We need to have a chat about “unpopular opinions”.

First, I think I should probably give a little introduction on who I am in some form. I write fanfiction like any number of other people. I have two fictions, one is a dark fiction and the other is a crack fiction. I’m not looking for any type of publicity, I’m not going to link to my fiction or even give the names of those fictions. One of the reasons for this is I have no interest in being harassed by a herd of overzealous self-righteous teenagers; another reason is that I don’t actively publicize my writing anyway. Please don’t go searching me out to harass, I’m not interested in the attention. As a writer od dark fic, I have been concerned with the recent outpouring of harassment of people like myself: that write dark fics.

            I am writing this because there are some issues that I think need to be addressed. I’m tired of hearing these salty rants on my twitter feed, or popping up left and right. I know that most people don’t feel that they have the ability to defend themselves. I also understand that a large portion of people are probably just going to skip directly to the comments and accuse me of “defending ” and any other number of shock tactics to silence me that I have already witnessed happen to any number of other authors. I am going to do my best to make a concise argument on why several popular authors have been participating in harmful and problematic behaviors. I plan have citations and discussions. Unfortunately, that means that this document is going to get longer and longer.  I am going to make a list of my arguments to potentially make this clearer.

If nothing else, I want people to understand that the reason for this document is that people need to stop harassing authors, even if you do not agree with their work. More so, it is not your place  to act hatefully towards other because you feel that your popularity is somehow threatened.

1. The lack of respect for authors needs to change.
2. “just fanfiction”
3. You do not know the reason why someone has written a fiction
4. Dark fiction can be good fiction.
5. Many of the people involved in this “holy fiction war” also use dark themes.
6. Censorship

This is a brief list of the topics I would like to cover, but most importantly I would really like these toxic elements of our community to stop.

The lack of respect for authors in our community needs to change. The authors of fanfiction, even if you do not like the fanfiction, are offering a service. They are offering entertainment which, as a reader, is your choice to consume. Every time you read a fanfiction it is your personal choice to participate in that exchange.

A rather alarming habit of going into the comment section of fictions and making rude, offensive, or otherwise demeaning comments to authors seems to be becoming more and more popular. I have even seem people demand that others do this on their behalf. These habits need to stop. I’m not just talking about harassing people that write dark fiction, I will address that more fully later.

It is not your place, ever, to go into an authors comment section and harass them. It is simply never okay for you to do. You do not have the privilege to demean an author because the service they are offering is not your favorite flavor. Sure, you have the right to say and do whatever you want; however, if you want to play this card then we can simply skip the discussion all together as the author has the right to write whatever they want as well.

It is not cute to go to an authors comment section and complain that the story is good, but it doesn’t have your favorite pairing (let alone copy past the fic and change the names so it does, in fact, now contain your favorite pairing).

It is not acceptable to go to an authors comment section and throw a tantrum because they didn’t write enough of your favorite pairing in this or that chapter.

It is not your place to harass an author because you don’t like the direction the story is headed in, or the plot devices.

Any author does not owe you, as their reader, anything.

I know that may seem rude or mean, but it is the truth. The author is writing something because they want to write it. You, as a reader, are simply along for the ride. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that authors are not grateful that you read their work, or that they do not enjoy reading your comments, or in any way that authors do not appreciate you as their reader. I appreciate every person that reads my fic if they leave a comment or not. It just needs to be understood that you personally, as a reader, do not get the right to take over a fic, demand chapters sooner, or otherwise harass authors. They do not owe you the ending you demand, the pairings you want, or anything else.

You can certainly try to help the person be a better author, point out common mistakes they have made. Try to help them become a better writer in a respectful and considerate way.

It is not okay to go to someone’s fiction and start telling them that their work is because you personally did not like it.

A personal experience with this is that I recently started writing a new fic based on a prompt I had seen on facebook. Within 30 min of the first chapter being published I was accused of plagiarism because, as it so happened, another author with a popular fiction had written using the same prompt. I tried to explain, and went out of my to make sure that the prompt was clearly linked at the beginning of the chapter.

The difference here is instead of having

“OH this is totally plagiarized! I’ve read a story like this before! You have to take down your work! This is illegal”

And

“Hey, this fic is like another I have read before. Where did you get your idea from?”

The answer is the same in both cases “It appears me and another person (actually several people) have seen the same prompt and decided to write fics. That is not plagiarism.”

You do not have to be hostile with someone to have a conversation about something. Even more so, you do not get to play the innocent victim when you go looking for a fight.

It is important to think about what you are saying when you are leaving a comment.

And how can you possibly expect readers to respect the authors of the fiction when we, as authors, don’t even want to respect each other’s differences. How can you possibly hope to create a healthy community when you act like this?

            Which finally brings me to the act of harassing people because they are writing subject matter that you do not agree with or enjoy. Even more so, it is never okay to use your platform as a ‘popular’ writer to tell your fans to go harass people that are writing material that you do not agree with.

I know that everyone wants to throw fits about “OH, everyone just says if you don’t like it don’t read it to dismiss their problematic behavior”; However, if you do not like it… why are you reading it?

Why are you reading it?

Why are you there? Why are you on this tagged fic, which you are clearly against reading, reading it? If your answer is that you went looking for this fiction, or otherwise clicked on it, simply so that you could personally harass the author… You are in the wrong.

You cannot go into a conversation full of personal hostility and prejudice and act like an innocent victim. You looked for the fic. You clicked on the fic.

You did it so that you could act hatefully towards a person.

There is simply no other reason for you to have been there.

Now you can claim all you want that you are doing it because you feel like these fictions are problematic, but no 3k fiction will ever be as harmful as the ideology that “I must force people to believe in things the exact same way I do -or harass them into silence and submission-.

The ideology that you are touting, that you have to harass these people into being quiet and submissive, is the same ideology of middle age white men as they walk into black churches with loaded weapons. The ideology that “what I personally think is right and good, and must use force to make sure everyone else thinks the same way” has killed people.

You are acting out in violence, you are trying to hurt and shame people into submission.

It is one thing to try to educate people on a subject. It is another thing entirely to purposefully go to someone’s comment section and start trying to intimidate and harass that person.

What you are doing is wrong. It has to stop.

Authors that are perpetuating this? Have to stop.

You cannot feign moral superiority while acting in a hateful and violent manner. It simply doesn’t work that way.

Fanfiction really is just fanfiction.

I know that might seem hurtful. I know people care about what they are writing. People write things and they want to know that they are important and that they matter. They want to be special and moving.

But no one is going to win a Pulitzer for writing fanfiction.

Also, just keep in mind, people that are writing fanfiction that you do not agree with -also care about their fanfiction-.

I’m unsure if this idea that if “someone writes it in fanfiction it means they secretly want it to happen in real life” came from, but that is in no way true. I’m not sure if this is just the inability to distinguish reality from fiction, or if people are simply trying to over relate.

It is dangerous as a writer to conceptualize your personal fiction as reality. This suggest serious phycological disorders. Considering the long list of “accepted” works includes and relationships between the members involved here?

I’m sorry but your favorite pairing is not a thing in real life, no matter how pleasing the idea is to you.

And even if it were, it would be none of your business.

No sane person that writes fanfiction thinks, at any moment in time, that what they are writing is real, or should be taken as reality. Every sane fanfiction writer is taking a story that they conceptualized, and assigning the likeness of a favored person to be characters- and using that likeness in order to express themselves in some way.

Sometimes those stories are beautiful and fluffy, sometimes they are not.

I know that this concept is understood, in a recent blog post about “problematic” stories, the author of that blog post has a coming of age fiction about the main character being violently abused by his mother. In fact, it is a significant portion of the entire plot to the story.  Does that mean that this person wishes that the person they used for the fanfic should be beaten? No. Don’t be silly.

In another fiction, written by one of the leaders of this ‘holy war’, Jungkook is dead… and Jimin is a witch dying from depression and loneliness. Does that mean they want Jungkook to die?

Now, I am absolutely certain that neither of these authors want the people that they based their characters to be abused, dying, or dead. These things are simply plot devices to drive the story.

So let us just take a moment and exemplify the fact that -we all understand that fanfiction is just fanfiction-. No one want’s anyone to be , abused, or harmed in any way. This is fiction. Which these authors themselves clearly understand. Otherwise they would not have written fiction with these kinds of elements involved in the plot.

Unless we need to talk to someone about the fact that she wants Jungkook dead, I think people need to stop trying to use this idea that if you write about it that is what you want to happen as an excuse.

“Oh but these are real people!”

No. These are not real people. The members of the group are real people. No one IN a fanfiction is a real person. It is a conceptualized idea of a person set to their likeness.

And once more, if you want to go in that direction we can clearly make that argument that all fanfiction is dehumanizing. There is no way you could perfectly write a story about someone that you have personally never met no matter how well you think you know and understand them. The characters in fanfiction are not real people.

You have to suspend this idea that you are writing about real things when you are writing fanfiction.

Fiction.

Fictions.

Other wise you should be receiving professional help.

Anthony Hopkins isn’t a psychotic serial killer that eats people.

Sarah Machelle Geller is not a cursed all powerful she-warrior tasked with ridding the world of vampires and the forces of evil.

The art of creating movies, books, and other works of fiction specifically deal with the idea of suspending belief so that you think the story is real while you are watching it. However, it is always important to remember that it is just a movie.

Fanfiction is now and forever will only be just fanfiction.

More on this later.

I know people want to feel special and important, but if fanfiction is your only outlet to fame and popularity… and your recourse is to use it as a device to make yourself feel more superior by harassing people….

Maybe you should take a better look at yourself.

Or maybe wait until you graduate from a highschool mentality to start trying to be a ‘leader’ in a community.

Another point to consider is that you do not know why a person has written a fiction. You do not know. Period. People can wax poetic all they want. I don’t know the reason any of my friends, people I regularly discuss with, decided to write the fiction they are writing or why the chose to write it the way they have. The reason for this is very simple: I am not that person and I don’t try to presume to know the ‘true’ workings of their minds.

You do not know why someone is deciding to write that fiction with that subject matter.

Maybe it is a cry for help. maybe that person thinks it is y. Maybe that person doesn’t understand what they are writing about. Maybe that person has suffered and feels they have no other way to process their emotions. Maybe that person is a dumb kid looking for more views. Maybe that person simply enjoys dark stuff.

It doesn’t really matter, because you do not know their motivations.

You are also not assigned as the one true author/reader that gets to decide if the motivations of this other author are worthy.

I don’t know what kind of over inflated ego gave some people such entitlement that they feel that they get to personally decide if a person has suffered enough to be able to discuss darker issues. Issues that happen every day in real life. These issues are very serious and very real. Of course, they are going to appear in fan fiction, in the exact same way it appears in every other type of art. They are real things that happen. People everywhere have had contact with victims.

Our media is full of this.

In example, this is a song that was really popular a few years ago:

"Blurred Lines"

(feat. T.I. & Pharrell Williams)

[Pharrell & Robin Thicke:]

Everybody get up

Everybody get up

[Robin Thicke:]

If you can't hear what I'm tryna say

If you can't read from the same page

Maybe I'm going deaf

Maybe I'm going blind

Maybe I'm out of my mind

[Pharrell:]

Everybody get up

[Robin Thicke:]

OK, now he was close

Tried to domesticate you

But you're an animal

Baby, it's in your nature

Just let me liberate you

You don't need no papers

That man is not your maker

And that's why I'm gon' take a good girl

[Robin Thicke:]

I know you want it

I know you want it

I know you want it

You're a good girl

Can't let it get past me

You're far from plastic alright

Talk about getting blasted

I hate these blurred lines

I know you want it

I know you want it

I know you want it

But you're a good girl

The way you grab me

Must wanna get nasty

Go ahead, get at me

[Pharrell:]

Everybody get up

[Robin Thicke:]

What do they make dreams for

When you got them jeans on

What do we need steam for

You the hottest in this place

I feel so lucky,

You wanna hug me

What rhymes with hug me?

[Pharrell:]

Everybody get up

[Robin Thicke:]

OK, now he was close

Tried to domesticate you

But you're an animal

Baby, it's in your nature

Just let me liberate you

You don't need no papers

That man is not your maker

And that's why I'm gon' take a good girl

[Robin Thicke:]

I know you want it

I know you want it

I know you want it

You're a good girl

Can't let it get past me

You're far from plastic

Talk about getting blasted

I hate these blurred lines (I hate them lines)

I know you want it (I hate them lines)

I know you want it (I hate them lines)

In case you didn’t notice it, this is basically a song about getting a girl drunk enough so that she stops saying no…. in order to date her.

People want to talk about romanticizing like it isn’t being actively sung about like it is y.

It may not have occurred to you how much this is ingrained into out society and media, but seriously? They made the new my little ponies “y” by adding curves that don’t even exist on a horse in order to increase sales.

Are you really surprised that young people are looking at these kinds of things like they are y or attractive? These types of things are permeating every layer of our society because “ sells”.

Though I have yet to see anyone throwing down on my little pony in their twitter feed.

The thing is… that it would be pointless to do so.

            Romanticizing isn’t healthy, is not a good thing; however, you have to understand that people constantly have access to this. You can say what you want about trying to protect people from having contact with this subject matter… But you are not protecting anyone from anything. They have had access to it. In fact, their mothers have probably put them in high heels and lip stick not realizing that activity is specifically designed to make a woman appear more “y” by enunciating the focus on the mouth and hips.

More importantly, you cannot eliminate culture or in and of itself by simply ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t happen. I’m not stating that all of these fics are good or wholesome, but at least I am not attacking people over what they are writing. And most importantly, as stated before, you do not know why that person is writing what they are.

You don’t know if that person was trapped in an abusive relationship in the past, and doesn’t know how to process the left-over feelings.

You don’t know if they are being abused now.

You don’t know if that fic is a cry for help from someone that doesn’t even understand in what ways they are being abused.

You don’t know.

You do not get to decide if they have suffered enough to write about it, or have an opinion on it.

As stated in the past, it is not your personal responsibility to control what way other people express themselves.

Dark fiction can be good fiction.

There are any numbers of examples here, I am going to share a handful. 

The first is a poem entitled “goblin market” written by Christiana Rossetti. This is a poem about how female uality is evil and dirty. It is a story about women being lured into loose morals. It is a pretty fantastic insight in the mentality of the time period in regard to female uality. In the story a girl’s sister is lured to a fruit market where she is more or less covered in juice and turns into some crazed monster that tries to molest her sister.

The second is a story by , in this story a group of children violently harass another young Japanese boy because he is trading ual favors to a guard in exchange for candy. This story take place in a Japanese interment camp during world war 2. It a story bout how that group of boys feel betrayed by the other child for the way he is being ually abused by a soldier. It is a critique on how toxic masculinity can be, as well as how young it is learned.

Both stories cover very dark themes, but use those themes to cover some very serious topics.

In the movie “Hound dog” The story is about the poor people in a small southern town. When Elvis is in the area doing a concert, the main character is while trying to listen in on the show.

The movie (and book) The secret life of bees discusses everything from abuse to the fact that the little girl had accidentally killed her own mother.

In harry potter Hermione granger is tortured, and many people are killed, as a means to critique racism.

Ashton Kutcher is in the butterfly effect.

I’m not even going to go into how many older movies involve the male protagonist a woman because the woman “secretly loves him”.

Some of these are very moving, some leave an exceptionally bad taste in your mouth. Some have great motivation, some they are a plot device.

Sometimes dark themes are used in fiction to make it more meaningful. Sometimes not.

The racist undertones in to kill a mockingbird gave more significance to the story. The man that pretended to be drunk all of the time to make it easier for the rest of the town to deal with the fact that he had made babies with a black woman.

If you care for any of these stories or not, the fact is that the creator of them used dark themes to further the story, and several of these examples are critically acclaimed. Even the gross way men used women in old westerns can be used to look back at the way women were popularly viewed during those time periods.

Dark themes in fiction can be very meaningful to some people. Sometimes dark fiction is only meaningful to one person. Sometimes it is just poorly written . However, you do not get to personally decide. Well you can decide if something is poorly written, but you don’t get to decide if something is meaningful or not to someone.

Just ask Alice is a book about a young girl that gets involved in drugs. Some of the trigger warnings included would be: , drugs, suicide, overdose, death of a main character, depression… However this book have probably saved thousands of lives by helping people avoid and escape drug abuse.

“IT” is a story about a little boy that was heavily abused by his mother, and the book goes into terrible detail of the abuse and neglect. While it is debated on how fiction-nonfiction the book is… This book helped change the child abuse laws in America.

The movie thirteen goes into a young child dealing drugs and having … and the eventual consequences.

Sometimes these dark themes can help other people understand what the problem is, and how to escape those problems.

As said before, this is just fanfiction… but you never know is someone is trying to cope or crying for help. You never know how meaningful this story might be to someone. Should all of these stories and movies be removed and burned in fire because of their dark themes?

Dark themes are prevalent in all of pop culture. Why are you clutching your pearls because it is also included in fan fiction?

Even more so, many of the authors that are suddenly speaking so intently against these dark themes are also using dark themes in their own writing.

As stated before, one of the most vocal people has a fiction in which Jungkook is dead.

By many of the arguments that this author herself has used, that must mean that she clearly wants Jungkook dead, and fully supports the murder of idols. Why, She probably supports murder all together. No? Then please stop accusing other people of doing so.

Another is using child abuse as a plot device. Does she then support the abuse of children? No? Then please stop calling other peoples subject matter problematic.

And the thing is…. There are a lot of stories with these kinds of themes. It isn’t hard to find them under the BTS tab. Half of the bts a/b/o use ism as either a plot device or as the entire plot. The bts gang search is one of the most popular as far as how often stories are published. These stories often use overt violence, drug use…

Just go look through the tags, you are going to find ample supply… and if you look at many of these outspoken proponent’s tags… many of those tags are just as problematic.

The simple fact of the matter is that people want things to be simple, they want to paint things as black and white; good and bad. They would rather have a simple easy answer, and with these kinds of subject matter there is no clear or simple, because you simply do not know.

More so, the problem is that people want to feel that they are good and right in their choices, the things they like are good and correct. They want to think that anyone with a different view is wrong. They want to have a moral superiority, but really all they have is hypocrisy and a false sense of self-importance.

Most fanfiction has “problematic” themes. Fanfiction is going to continue to have what you consider “problematic” themes. The themes you are writing about are just as “problematic” as anyone elses themes.

All things being equal, it just seems like you don’t like the idea of something you do not personally like being or having any type of consideration… and are going out of your way to attack it and the people that do read it.

You aren’t the holy bringer of fanfictions sacred moral compass. You are just a bully with views that wants to feel good about yourself.

Most fanfiction by its very nature is problematic if you want to go by the argument of “these are real people!!”

Which moves us right along to our next topic: Censorship.

Where do we draw the line?

Why is it okay for some people to write about some things and not okay for other people to write about other things. It it because you have more subscribers? Because… I feel like that is a stupid reason. It isn’t that hard to create fake accounts, it isn’t that hard to spam on twitter for views. It isn’t hard to beg for attention.

Why do you get to decide how other people express themselves?

What gives you any right to harass people?

Why do you think that what you are doing is in any way appropriate?

I might not have as many subscribers, but hey… I’m not going out of my way or living my life to try to get them either. Is really all you have? A few fanfictions and need to bully others so that you can feel special about yourself? Is your writing less important to you is someone else writes something different? If people like different things? Want to discuss different issues?

There are plenty of fictions that I find distasteful, or unpleasant, or that I simply don’t like to read. The difference is that I don’t go to the fiction. I don’t give it attention. I don’t attack the writer.

Because I understand that it is not my place to do so and I respect other people as individuals.

I do not have to support what someone writes, or agree with the content because it is not my place to control the way other people express themselves.

It doesn’t matter who you are.

Good or bad, the act of trying to police the thoughts and expressions of another individual is wrong and harmful.