I usually don’t put my opinion in these types of conversations, but as an author who occasionally includes mafia aspects I feel like I should.

I read a few of the comments and I agree, as authors it’s our job to consider how our work will affect other people, but that’s also why warning and ratings were established. It’s our job to warn readers of the topics in our stories such as non consensual and abusive themes.

Many have brought up the argument of how authors can romanticize or misrepresent a mental illness which can be solved by educating ourselves on these topics. Though that also brings up the topic of fiction, how much of reality we should put in, and at what point is it not fiction anymore.

I write mostly supernatural au’s that can include kidnapping, almost ual assault or the intent of ual assault, and mafia themes. I didn’t always include warnings but read a post on tumblr and since then I’ve always included warnings in my stories. It’s important not only for the people effected but for those under the age to know and understand what’s included in the story.

You are right. Writers should be allowed to write what they want without being accused of condoning the themes written, and that a writers intentions can be different from what a reader interprets from the story. It doesn’t mean we can just write without thinking, when it includes themes of non fiction such as mental health or assault we should take pre caution and educate ourselves.

Authors can use a theme in a way that can been as romanticizing. Since we’re talking about mafia I think including a character, maybe a friend or law enforcement figure should be included to tell the protagonist the reality of the mafia. As it is something that effects people, maybe having someone to tell them the realities of a mafia can educate instead of just having a one sided narrative of love.

I don’t know, I don’t include these themes that often in my stories but this is just my opinion.

hi!

i just wanted to comment and say that while i agree that, say, writing about a villain doesn't make you a villain NOR does it mean you condone the villains' actions, there is a difference between that and glorifying the clearly wrong actions of a villain.

the problem with sharing content is that it inevitably will affect those who read, view, or watch it. even if the people who view your content aren't victims, if you wrongfully portray an event—let's use mental health as an example—then the person consuming the content is affected by it. stigma, stereotypes and misconceptions rise from popular media mis-portraying certain things, especially traumatic, controversial or sensitive topics. you can create the same effect when you share your writing. if the content wrongfully romanticizes something traumatic, even if it's fiction, you have the power to unconsciously change people's perceptions, which leads to decreased sensitivity to actual victims in real life.

if you want to write whatever content you want with absolutely no consideration of the impact it may have on others, i think the only way to do so is not share it. otherwise, the moment we share our content, we have to take responsibility for what we've written.

Hey, I just want to add something from my comment about making villainous characters, or just adding morally evil acts on the story. What I like about writing without putting any restraint is that we could have more freedom
to experiment into our character's emotion and dive deeper into each of their personality because we got to put in mind that not everyone are born in the same environment and we all know that there's an ugly reality in all the beautiful things we see in this world.
I guess it's not the writers intention to make this negative impact to the reader but instead, let's look at it as an eye-opener, an awareness and when you write about something other people might consider very inappropriate, it doesn't necessarily mean the writer tolerates this things or his characters reflects himself. I consider this myself as an art of understanding one another and in someway, this also gives us a little understanding on why other people makes a different choices in life or why this character walks the path down the road of evil. But this doesn't mean I justify their evil acts. No. Never.
And I agree to the comment made by Carol1313. Simply makes use of the tags section and the rating because it exists for a reason.
And to some people who criticize the writer for what they write, it's your responsiblity to get to know first what kind of stories you are about to read.Like, is this right for my age ? Am I mentally prepared to read this? Or would this story affect my personal life? If you take the risk then be prepared for it and its not right to ignore what you have been warned for, I'm sure the writers made some effort in making such a long lists of warnings for readers to read.

Sorry, my english is not at its best but I hope I made my point clearly.

I think it's a difficult subject. Of course anyone is free to write what they want, but everyone else is also free to criticize it.

I am certainly not perfect, and I have sometimes realized through comments that the story that I had in my head, didn't come out like I intended on paper, or that I had simply forgotten to put up adequate warnings in the forewords etc. I think as a writer it is good to be humble and take these things seriously. Because story telling is an incredibly powerful thing, and it has been used on purpose (and not on purpose) to oppress minorities and women, justify and abuse, and because it's everywhere this can be very impactful and have real affects on people's lives. Of course one little fiction on AFF is not going to create a world of racism and culture, but as a writer it is something that I have thought about seriously whether I want to participate in that or not (and then to what degree, because it's difficult to escape this culture completely).

I have still written dark themes, murder and , unhealthy relationships etc and I will likely continue to do so, sometimes in a politically incorrect way. But I think that the very least a writer can do is acknowledge that some topics are sensitive and sometimes criticism is justified. Of course most of the criticism is just people wanting to read a different story from the one I have written, and then I don't really see it as my problem, they can go read something else, and of course if a person would be very rude I would just block and move on. But in general, I try and take these comments seriously.

I want to emphasize that this is all based on my own experience and thoughts, I read very little on AFF so I know very little about what goes on in other people's stories, and I am not judging anyone else here. Just sharing my own thoughts I have had on the topic in my 8 years on AFF (wow it has been way too long).

rambling ahead.

so, i read this blog earlier but left it in the middle because I had places to be, now I read it again as well as the comments. i don't know what the other blog some comments mention is, so I might not have a whole spectrum.

all I get it's about the mafia and I write mafia way too often, I don't depict it as realistic as possible but I'm aware some people, be it writers or readers, romanticise it and that might come to a problem. i almost was about to delete Shanghai Grande after I started uploading it because I saw that it was going in the wrong direction and people might think I romanticise certain things and that made me uncomfortable. i changed the end two times until I was happy and it was "realistic" enough, as realistic as gay/bi Chinese mafia can be. i write with the intention that people are aware that it is fiction from start to finish and never wish people to say it as anything else but fiction. i mean, take stories of extremely popular pairings and people even take about it under the official SNS posts. i can only wonder what's going on in their heads that they feel the need to bring it outside its needed spectrum and into the real world.

but attacking the author over it isn't the right way as well. i got livid when I saw people commenting under a story of a pairing/plot I like "ship xy is superior and real", "I only read ship xy", "I don't read/like plot/subject/theme xy". if you don't like it, don't read it, easy as it is. and if you don't like it and read it, don't comment.
but the more people a story has, the more criticism/opinions you'll get to see and people feel compelled to give (unsolicited/negative) feedback. and you have to expect it. it's not something you can stop. you can roll your eyes at it and continue on or you try to understand their viewpoint. just because someone has a different opinion doesn't mean you have to agree with them or accept it. there are cases where even this doesn't apply and if someone thinks they need to have an opinion that is neither legal nor socially acceptable I'll neither agree nor acknowledge this opinion i.e. [TW] , romanticising of nonconsensual actions, unreflected writing of topics such as mental health, violence, drug abuse (just writing for the sake of writing about triggering events because it's "cool" or "quirky") [/TW end]. but all in the spectrum of unreviewed writing (but even then I don't accept stuff as for example), that's also why tags and warnings are super important. i might flip a table if I go into a story and exactly what I mention happens and there wasn't a warning beforehand. but it also comes down to the style of writing.

also, it's fiction and shouldn't be taken for its worth in gold and everyone has a different way to write about the mafia for example (I wrote/write twice about the mafia and I'm aware it's not at all the way I depict and describe it and therefore I try my hardest to not romanticise it in any way[in any case I have friends that will read over it if I feel not comfortable with it and see how it influences other people]).

I think I got on a tangent here because I seriously procrastinate my preparations for a presentation. Feel free to ignore this if it is off-topic way too much.

edit: after looking through some of the comments and replies: young children are very impressionable and don't have the capacity to fully understand the spectrum of some things. I'm not generalising anything, but if I take my nephew for example, he sometimes has a worldview i would hit people for, with a baseball bat, spiked with rusty nails. therefore some writers might influence their audience without intending to and that's why I call people out when I think the rating of a story right be not correct if it is mature/rated and they put it as general or teen and talk about noncon unrevised for example. we can't control who reads what but we also have somewhat of responsibility with creating content, be it in art, literature etc. no one forces us to teach our audience. i just get a chill when I see how some minors talk about idols because they might've picked it up in stories or content and started romanticising it.
—still, a tangent. i apologise.

I am feeling hesitant to write about things, my stories tend to go way darker sometimes. ... mafia or not, some tropes are always triggering to some body. It was not right to fight there, she have a bad experience and it's triggering to her. But everyone have bad experiences, in my case ual harassment, so either we overcome it... or avoid it if we can't take it in fiction instead of saying things like don't write this thing in this manner.

Idk if I can write if I have to stop at each sentence and worry about if it would trigger someone. It's just not possible to consider everyone before writing about things. And I believe I or any writer aren't the characters we are writing about, that's why it's imaginary.



And the young children, this internet is too huge and we can't stop them. We can try to alert the children we personally know but I don't think people are gonna listen, it's not that easy. We said no and they stopped reading stuffs or watching things. And this a huge topic, what we consume influences us, really can't do more than alerting, tagging and putting m ,tw.



Whatever, I would like to imagine bizzare things and write in this very small website, put the tags and warn others not to read.

Writing and reading is an escape for many from the dull, boring and horrible reality, so lets be aware this is fiction and write/read them.

I've read both blogs and I agree with both sides. I'm gonna talk about myself because when people talk in general they might get in trouble with others. Always talk about yourself, your personal experiences, the things you like to do, the things you dislike (just how everything happened to lead to this blog post)
So talking about myself, I only write mafia AU! Whether I'm writing it in the bad or the good way, I'm not going to stop writing it just because I happen to read other people opinions across (not just this website) but everywhere. People are trying to spread awareness or whatever, but in the end it up to us to take their words in consideration or not. Sometimes when we don't like something, we IGNORE IT!
I respect both opinions after listening to both sides despite the drama that happened. But I chose to do whatever I want in the end without causing trouble with anyone (again i'm not blaming you for choosing to speak up or for feeling offended) I'm just saying that this entire thing isn't worth it.
Do whatever you want. You didn't agree with that blog post? Be sure that no one can force you to stop writing and doing the things you love. It's fine.
Usually these things last for a couple of weeks (maximum) then everyone forgets about them. People will still read mafia fics and writer will still write them in the bad and good way. Nothing gonna change. That's always happen when someone tries to speak up, especially if it's an unpopular opinion.
So all we have to do is calm down and forget about this issue. Be cool and chill about the situation. Write whatever you want because no one will blame you later.

Though I understand both sides, I absolutely agree you can write whatever you want and however you want to write it. You’re doing this for free, for christs sakes. Most are not professional here, and you are not indebted to anyone’s demands.
However, if you want to be taken seriously, you also have to be serious about your subject and your approach. And feedback says a lot on how readers see your story. As a person who’s often head of creatives irl, it’s definitely possible to be both creative and realistic to keep enticing your readers while still sending a relevant message. I loveeeeee being creative. So please, do you. My beta always says that you cannot please everyone. So yes, do you. And don’t take general criticisms personally.

I like to write where I don't have to worry if people would hate me or not. But of course if you want to write something that you know would give a negative impact to someone, that would be fine but WARN them of something that they should expect from the story because some people may find it very sensitive

I admit I always want to write something dark and heavy, something abnormal, something messy and sometimes I hesitate but I feel like it gets me so mad to the point that I can't stop thinking about it so I ended up writing them.

People have different opinions and this is what I think.

quite a heavy topic. I do agree that people can write what they want, whatever they want— but in turn, you’re putting your work on a platform (any platform for that matter) and because of that, you’ll have to be okay with people disagreeing with the way you write it or the way you have portrayed it. Even if it is fiction.

It’s the act of romanticizing certain actions and even if I have written certain things I’m not proud about (now deleted), if heavy topics are used in a story to make a point: the best way for that is through OC’s, a different name altogether. But then again, it’s solely up to the writer. It’s just an opinion.

The world is a tough place to live in and passion for creativity usually blossoms when there is an audience. With that, I think a certain level of responsibility is put onto the writers to do their research, to actively try to make sure the young ones perceive it the right way.

Another way to think of it is to think that if we had a daughter (Or my sister, for that matter) and she reads it— What are the affects of that? But then again, that’s what TW and disclaimers that even Netflix uses are for.

Writing “fiction” or “fanfiction” is not an excuse to be reckless, though. Yes, we may be amateurs, and we may not be indebted to researching a topic, you still have to be careful of the effects that your writing has on people. “Creativity” doesn’t grant you the right to be selfish or ignorant.

No one wants to stop you from writing, either. By that logic, if you get criticism in any form, just remember “people can write whatever they want.” And if you don’t like the criticism that you get, then just close your eyes, I guess :-D

The point is writers should "be aware" if they step in the sensitive topic (eg. mafia, , child grooming, criminal, murder, , etc.) that all those actions are wrong and should be handle carefully — like how you portray the result of its action or reaction of people around them.

We have to admit that not every receiver can translate the message in the right way, and I must say there are so many young people who read the story and too naive to understand all these sensitive topics. I didn't say that no one should write about these topics. You can write whatever you want and can still convey it in the story or even add the note to tone it down, up to their liking

— or don't give it a care at all, still up to you but at least I hope it can raise some awareness to the writer here. I hope you wouldn't take this personally. It's not my intention to personally attack anyone.

Nobody is stopping you from writing anything, moreover, some topics just are very sensitive and need to be handled with knowledge and respect. It is as simple as that.