#i also think a certain subset of adults needs to be okay with kids being loud in public

[nofucknway135]

Not to sound weird, but I think we as a society started going downhill when less kids got to go outside and Scream

[redrobin-detective]

The Young, the Old and the Insane

@traya-sutton I FINALLY DID IT. I’ve had that opening paragraph in my head since the day we kicked this idea around and it was so refreshing to finally get it down. Uh but Isolation AU where all the sidekicks know about Bats bc Robin wants friends.

There are three categories of people who know for certain that the Gotham City Batman exists. The young children in their paper masks who look up at the sky and believe that the man dressed as a bat could save the day. The older generation who’ve been around the block and have noticed a marked change in crime since the supposed Batman appeared. And of course the costumed criminals of Gotham who are regularly foiled by the city’s silent avengers. But there is another subset who knew about Batman who fell under the first category or maybe the third and those are the young sidekicks of Justice League heroes.

If asked about the mysterious Batman, they would laugh, “Batman, as if, everyone knows he isn’t real.” But there’d be a certain quirk to their smile, a hidden joke that only they know the punchline to. For perhaps they know the Bat Man and his associates better than even the citizens of Gotham. You could say that a little bird told them all about the mysterious hero.

“You said your name was Robin?” Speedy asked with a raised eyebrow as he observed the costumed kid eating their cereal, perched precariously on the back of the couch. He should be more angry this weird kid broke into their secret hideout but he’s more annoyed than anything given his story. “And you work with Batman, that made-up vigilante.”

“He’s not made-up, you’re just not immune to GCPD’s propaganda and B’s intense paranoia,” Robin quipped, Aqualad snorted into his fist and Speedy crossed his arms in annoyance.

“Okay, so Batman is real. That’s kind of a big deal, so why are here talking to us and not presenting before the League,” Wonder Girl asked, still standing slightly in front of her team in case this newcomer proved dangerous. 

“Because I’ve been at this for a good while, at least twice as long as you guys, and I know a thing or two about the so called Justice League. I know they don’t respect human heroes and delegate them mostly to monitor duty,” Robin said making eye contact with Speedy who looked down. “I know they treat young heroes, metas even, with kid gloves and don’t involve them in anything meaningful,” he continued looking over at Kid Flash and Aqualad. “And I know they won’t believe in the good work me and Batman do because we don’t fit the idea of what a hero should be.” 

“And so you’re here why?” Donna asked again only she couldn’t stop the small smile from appearing on her face.

“Because I got mad at B and realized it’s probably not healthy to brood in a cave all the time and decided to find some friends,” He tilted his head in a teasing manner. “Unless you’re gonna tell on me to which I’ll be long gone before the League catches sight of my cape.”

“Pretty confident in yourself huh shorty,” Wally grinned, leaning a bit over the back of the sofa by the other hero. 

“There’s a reason no one knows about us, Wallace,” Rob teased back and in the complete disarray that followed that revelation, Donna decided that their little ragtag team created out of boredom and frustration with the League’s tedium had finally become complete. 

(In the weeks and months and years that followed and the adults questioned the overwhelming success of the Teen Titans, the four heroes merely bowed their heads and credited their mentors for doing such a good job teaching them. And of course that played a part plus it was better than mentioning their on again, off again secret member who organized the Team better than even the League.)

((No one would believe them anyway if they said anything.))

XxX

“I think you should talk to your dad,” Captain Marvel said, awkwardly handling his game controller in his unnaturally large adult hands. Video games weren’t strictly allowed in League Headquarters but the group was constantly in a state of loose, unorganized chaos so he doubted anyone would notice or care. Least of all his companion.

“He’s not my dad,” Robin muttered, hunching over his controller, trying to overtake the magical hero’s Kirby with his Waluigi. 

“You’re here complaining he’s being too over-protective, sorry if I’m not buying what you’re selling,” Marvel said with a wry grin. Rob brought out Billy in Cap more than anyone else, made him feel like less of an impostor in a too big suit.

“I just needed to get out ya know? Get away from Gotham and all the pressure to live up to this impossible standard,” Robin continued, flinging his controller a bit as if that would save him from running off the road. He cursed as he tried to right himself.

“Then go hang out with the Titans,” Marvel said, his passive tone at odds with the full body wiggle he did as he cemented his lead and sped closer to the finish line. 

“Those are Golden Boy’s buds and I do not need any more of his hand-me-downs,” Robin said. “Sides they’re all older, there aren’t many heroes around our age. You should convince the League to recruit more sidekicks.”

“Right, I’ll tell Superman that they need to find some more kids between the ages of 12 and 16 to be sidekicks because Robin, Batman’s partner also probably Mothman’s lovechild or something, wants more friends,” Marvel teased even as he threw his hands up in victory when he came in first.

“You suck,” Robin laughed, watching as Waluigi rolled in 4th. “And I don’t need more friends, I got you Bill. If only you’d stop using your magic mumbo to cheat at Mario Kart.” 

“It’s not cheating if I play against someone who doesn’t exist,” Marvel retorted, looking over at his best friend. They didn’t meet up nearly often as he liked, only when Rob was able to escape Batman’s attentive eye but every time was a small treasure. “And believe me, you’re more than living up to your big brother. Pretty sure Robin I never dared to break into League headquarters to play video games. You’re an amazing hero, I wish I could work with you in the daytime.”

“Yeah, me too,” A device on Rob’s hip beeped. “Looks like our time’s up, a couple of Lanterns are on the floor which means I’m out. Stay safe out there, Bill.”

“You too Robin,” the Captain said, closing his eyes excitedly for a few seconds and opening them to find his friend vanished. Man that never stopped being super cool. Mr. Jordan and Stewart appeared through the double doors a minute later. 

“Jeez, playing video games by yourself, Cap? Talk about depressing, invite one of us next time,” Hal commented as he walked by.

“I wasn’t alone, Batman’s son was keeping me company,” Marvel shrugged as he put the controllers away.

“Right and Bigfoot sold me a bridge in San Francisco, seriously, get another joke man. The Batman ones are getting old.”

(Eight months later, Captain Marvel went missing for several days. When he finally showed up, he had the most heart-breaking somber expression on his face. “A good friend died,” was all he would say. ‘We’re sorry to hear,’ the League said, ‘was it someone we knew?” And for some reason that made him sadder.)

XxX

“Thanks for coming out Rob, we really needed your big brain on this one,” Wonder Girl said, wiping her brow and surveying the damage from the difficult battle. 

“I’d say no problem but you guys can’t keep calling me on such short notice, Batman’s gonna wonder how many last minute science projects they can give me in a semester,” the Boy Wonder sighed, reorganizing his utility belt.

“Oh you stickler, you always say that and you always come running,” she fluttered her eyelids, “especially when Kon is in danger, then you’re almost as fast as Bart.” 

“Of course he’s my friend,” Robin muttered, fiddling with his gloves to avoid looking at her. 

“The Justice League aren’t the only ones in denial, Robbie,” she teased, before looking back on the horizon. “Man we kicked so much butt today, I know why all the secrecy we’d be so much better if we had you with Young Justice full time and didn’t always have to worry about photos and stuff.”

“I know Cassie,” Rob said, hunching his shoulders and turning away from her further. “I get why B does what he does but we do good work, the Titans did good work when they had their Robin with them. Batman is so organized, so disciplined, he would bring so much to the Justice League which acts more like a club than an actual hero institution.” 

“You know, you could just, come out. None of you have to stay hidden, everyone knows about heroes now,” Cassie explained weakly but even she could see the flaws in the plan.

“We’ve talked about it,” Robin, Tim, sighed. “But B is pretty set in his ways and, well, the League is pretty clear on what it thinks of human heroes.”

“You don’t have to tell them, I thought you were a meta for months after you showed up,” Bart said, speeding up to them suddenly. “Not that you’re not super wicked kick-ass as a normal person but it might work.”

“If we’re coming out, we’re coming all the way out, I lie enough in my day job,” he pouted, turning back to Bart. “Weren’t you transporting the civilians out?”

“Done but also Wally texted me that the JLA is almost here and you need to skedaddle.” Robin cursed and grabbed the rest of his gear off the ground, sprinting towards his bike. 

“Jeez thanks for the warning! You keep them busy, my armor isn’t perfect and people like Superman and the Manhunter would be able to pick me out if they were looking,” Rob said in a rush. “See you later and please don’t call suddenly like that.”

“It’s the only way we see you, Kon gets lonely you know,” Bart grinned, waggling his eyebrows but Robin had already zipped off. 

“So what are we going to tell them this time?” Bart asked Cassie.

“Oh whatever we want, anything’s more believable than one of The Bats showing up to save the day.”

(The League, as always, heaped praises on them for their good work. They merely smiled that strange little secret smile the kids sometimes wore. The same smile the Teen Titans had and still did now. The smile Captain Marvel hid behind his mighty fist. A secret right in front of their nose but never seen.)

XxX

Batman was real, he’d always been real. A human man and his human associates had kept the worst of Gotham at bay with their wit and their tools. It was unimaginable, it was absurd, nobody could have possibly could have known.

“Batman?” The kids say with that secret little smile. “You could have just asked us.” 

[janiedean]

Hi Janie! So, I admit to a bit of ignorance pertaining the whole “anti”-debacle. I’ve seen anti and anti-anti posts that say the same thing, sometimes it’s about morally offensive things, sometimes about completely unrelated stuff and I can’t make heads nor tails of it, especially since there isn’t really a wealth of actual information? Just rants... *sigh* If it’s possible, do you think you could explain what the problem is? (Does that need to be in plural?) and the „sides“? Thank you! ❤️

anon you asked the question of the century I’m afraid X°D THAT SAID let’s... see if I can make this understandable.

so: the anti debate is... pretty much tied to the whole ‘politics in fandom discourse’ and you can’t separate the two of them sadly. of course I come from the not anti side of fandom so what do I know. anyway, premise:

what happened is that in the last two/three years, whether we liked it or not, the debate in fandom has moved from ‘my ship is better than yours’ to ‘my ship is better than yours because it’s more progressive/woke’, which has gone hand in hand with the political fandom views of any media product, ie ‘you can’t watch that because it lacks representation’ or ‘that show is crap because it’s not woke enough or doesn’t treat that topic well’ and so on, and with a tendency to think that if you ship anything you want it to be canon because it only is worth anything if it becomes such (which imo is bullshit but never mind);

this has moved on to also judging people based on their ships, as in: ‘ship X is wrong because it’s problematic for X reason therefore if you ship it you support X irl and you’re problematic and you need to be stopped’. such as ‘thor/loki is wrong because it’s incest so if you ship thor/loki you’re okay with incest irl and you want to bang your siblings if you have any’, which is a ridiculous notion but this goes also hand in hand with the fact that people have suddenly decided to trash all the psychology that confirmed how violent videogames don’t influence reality and now think that liking something problematic influences you irl because they don’t grasp the difference between fandom and mass-media consumption of a mass-media product;

they also don’t grasp the concept of catharsis through media nor of the really basic concept that most normal people who see themselves in fiction don’t take the entire package but relate to specific things;

keeping THAT in mind:

the whole ‘anti’ thing, as ‘people being opposed to a ship or a trend’ is basically people saying that you cannot ship a thing or be into a problematic character or kink because it says something about you and not about your fictional preferences and actively go around being assholes to people who ship the thing while at the same time gatekeeping/policing their own ships which are of course Purer Than The Others and bringing politics into it, too;

this also goes with a frankly problematic (AND I’M USING THE WORD NON-IRONICALLY) attitude that those people have of equating age gaps with pedophilia always and considering children people older than thirteen/fourteen, which automatically makes them think of people who ship age gaps even in between adults pedophiles (I kid you not a friend who’s over thirty in a rship with a person fifteen years older got told that their rship was pedophilia because their partner was an adult when they were a child at some point in their lives. I mean, IMAGINE THAT.);

to give the to-go example these days because it’s sadly the worst: sw sequel trilogy fandom. rey/kylo has been targeted by antis as the to-go Most Problematic Ship because in order:a) enemies to lovers as a trope which is of course abusive if the good side is a woman (more on that later) b) both are white (so it’s racist to not ship her with the non-white people in the light side *roll eyes*)c) they have a ten years age gap (so it’s pedophilia even if rey’s of age and she kicked his ass more than once)d) he’s not technically good looking so it sets people’s worst instincts offe) these people don’t buy into the fact that people can be redeemed so they decided he’s absolutely Not Redeemable and so onf) it’s an m/f couplenow, rey/lo is admittedly a fairly tame ship as far as problematic goes - it’s honestly your typical enemies to friends to lovers trope that’s been in media since the beginning of time, but according to these ppl it’s The Worst and if you dare being into it you must be a pedophile, racist, misogynist (or internalized misogynist), straight person (because of course only straight ppl ship m/f) - and yes, being straight is a problem but more on that later. but since you can ship her with finn (black) or you could ship finn and poe (black and latino actors) if you’re not into either you’re problematic. too bad that if you ship finn and poe (WHICH I DO) these days it’s... let’s just say I’ve seen a list of ‘problematic f/p writers’ where the reasons for the PROBLEMATIC was that they took a fluff ship and wrote it dubcon. oKAY. also pre tlj fandom was full of block lists for r/eylo shippers where you’d get the name plus ALL REASONS WHY THEY HAD TO BE HARASSED OUT OF FANDOM which you will imagine does not sit well with me since that’s... like... the most fascist thing you could do (NO REALLY BAN LISTS OF PERSONE NON GRATAE WITH REASONS WHY THEY WERE IS A THING THAT HAPPENS IN DICTATORSHIPS AND SOCIETY WHERE EVERYTHING IS CENSORED LIKE BANNED BOOKS) in this circumstance, but hey, if you’re anti-reylo and you’re doing the above you’re just doing the work of the lord because you’re saving people from the Horrible Problematic Ship, and meanwhile I don’t want anything to do with a fandom where people do block lists for how you write your fanfic IN GENERAL. like, concrit is more than welcome but lists? please don’t fucking kid me;

I used r/eylo as an example because it’s the epitome of what anti-shipping ends at, but there’s also sh/eith from voltron which is two guys, with a seven years age gap but both are adults now and were older than 15 when they met, who have the sweetest less problematic relationship ever and people who ship.. the other rival ship decided that it’s pedophilia, SUPPORTS INCEST on the grounds of one of the two tell the other ‘you’re like a brother to me’ SERIOUSLY and that it’s abusive and by shipping it you’re a pedophile. k;

also, this entire thing ties with the fact that these people seem to think that having sex when older than fourteen is somehow bad, which means that if you write someone under the age of 18 (and sometimes NOT EVEN THAT see voltron above) you’re automatically a *pedophile* even if teenagers aren’t children and fictional characters are fictional and never hurt anyone, and that goes hand in hand with the fact that these people seem to largely be against kink;

specifically: ‘bdsm is abusive’ (???), ‘you can’t be a feminist if you like kink’ (OKAY???), ‘if you read/write noncon fanfic you have a problem and you’re terrible’ etc, with a specific subset being against specific kinks that play on a certain angle ie daddy kink and so on which are PEDOPHILIA now, which is again an extremely puritanical way to see the world, not progressive;

at this point we have a situation where a bunch of *antis* specifically target people who are into *problematic* things whether it’s ships, characters, kinks and so on and are going like THINK OF THE CHILDREN half of the time. the children being them, of course.

at this point we have the other discourse we need to have ie about the age and sexuality of the people involved in fandom and why it matters:

now: a lot of fandom is made up of women. it’s statistics. a significant statistical part of the old guard (25+-30+ people ie my generation plus the previous 40+ older generation) is cis women (who can be straight or bi but are attracted to men) who went into fandom writing m/m slash. a significant part of this group is into either problematic ships or kink and such on. but in our understanding of fandom, the key terms were ship and let ship + your kink is not my kink + don’t like don’t read. as in: outside your usual MY SHIP IS BETTER THAN YOURS wank was generally understood that people liked things different than yours and that you had no business being an ass over it, and back in the day warnings were at the beginning - when I went into fandom warnings were not a thing. now there’s warnings everywhere which is GOOD and guess why ao3 was made by... the old guard/old fans, which of course are not very pleased with being told they’re pedophiles or perverts for shipping a thing or, *drum rolls*, that they fetishize gay men by shipping m/m or writing m/m porn, and are fairly vocal about it;

on the other side, this new wave of younger fans who thinks is progressive along with older fans who are assholes/most likely grooming the youngers (because this anti shipping thing is seriously cult-like at this point) calling the old generation all the stuff above and pushing the idea that they want ‘old straight ciswomen out of fandom’ because ‘they have gross ideas and THEY DON’T WANT TO READ OUR GROSS FIC’ and such things. we can also talk for ten years about how the new wave has decided that straight = insult but again, tumblr politics. all goes hand in hand;

so basically the sides are ‘younger fans who thinks they are progressive but are actually being puritan af’ vs ‘older fans who want to do their damned thing’ with some people obviously crossing into the others’s territory;

(and mind that not counting SW, most of the anti drama happens in fandoms for... animated cartoons and the likes - vo/ltron, ste/ven universe and so on, which says a lot about the age discourse, but nvm that);

now, the problem is that by telling some woman older than you that she can’t safely explore her sexual fantasies/kinks in fiction about fake characters you’re basically doing the same thing as policing women’s sexual fantasies that has been going on since the dawn of time, so it’s actually hella misogynist, and the fact that it goes with people saying that you can’t be a feminist who likes kink and that kink is abuse/misogynist... is still policing women’s sexualities, irl and fictionally, and that’s what they’re doing at the end of it;

on top of that, they’re also policing what non-straight, non-female fans who ship problematic stuff do and most of all, there’s the shipping to cope bush of thorns.

about shipping to cope:

now, this entire system had to, at some point, deal with the very true fact that a lot of people who are into problematic stuff/kinks/noncon (not all of them of course) engage with that material to work out their issues - a lot of the time it’s abuse victims writing it to elaborate on their abuse and take control of it and so on and usually... a lot of them aren’t even straight (honestly, almost everyone I know who ships th/ramsay ie noncon torture ship that I personally don’t like myself is... not straight, and a lot of them do ship to cope) and telling them you cannot handle your recovery with whichever system they see fit is... RUDE at best. which is why there’s antis who are like ‘shipping to cope is fine but JUST IF IT’S TO COPE’ which means that in order to be given the green light you have to out yourself and tell people you were abused and other antis who are like ‘SHIPPING TO COPE IS WRONG BECAUSE YOU JUST MAKE IT WORSE’ which is... not a thing that happens to everyone and actually every psychologist worth their salt in the world disagrees (or better: for some people it’s bad to do but for others it’s cathartic, and the latter shouldn’t be not able to do it because the former can’t blacklist or because kids on the internet decided that shipping to cope is bad);

so a lot of antis are actually crossing into the territory of wanting to police how people handle their own experience of abuse (honestly once someone told a friend who explained them from a professional pov the valid of problematic/violent art as a cathartic, healthy way to deal with you shit, and who told them that they were an abuse victim who dealt with it in different ways, to GO ON GOOGLE AND LOOK UP HOW IT WORKS and that person knew shit about it period just to say one) and telling people they can’t process their abuse in THAT way but just in THIS way, feeding into the idea that there’s a right way to process abuse and a wrong way to react to it which in turns becomes good victim vs bad victim;

(and then you wonder why they hate kylo ren... who’s a Bad Victim under the definition of the word but hey whatever)

and this is all thrown under the rug of ‘we need to police problematic attitudes in fandoms’ which is 100% bullshit because if you run into someone specifically problematic you should explain them on a one-on-one basis, not do the witch hunt, and you should never presume to police how people handle their own shit, never mind that 90% of the time the so-called problematic material is consumed by a small percentage of people and you can choose to like, not read it;

and by the way, 90% of the actually problematic fandom trends don’t get called out because it wouldn’t be progressive (I can talk for ages about how it’s really worrying that ppl headcanon characters as X following stereotypes that are actually hurtful for the category in question but since the hc = a minority then it’s always okay) but that’s an entire other problem;

tldr: the anti side, as much as they want to think they’re not doing it, are actively policing the content that other people put online based on supposed ‘moral’ standards which 90% of the time aren’t even true (a 16yo in a relationship with a 20yo is NOT pedophilia period) and even going as far as ‘I’ll press charges to the FBI because X wrote underage fic’ when according to the US law if it’s fictional characters it doesn’t count as such and it only does if real recognizable minors are involved (and in that case it shouldn’t be happening in the first place) and those people might be whoever, and for all they support feminism they also end up being incredibly misogynist.

or, just because I like to use my own experiences as an example: this year I had the horrid idea of replying to a post made obviously by anti people where I told them that straight women writing m/m ie what they’re attracted to of course have more in common with a guy into guys in that sense and not with a lesbian since they’re not attracted to women and that writing m/m wasn’t inherently fetishizing shit. since then I’ve had people:

informing me I MUST have internalized homophobia

assuming shit about my sex life that wasn’t even true including which positions I like in bed (because of course straight women only identify with the gay bottom so they’re capitalizing off that experience when some of us don’t)

assuming I was disgusted at the idea of writing lesbian sex (false, I wrote it when I was in the mood)

informing me that writing fanfic about canonical m/m characters wasn’t activism and I shouldn’t presume I was one for that (I never said I considered it such) but at the same time these people think reporting incest fic to ao3 is... activism, but nvm that

telling me that I was a sad old bitch who needed to find a husband and grow up (I MEAN NOT EVEN IN THE FIFTIES) (I’m 29 btw hardly old) because it was the only way my life could have had sense

informing me that of course I was that horrible since I’m italian and all italians beat their wives (NOT XENOPHOBIC AT ALL)

accusing me of writing torture porn with gay characters to get off (never wrote torture porn once in my life, not with gay characters nor any character)

(most ppl I know into torture porn aren’t straight btw)

telling me that I didn’t understand my own attraction to men

assuming that my parents must have thrown me out of the house at some point, that I had no friends and that I never got laid

and in another occasion I got sent fanart of a ship that I said upset me because I had the gall to tell people to leave the shippers alone but hey what do I know

and a bunch of other stuff I won’t bother you with but that to me sounds hella misogynist (I mean, GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN AND FIND A HUSBAND, srsly?). spoilers: I never write noncon, I’m into a few kinks but most are literally harmless, the wildest thing I’m into writing is... 100% consensual d/s sex, the most problematic thing I’m into is thor/loki and I hadn’t shipped it until I realized that... it was cathartic (ps: no, I don’t think irl incest is okay as a general thing) and for the rest I’m famous for... being the person who almost never kills people in fandom X°D I mean, I got that shit and I laughed about it, but what if they sent it to an abuse victim or someone who actually got kicked out of the house? who knows, but sure af they only seem to care about victims when it’s convenient to them and when the victims agree. *shrug* but the above is absolutely okay if you tell that to a straight cis woman who doesn’t particularly feel like writing f/f sex (which is ANOTHER plot point but never mind that I can’t possibly go into how tumblr has decided that f/f relationships without sex are the Thing Everyone Should Aspire To and everything else is a problem including lesbians having kinky sex). anyway, that was all antis. heck, a round of the shit above was started because an anti-ship blog found an oldass ask related to that wank, so.

tldr: the point is that we’re always talking about the same old dumb fandom war ie my ship is better than yours and my fave is better than yours, but now the arguments aren’t just about ships, are about which one is most moral or pure or non-problematic and if you dare being into anything else for your own reasons in your own life (I forgot friends who’ve been told they abuse their partners because they’re into kink, WHAT A DAY) when the *else* is fictional (ie doesn’t exist) and you don’t even do the thing irl or would want to but just want to explore it fictionally, then you are that problematic thing and so *you* are problematic and guess what, there’s a nice witch hunt starting and -

ops.

HOW SURPRISED I AM.

I mean, it’s 90% wanting to censor people and all of that time it’s useless that they dress it as ‘FIGHTING PEDOPHILES’ because thing is, now that everyone rolls their eyes at it because you think ‘right, real pedophiles or people who ship the wrong voltron ship,’ actual pedophiles have free reign and actually whenever I see a post to report a real one it has very little notes in comparison to OMG REY/LO IS PROBLEMATIC and stuff, and the one time I got linked one I checked because I didn’t trust tumblr and let me tell you I wish I didn’t. anti shipping or being anti kink is just... 90% wanting to be puritans without knowing that you’re a puritan and you’re still policing women’s sexualities and abuse victims’s reactions and you’re not helping anyone.

and you sound like those soccer moms from the 90s who thought playing tekken made their kids violent or that marilyn manson’s music caused the columbine shootings which is a thing that has been disproved since two weeks after it happened. and these people have no idea that media influences you to the point you let it and that fiction is not reality. *shrug* and that was my offer to this contribution, I know I’ll get roasted at this point but I’m beyond giving two fucks at this point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[not-poignant]

Hi! I think your fandom discourse is usually very well thought out and articulate, so I have a question for you: in your opinion, where should the line between representation and fetishization be drawn in fiction, fannish and otherwise?

I started to answer this, and then deleted it all, lol, which was like 600 words.

So now I’ll start with the basic preface: I can only really talk about areas of representation and fetishisation that I know about, that I write about, that I read about: BDSM, noncon-dubcon, relationships, and so on. I’m not going to touch anything else. I’m not going to talk about straight women fetishising gay dudes in this post, since that’s not what you asked me about, lol, and I’m not a straight woman. And because as far as I’m concerned, this is like...something you could write several books on and still not be done.

Also, I firmly believe I can’t draw a line for anyone except myself. I think it’s folly to do otherwise. Everything everyone does - no matter how sanitised or ‘unproblematic’ they think it is, will cross a line, for someone, somewhere. In a pretty big way. So I do not actually even believe in the premise of the question, that a line can be drawn. I wouldn’t even try to draw it for other people. I know where my line is. I have questioned that line, it has sometimes shifted a bit, I have thought about what it means, I have thought about the subjects I write, I know it’s not unproblematic material, and I’m comfortable with where my line is.

I think anyone who tries to draw a firm line for others - and I mean, like ‘everyone else’ others, is foolish, imho.

Now, onto my thoughts in general about representation vs. fetishisation.

I don’t think authors are obliged to write accurate BDSM if they want to write fantasy eroticised BDSM - I do think they’re obliged to be honest and frank that they’re not writing reality, if asked or challenged (or better yet, tag it so that people know it’s not realistic). But I’ve always been anti-banning-content and pro-tagging/warning systems. I’ve been that way since I did my BA in Media and specialised in censorship and media banning systems. Did you know Australia used to have the most censored media in the ‘western’ world? It still, on a lot of levels, does. Do you know how many movies, video games, and more, are literally banned here, even though you can access them almost all throughout Europe, America and more? Like, it’s bad, folks. Books have been written about how fucked up it is. And how do you get on that road?

I ended up with really strong political thoughts on this subject of what should and should not be allowed in the media on account of growing up studying media in a country that is really ‘nanny state’ over its media.

And seeing the ‘nanny state’ culture developing amongst fandom/s is honestly alarming.

But anyway, I can only really talk about what I do fetishise - which is dubcon/noncon/power play/BDSM (for the most part). Sometimes I care about accurate representation, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I care about accurate consent, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I care about accurate trauma recovery, sometimes I don’t. I will happily, gleefully suspend my disbelief for the worst most inaccurate trauma recovery ever if the whump is good and the hurt/comfort is real.

I will say I really strongly disagree with the increasing censorship/disapproval of people writing fantasy relationships and sex scenes vs. ‘realistic representations of relationships and sex scenes.’ That’s what non-fiction is for. And it’s what certain subsets of fiction is for, and it’s absolutely not what all of fiction is for. And I think we’re in a real sort of...horrific nanny culture if this is what it’s come to. Like, guess how much I care that some yaoi has self-lubricating asses? I don’t care. I don’t sit there thinking ‘oh no, this isn’t an accurate educational treatise into anal sex.’ You know what? Even fics that think they’re realistic aren’t, if they’re not dealing with the regular enemas/douching that a lot of people who have anal go through or alternatively not dealing with the realism of poop/faeces for all the people who can’t be assed with enemas/douching and don’t actually care about that.

I’ve seen authors doxxed and called out on Tumblr for not writing accurate BDSM in fanfiction. Like, inaccurate callouts where people go ‘oh no, but they didn’t use safewords, so this person is awful and don’t read their fanfiction and if I see you reblog anything from this person I’ll block/blacklist you too.’ Did you know contextually, in say, the BDSM San Francisco gay world of male sex - safewords (or SSC) is actually not as popular as RACK? (Risk Aware Consensual Kink). Did you know that RACK pretty often doesn’t have safewords, and sometimes you look pretty naive suggesting that all ‘good’ BDSM needs them? I mean it depends on your bubble, of course. But realism and representation trends like a meme in fandom, it’s not actually about accuracy a lot of the time at all.

The problem with arguments on realistic representation is that most people are like...very much in their bubbles where they think ‘accurate representation of BDSM is always safewords’ which is honestly, a good thing to aspire to if you’re a total newbie (which most writers of fanfiction are lol), but it’s only one way of doing things and some people - people with decades of experience in the scene - think it’s utter bullshit. Trust me, you can fuck people up well and proper even if you’ve got safewords. They aren’t some ‘things won’t go wrong / I won’t damage you psychologically’ magic bullet.

So, like, here’s me as a writer of what I write, and I’ve seen fellow authors doxxed for writing BDSM without safewords. I have a problem with that. That’s not okay. It’s fiction. I’m not writing for a bunch of school kids. I’m not writing a plain language FAQ for a local health centre. I’m writing literally masturbatory material (sometimes anyway) for adults who are getting off to fantasy BDSM. I love titillating non-consent depending on how it’s written. I’ve written it. I’m frank about that. I’m allowed to love it. So are other people. There’s no rule or law I’m breaking by engaging my Id in fantasy. And trust me, if you try and hide from your Id, or censor it, or ban it from certain content that it wants to engage in, that tends not to end very well.

But what I write is so vastly disrespectful and gross to some others that I know I’m hated. I literally once got the message ‘I hate you’ over 200 times from a single person (who later owned up to it) on anon, because they hated the relationship I wrote between Pitch and Jack in SAL. Because it had power exchange and BDSM. It’s like one of the tamest things I’ve written just about.

Like, obviously, I crossed their line. Big time. And they felt entitled enough to me and my writing to tell me they hated me over a period of several months. This is where I think ‘MKINYKATO’ - My Kink is Not Your Kink and That’s Okay is something we really need to keep in mind. Some people’s kinks are realistic representations of things, some people’s kinks aren’t, and some - like mine - are a mix. It’s not always vs. or ‘one vs. the other.’ Just because I will deliberately search for rapefics (all kinds) doesn’t mean I’ll turn my nose up at realistic rape recovery written with gravitas and pathos.

But see, this is where the issue of a ‘line’ is such a huge, huge grey area. Everyone’s line is personal. You can’t homogenise or standardise the line, because it’s different for everyone, and because that damages people. Like, that is a thing that literally damages people.

Meanwhile, my fiction doesn’t have to damage people, because I tag it responsibly and will add tags as people find necessary. I don’t shove it into anyone else’s space. I actively encourage people to not read if they don’t feel safe, and celebrate people who stop reading or engage in self care when they need to.

But strangers coming into my space, into my ask-box and telling me they hate me as a human being for writing the Shadows and Light story simply because there was power exchange in their dynamic? Anyone who knows me or knows what I went through during that time, knows how much that damaged me.

I mean I’ve seen the side of this that came through the Hydra Trash Party and BBC Sherlock and other areas, and so over the years I’ve seen some amazing thinkpieces written on this subject (that particularly focus on morally grey areas of consent in fiction, which is generally where I hang out as an author and as a reader to an extent) that has now been reinvented as ‘representation vs. fetishisation’ which is just a new way of attacking other people’s kinks and trying to sanitise fiction.

So I’m going to link them here, because I don’t think I can really convey just how frustrating I find that this is still such a huge deal on Tumblr, after 20 years of being in fandom and seeing people’s lives destroyed because of it (I can’t be rational about this subject, but other people can be, and sometimes with sources, so you know here you go):

- Yes, you’re allowed. 

“Honestly, I think “yes, you are allowed” is something a lot of fandom needs to hear right now. We had, what, a decade of “what not to do” writing advice, starting with anti-Mary-Sue campaigns and on through sporking and fanficrants and RaceFail, and now everything is this cracked parody of social justice and ~this is problematic~ is the ultimate “what not to do.”“

- Fiction is separate from reality.

“Fiction is separate from reality and that is why we like it. What you write about is not what you condone, Stephen King is not serial killer for writing about murder. People are not being “abuse apologists” for shipping two characters in a less than healthy way.”

- On purity culture toxicity (I strongly believe representation vs. fetishisation is the new label to slap on this latest reiteration of fandom wank). - Scroll down for some incredible sources.

- Anecdote about how purity wank allowed someone to realise how much unrealistic/fetishised fantasy helped them.

“Kinky unrealistic BDSM AUs were a way for me to process actual physical abuse that happened to me. I don’t care if the writer was getting off or processing something of their own: the works were there for me and they helped. For every “THIS IS ABUSIVE!!!” person pointing fingers, I guarantee there are people who were helped by that.“

- How fandom focuses on shaming women over accurate representation, and inherent misogyny within.

“And these people, these moral guardians, they’ve gotten really good at couching their fundamentalist views in progressive language. They don’t say ‘you’re to blame if you provoke men to rape’ - they say ‘your fic normalises sexual violence and contributes to rape culture’. They don’t say ‘women ought to be chaste’ - they say ‘your fantasies are socially harmful and you owe it to the world to be more self-critical’. The messages are the same and the desired outcomes are literally identical.”

- Yes, you’re allowed - the extended version.

“Right now I’m kind of bored because recently a majority of the fics that I read are very prim and proper, with disclaimers that are kilometers-long if the fics ever venture into something even remotely shady morally speaking, and I have a marked preference for fics that explore stuff that’s not Healthy or Sane or even Consensual, because to me fandom and fanfics are this big laboratory that really should allow you to delve into the unconventional and the morally grey”

*

Finally, do I think this means that the subject shouldn’t be talked about? No, I don’t. Do I think this is a huge topic that warrants years of exploration? Which it’s easily had for over two decades in fandom all over the world? Yes, I do. I just think the majority of people wanking over it on Tumblr are generally doing so to condemn other people rather than reach any sort of understanding or greater ethical awareness or whatever. I’ve actually already seen the representation vs. fetishisation discourse around the place and it’s almost always been co-opted by the Antis and similar, and hurriedly taken into purity wank town where the quest to be Ideologically Pure (TM) includes making sure no one has ever fetishised anything ever, and certainly never put it anywhere publicly for anyone else to enjoy it.

So yeah, I guess I have some strong thoughts in my little area of the world. Certainly enough thoughts to know that a line is pointless, beyond my personal line, that I police by reading the tags and browsing carefully with that wonderful thing known as Self-Responsibility.