a patronizing mary sue. If they crack under the pressure of the conflict the author thinks that minority is weak and if they overcome the adversity they must be a neoliberal bootlicker who thinks real world bigotry is a matter of personal attitude. You want minority characters but if theyre a villain its violently problematic and if theyre the protagonist then we circle back to the very first sentence. If theyre a side character theyre being sidelined and the author is once again bigoted, and don't you know that every single minority character death is unilaterally bigoted, without exception? You want more minority characters but if their identity is a big part of their personality or struggles then they're problematic and if their identity has nothing to do with their personality or struggles then the author is tokenizing that identity for clout. You want more minority characters but every time theres a minority character who doesnt have every single experience that you have then you tell the author to kill themselves on twitter. You wonder why not even minority authors will write minority characters.
I would ask you to read Catch-22, but you'd just call the military base problematic.
They discovered a neat hack. It lets them accuse people of a crime so bad that reasonable people are reluctant to try to defend the accused. It also allows them to imagine the most extreme punishments on the accused. Also, the emotional response of revulsion makes you easy to be manipulated by people who want you to focus your energy on whatever you're disgusted by, whether real or not.
It also means they never have to question the morality of their behavior since the "them" they are targeting are so depraved it justifies almost any actions to stop them.
From a post on reddit about why certain people "are obsessed with pedos". I felt this was relevant here.
The original context was in relation to Q anon, but it's the exact same behavior that we see from antishippers.