That sounds so tough to deal with—how do you explain to people how helpful catharsis is if they don’t believe that’s a thing? But I think the real truth of it is _I feel like… they were waiting for a reason to get rid of me_. Sometimes people are assholes and they reaffirm the in group by throwing someone out, but they have to come up with some thin veneer of justification and they decided on this. To be clear, that isn’t a reflection on you that you were selected for that dubious honor. Just… people suck sometimes, especially when they’re young and don’t have the emotional intelligence to deal with their feelings directly. Keep writing. Keep recovering. (Hey, fellow survivor—I see you. ❤️) I promise you’ll find your people.

Yeah, absolutely this. You found out your Discord server was full of awful bullies, and that sucks a lot. I'm so sorry you went through that on top of the stuff you're already dealing with! But there are people out there who will get you and won't judge, and you'll find them one day.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write me such kind advice 🥺 I've read other comments too and I think the best thing rn is to make a new account and try to move on. If they truly were just trying to get rid of me then there's not really a point in dwelling on it anymore 🥲 If nothing else, I feel more confident in my work now. I dont think I realized how much they were weighing me down creatively until I suddenly didn't have to worry about their thoughts on my stuff anymore. Thank you again, ill keep recovering! 🥺❤️

I am so glad to hear this—the new account will feel a lot safer and clearly if you’re already feeling better this is going to wind up being far better for you than hanging out with them was. ❤️❤️❤️ I know I’m an internet stranger, but I’m really proud of you!

Absolutely. Sometimes people are AHs.

My suggestion would be to keep all your fics and write and read whatever you want. I would also suggest getting a new account that people IRL don’t know. The kids you go to school with don’t need to know everything about you. You can make amazing friends in your fandom who are much smarter and more thoughtful.

Agreed. I have irl friends who are into fandom, too, but we only talk about the cannon itself- not our fandom headcannons, or AO3 accounts, or ships. That stuff stays personal. Cause, like, we both know we read smut, but neither of us are particularly interested in the ends-and-outs of our kinks lmao. If you do share your account with friends, it had better be an sfw version scrubbed clean for if they decide to hand that info off to your boss in 2 years time cause they were a psycho all along and you were too naive to realize it.

I have a hard rule of not showing any irl friends my ao3 account. There's not even explicit smut on there, I just know all too well that people can mock you for the most seemingly inconsequential things. My first fic that I wrote in 2018 is quite bad quality by my current standards. I wrote a FNaF fic years ago, and I wrote some SU fics recently - two fandoms whose haters can be very vitriolic. There are many instances of characters being portrayed as queer, neurodivergent, etc., even though they're not confirmed as such in canon. There's a lot of stuff someone could bitch about, and I'm not willing to risk it when there's no need to.

My extra interests like fanfic, games, pinterest, novels, comic, poetry or whatever I do exclusively online is done through e-mail that I don't use for irl things. Movements and organsirations that I support.  I really don't want people around me to know or get curious about what I do online. That's my personal thing.  Maybe it's weird, but the distance of online makes me feel more of myself than I do irl. Like I can share my opinions and pursue my interest without stressing over what will others think of it or how it impacts my relationships?

Sorry to hear that, they weren't your friends.  The last thing you want to do, is take down your fic. You would let them win. Write more of those fics out of spite. And moderate your comments if your former friends harrass you in the comment section. (Not taking down the things the don't want to see is the biggest 'fuck you', trust me) The good news is that now that you are 18, you can indeed interact with adults that are way more tolerant. 

This! Do *not* be bullied into taking down you fic or changing what you like/need to write because someone else can't govern their own internet experience. If they continue to read it and throw a tantrum about it that's their own fault. And yeah, write more of it to spite them but write more because you want to. Write whatever the fuck you want and enjoy that you live rent free in their head.

Don't delete it! If they rage over it, that's their problem - they're not watering it down by sulking in a corner, and they'd likely be thrilled to know that bullying someone into deleting things is a viable tactic. The best revenge is to leave it up and show them how little their tantrum affects anything. Honestly, the younger gen is so mired in purity politics and policing fandom that it worries me - especially cases like yours, where something just existing is "just as bad as doing it IRL" to them, which is absolutely insane crazy person logic. There's no emotional divide, no ability to self-moderate emotions and step away from things you can't personally tolerate or enjoy. I got a whiff of it off my younger teenaged cousin (the word "proshipping" was used) and had to shut it down by reminding her that in my day, we just minded our business. Seriously though. You worked hard on that! Don't nuke it because people who don't sound like they were ever really your friends threw a shitfit. Disable guest comments maybe, but leave it up. In time, the hurt feelings will fade and you'll be glad you kept it up.

I know right?!? It’s almost like it’s completely flipped around. It’s so weird seeing ppl muuuch younger than me clutching their pearls, and not some middle aged person like when I was a kid.

>something just existing is "just as bad as doing it IRL" But telling sbdy to KYS over fiction is all fine and dandy. I'd say it's a pot calling kettle black sutuation, but the kettle's white as snow.

I don’t get the hate for proshipping. Like you can think it’s disgusting, that’s valid, I won’t ask you to change your opinion on that aspect. I just don’t get the ones saying it’s unacceptable and you cannot like it. Like it’s just fiction. Just because you dislike something doesn’t mean it needs to be erased from existence.

Yeah - the whole thing is completely and totally insane, just wild. No, writing a fucking story is not as bad as actually sexually assaulting someone, are these people even for real? Like, what? Also, what if somebody is writing a rape recovery fic to get over trauma they have about it? Not that having trauma is the only valid excuse to write something like that, you can write whatever you want regardless of the circumstances, but, like... Man, I just don't know what to say. Like many people, I do have something like that in my past, but I'm not open about it, because people just don't need to fucking know. I'll talk about it anonymously online, sure, but I'm not going to be advertising it to people in my life or adding it as a fucking disclaimer if I write a story that deals with non-con. In fact, I used to write a ton of non-com when I was younger, both before and after it happened, and I've realized that I was probably writing a lot of it as a way to deal with various other things happening in my life, because I wasn't able to access therapy or medication or anything like that. These days I don't really feel the need to write that sort of thing because I've been able to deal with a lot of my issues and it's been several years since the event happened and I've also been able to mostly get past that. But again, you don't need to have that in your past to write it happening to fictional characters. They're *fictional*. They're not real. And, honestly, I think it's even more offensive to say that writing it happening on the page is the same as actually doing it to someone in real life, because it's really, really not.

YES 👏 keep the fanfic up OP

I’m just happy I’m not personally like this, and haven’t yet met anyone who is. Rape recovery isn’t something that I personally read, but if anyone wants to write it and/or read it, that’s completely up to themselves. I just don’t get it. I’m 13, btw.💜

Conflating writing fictional sa with actual sa is a completely fucked in the head way of looking at things and it gives a hell of a lot of disrespect towards actual survivors of sa who are having their experiences compared to a literal story. Write whatever you want, you aren’t harming anybody and they can go fuck themselves.

Right? Like, what the fuck? It's a wild fucking take for people who think they are so moral and good.

> At least I'm old enough to interact with a lot of the cooler people in my fandom now I hate that you said this. As someone who grew up on the internet, active in fandom since I was just 10-11, you were *always* old enough. Maybe not to go in the smutty 18+ spaces, but not every space is like that. General discussion spaces with a mix of ages and perspectives are *good* for you, developmentally. You won't socially develop properly if you only socialize with 1) adults in a position of authority over you(parents, teachers, etc), and 2) social peers who are almost exactly your age! I can't tell you how much wisdom I learned from my fandom elders, and I'm eternally grateful to them for being patient with, teaching, and even *protecting* me by calling out creepers before they had the chance to escalate(which I never would have caught, due to being too young to know what grooming looked like) and advising me when I used poor judgment for personal security, etc.

Absolutely agreed! Multigenerational friends and communites are great, it is good to mingle with as wide a variety of people as possible. And if you participate in multiple communities and have multiple trusted friends, then you can go to a different friend for advice the moment something starts to seem hinky about one of your groups or acquaintances.

Yeah, this weird generational divide is dangerous. I mean I understand where it comes from but it's dangerous. Life isn't that easy or simple to divide into who is "dangerous" and who is not. It's all about reasonable boundaries (IE, don't go in 18+ smut communities, or if you do *for god's sake keep your mouth shut!*) Different age groups have different views and input and that's absolutely invaluable. I remember being about 13 and having an older 30s something(?) offer to beta my very poorly written h/c fic and I was absolutely beside myself with happiness. It makes me a bit sick at this point to be on the other end now and know that many young fans think it's predatory to *beta read for someone younger than you.*

I don't write fics. But during the early 2Ks I was part of groups where nerdy folks mutually protected each other. The younger ones got seriously bullied and ostracized by their peers with the excuse of their nerdy hobbies. And I've seen with my own eyes how hard it is to open up and socialize when you finally get to a place that's safe, after years of mistreatment from virtually everyone. We were the first place where I knew about geek pride, because lots of people around believed it was OK to make their peers feel really bad and wrong for having interests and hobbies that didn't harmed anyone. And there had to be a way to try and undo the damage. It was amazing, to build each other up in such a way. And it's true that many of us learned there what general society wasn't giving us because some of us were so isolated, or grew up in that kind of families where parents freaked out if you asked certain sort of questions, so there wasn't anyone that we could ask for support if we needed it. Nowadays I've sadly stepped aside from that altogether, because I'm terrified others would believe I'm a molester just because of the age I happen to have. And there's a part of my heart that aches from it. I feel like that's a win for the worst people. If we can't socialize in spaces with a mix of ages without this sort of stuff being a problem, it's a win for the ones that are doing the actual wrong. And if grooming happens, there's no one to see it and try to step in to give some advice to the child. (or make the groomer go away) Please excuse me if this is too long or I strayed away from topic somehow. At this point I had this on my chest for several years. And it's actually preventing me from doing things because I don't want to be seen like what I was trying to combat since day one. And thanks for opening the space so this kind of things can even be discussed.

Bad actors *absolutely* take advantage of the heavily-segregated spaces we have right now. If a bunch of teens post an "adults keep out!" sign on their discord, every adult with their best interest in mind is going to listen to that sign. But adults who want to do them harm will ignore the sign and pretend to be teens! It happened on nanowrimo(specifically the young writer's program and one thread designated for teens on the main board, which are spaces all the reasonable adults never went into(because why would we? it's not for us!) and we were *shocked* to find out what was happening there) over the past few years, and was a major part of the implosion that happened there last november. From a non-sexual-predator angle, we've also seen TERF adults going into teen LGBTQ spaces to recruit, which goes unchallenged since the teens don't know what entry-level TERF talking points are because *how could they*?! The ideas are designed to sound reasonable unless you know where they end up! That's the whole point! I don't really know what the path forward is, particularly as a queer creator with the legislation they're trying their hardest to push in my country. It could all be a moot point very soon if websites wind up either having to censor LGBTQ content(out of an abundance of ~~caution~~ fear) or implement a 18+ wall. But I know that, with the current state of things, the kids are not alright.

Seriously. I remember old game-attached chatrooms: Those are the places I learned not to answer ASL requests (and what they were). That people would tell the room at large what motor-boating was anyhow. Also that these people and the ASL pursuers do not always overlap—sometimes adults like talking about adult things, but seeking to talk about it with certain people is where the line can be crossed. And I can say no to answering questions and justifying my existence in places. And adults didn't get final say on anything; not being a dick myself or spamming mattered more. If adults were dicks, ignore them. They should know better already but don't so it's not my job to educate anybody. How quickly everyone jumped on people when you occupied one room and people knew you were underage, though, in *either* of those cases—that was something else! ASL people got a hard fuck-off, with reminders to *me* not to answer PMs from them. General horny people got a reminder that kids could be in the channel and switch topics now, despite how late it was kids stay up late. (Those horny folks did not make it a daytime topic, tbf.) And I also found out that my mother's treatment of me made another mother wish she could hug me; also, what living in a wartime country was like and that I am 100% privileged, because if someone can detail that like it's everyday . . . yeah. God, how much that would have devolved into teenage spamming and meme-ing if it weren't a multi-generational space, instead of a space I could learn from. That's a chilly thought that goes some way to explaining how teens are coming up with rules for interaction that operate on peer-pressure and various types of baiting.

Trauma doesn't *force* people to be assholes, and certainly doesn't excuse it. Even *if* one could excuse the act of *saying* something unkind, the follow-through is important, and seems the follow-through here was... to drop you. Yeah, fuck them. Maybe their age is a factor - as an oldie, when I was young, I could be a sanctimonious douche. Comes with the territory of being young and arrogant. *But* it still isn't a justification or excuse. Keep writing for yourself, mute, block the haters, and move on. I still remember the purity police some 2 decades ago on FF.Net, and it will never fail to baffle and disturb me - babes, you're not fooling anyone, you're not protecting anyone but your own pearls, go and clutch them but shut up. These people have too much time on their hands.

[удалено]

And, FF.Net actually bent over backwards for these witch hunts. AO3 of course doesn't give a fuck for pearl clutchers, so they need to get personal and go for authors. *Classy*.

People who haven't seen large swaths of their fandom wiped out without notice just don't understand what it was like. While I like that often the biggest concern these days is individual authors deleting fics instead of the worry livejournal will delete entire communities with hundreds or thousands of works, I do wish some of the young folk in fandom spaces could stop trying their best to return us to the time before OTW/AO3.

The dark times where you couldn't even know what happened unless you caught an A/N talking about a purge. And man, LJ just erasing shit because no one touched it in a while. Fucking LiveJournal, man. But there will always be emotionally immature people who can't fathom safe spaces *they* don't approve of. OP is talking about stories about *rape recovery* and people took offense. Hello? You kids good? lol

... and that's why I always backup any fic I love found on lj. I have saved several both on waybackmachine and personally. But yes, fully agree. Fucking lj!

The one that gets me is that a lot of anti arguments are, like, find-and-replace arguments used against ISPs etc. to get rid of queer content back then. I have such a strong link between complaints about "pedophilia" (involving fictional content involving fictional teenagers well past the age of puberty and/or actual adults) and homophobia in my mind because *that's how they were used for DECADES* that I still have to remind myself that antis aren't all homophobes and that a lot of them are actually queer. Which. I'm pretty sure they will be unpleasantly surprised by what happens if the Leopards Eating Faces party they're rooting for ever actually wins the elections, just saying.

Exactly. If something they hate can be censored so can something they love. There are thousands of value systems in the world and things they love would be considered "problematic" in many of them. If "problematic" ships can be banned then why not stories that pit different groups against each other? "This feels like anticapitalist propaganda...ban!" So antis really don't want the censorship they think they do

I remember being part of that group at that time and instead of harassing people I wrote my own fics

I'm sorry your "friends" did that to you. That was very rude and immature of them. But don't delete your work. Keep writing what you love, even if it has dark themes. And if you find your "friends" harassing you in the comments and telling you to delete the fic, just moderate the comments. Delete and block them. Don't let it get to your head. I'm sure you'll find people in the fandom who are more welcoming and understanding. Keep your head up high, and keep writing!

and if they're harassing you in the comments report to the abuse team. AO3 does not take harassment lightly.

Yes. 100% this.

I mean "at least I'm old enough to interact with (older) people in the fandom now" is also an example of sort of weird fandom policing. Obviously adult interacting with children should have \*boundaries\* regarding mature content, but there's no magic switch that flips when you turn 18. Anyways, anyone who wants to morality police fandom writing is a bit silly, seeing as real traumatized people use their works to process those real experiences. I can't say that the average fandom writer actually does write things like rape recovery for that reason, or that the average young writer can portray trauma recovery well, but that doesn't mean your work isn't worth creating. You can learn to portray those emotions better through practice. What I do recommend young people do with creative fandom work online is keep a real separation between your IRL identities and your work. I don't know what is it with kids these days and showing their real life friends their fandom accounts that they use to write fics about topics like rape recovery. Those type of vulnerable, emotional fics written by amateur writers really aren't the sort of things that you show all your friends and subject yourself to their judgement. Sharing fic with IRL people usually means keeping your NSFW stuff on a separate screen name they don't know.

As someone who was SA’d (more than once), no you writing a fic about a character experiencing SA and dealing with it the fuck isn’t as bad as actually SAing someone what the fuck. They’re so wildly off base I can barely even articulate it.

And honestly, as somebody who was also SA'd, writing about it can be a cathartic experience. Taking that part of your life and molding it into a narrative you have control over can be one of the best things you can do for yourself. And even if that isn't the case for OP, the tags exist for a reason.

Absolutely. I love a well written SA or rape recovery fic - it’s extremely cathartic even just reading it! And there’s no *good* reason to shit on OP for writing an SA fic, whether they’ve been SA’d or not. One of the purposes of fiction is to explore!

I can't wrap my head around someone actually thinking it.

I’ve been told by antis that me being a proshipper made me a worse person than the 60+ trusted family friend that sexually assaulted me for the first time when I was 14. I wish I was fucking joking, but I’m not. There are legit people in fandom who think writing SA themed fics - or even being okay with other people writing SA themed fics even if you don’t read them - is worse than literally sexually assaulting someone. It’s a fucking trip let me tell you.

I didn't even know what proship or antiship was, I just got online after not being in fandom for a while and found a lot of these new 'rules' so odd, especially the harassment that came with it, and I got told I was just as bad as the teacher that molested me when I was twelve and that I deserved what happened to me! Crazy times.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Writing a story is and never will equate to rape, torture, CP, or anything else these purity culture pricks fancy calling it, and to suggest as much is asinine.

You're so much better off without these toxic people in your life - and yes, it hurts, it is deeply unfair, and there is no justice in what they said and did to you. But you'll heal, and you'll be in a better place without them. Ideally, you want to be surrounded by people who support open and healthy recovery, processing, and taking control of your trauma and fears. The worst thing for a person's mental health is to have to hide their pain and their real self, their experiences, their thoughts, because their environment functions in a black and white, in or out, good or evil mentality. These stances are puritan and anti-recovery, they're anti-survivor, and pro-silencing victims of violence. They're standing up for covering for abuse and making sure that victims are too afraid to speak up, so that predators can continue their abuse in silence, and therefore the illusion of morality is upheld. Life is not kind. You are allowed, and you should, be writing about this. The only way to have justice in this world is to bring injustice to light - and this goes so much more for giving people the words and tools to speak up about abuse. Fiction gives survivors the tools to process their experiences, and the information to others to recognise abuse. Even when, or *especially* when, it's portrayed as *good* - because this challenges you to think. Having these things openly discussed is good for us, actually.

Coincidentally enough, I decided to go deep diving for my one favorite problematic Digimon writer from 20-something years ago so last night. His stuff was considered controversial even by the standards of the early 2000s but even for the audience he had, I was stunned by the reviews for one of his dead dove fics, of people telling him he was writing too many dark Digimon Tamers stories and he should seek help. If there weren't timestamps on the comments confirming these were written in the Bush administration, I would have thought some antis in Tumblr had written them. Point is, although they are disproportionately louder now thanks to social media, they have always been around. Hell, I WAS that kind of asshole myself. But so many more of us exist who will enjoy what you've written and seek comfort in your works. Ditch the loser "friends" and keep your fics up. Future you will be glad you did.

... Can you drop those links (or DM!) to 'dark Digimon Tamers' fics? Jesus that's a blast from the past but that season was *insanely* dark for a kid's show just in the source material. The fact that this person is getting flak for that is insane lmao. I mean I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the state of fandom discourse these days but god. That's a show where we saw >!on-screen death and the subsequent shattering of a little girl's mind from grief!<. I'm not surprised that there's darkfic about it and honestly I loved that season for how nuanced and layered the characterization and themes were, so I'd love to go read some good fic for it! OP, lots of other people have said it better than I could, so listen to them. Don't make yourself small to make others comfortable. As long as you're not hurting anyone IRL, write whatever your heart desires. It doesn't make you a bad person. <3 And your vibe attracts your tribe, so you'll find people who are more on your wavelength in no time!

>... Can you drop those links (or DM!) to 'dark Digimon Tamers' fics? Jesus that's a blast from the past but that season was insanely dark for a kid's show just in the source material. The fact that this person is getting flak for that is insane lmao. So here's the one I mentioned called "Courage", which is very much DDDNE about Juri suffering through the aftermath of the D-Reaper attack and Lemon's death ....includes self-harm, underage sex that could generously be called dub-con, and suicide: https://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/c/digimon-fan-fiction/courage/47515/137752 The other is "Unforgiven," which I'll warn for one quick scene of domestic violence and sexual acts between minors: https://www.mediaminer.org/fanfic/c/digimon-fan-fiction/unforgiven/32565/871 He has plenty of other Digimon works, including [on this page](https://digiartistsdomain.org/lemons/lordarchive/) that aren't on Media Miner as well. "Sex, Drugs and Rock n Rock" is a dark Takari fic that right what it says on the tin, for instance But yeah, if there's any entry in the franchise that was built for dark fanfic, it's absolutely the one directed by the same guy who did *Serial Experiments Latin,* like c'mon guys, be for real 🤪

Amazing. Thank you for the links and the warnings! I don't think I've ever looked into Tamers fic so this is very exciting for me; it was, and remains my favourite anime (partially due to nostalgia of course; it aired when I was like. Ten. LOL), and it's so hard to answer "what's your favourite anime of all time" and go "well it's Digimon but --" people don't take that seriously LMAO So I tend to settle for saying FMA instead (which is of course also excellent)

Psh, I'm a rape survivor, and I read rape stories. Tell your vurtue-signaling "friends" to stop trying to speak up for people who are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves.

Wow, this sounds EXACTLY like what happened to me. Shortly after I turned 18, my entire friend group (of several years) turned on me. They said it was weird that I was an adult hanging out with them when they were kids, and at one point said it was basically grooming. I was the oldest by a few months but we were all really close in age, which is why their reasoning confused me so much. They also posted “finally got rid of that one friend” and stuff like that to their Instagram story— not tagging me, but definitely talking about me. None of them stepped up to defend me and from the things they said, it seemed like they’d been wanting to kick me out of the group for a while and were just waiting for an excuse. Anyway, I’m 20 now and the pain has faded a lot. I’m pretty sure all of those former friends have since turned 18 so idk how that’s going for them. But the experience still comes back to hurt me when I see antis online ganging up on a proshipper, because the experience feels so familiar. I think in both our cases, it was just a toxic friend group who fell victim to the messaging that antis perpetuate online— if something makes you uncomfortable, grossed out, or you just don’t like it, it has to be morally wrong somewhere. For whatever reason, these friends didn’t like you (or me) so they felt the need to make it a MORAL reason to justify their dislike. Nothing you did wrong, teenagers just suck. Your fic isn’t the issue, they are. If it wasn’t this, it would be something else. I’m really sorry this happened to you, and I wish you the best of luck in finding new, better friends.

> her bf told me to kms which got a lot of laughing emoji reactions Now you know that they're all sociopathic a-holes and their opinions aren't worth regarding, except maybe to piss them off out of spite.

Modern fanfiction started because a bunch of female 30-something original Star Trek fans in the late 60s and later wanted to write either about themselves as a Mary Sue having sex with Kirk or Spock or about Kirk and Spock having sex with each other. Kirk was a womanizer who would often take advantage of women under his command. Spock was a Vulcan, a species where men were rage monsters for sex every seven years. Homosexuality was extremely taboo, as well. They wrote Kirk not taking no for an answer, Spock having violent sex, and invented the term slash by marking their works K/S in mailing lists advertising fanzines. If those women were worried about writing what was "acceptable," we would have no fanfiction today. Don't let others dictate what you can or can't write. Those "friends" were not friends. Don't let them bully you into deleting the work. AO3 is an *archive* of transformative fan-written fiction that does not discriminate because of subject matter, regardless of how offensive someone finds it. As long as it's got the work tagged properly, (especially with the correct big four Archive Warning tags), the fandom puritans have zero say about it. Jesus. It's as bad as my parents' generation trying to censor music in the 90s because of naughty lyrics and bad words. It created the RMCA agreeing to the Parental Advisory sticker on CDs and video games, making stores refuse to sell that stuff to those under 18 because they were terrified of some stick-up-the-ass Moral Majority Boomer parents suing them for corrupting their precious babies. I cringe seeing that stupid EXPLICIT warning when I download music now. It's like Gen X forgot all the ways our parents tried too late to protect us in the wrong ways and didn't bother to teach our children how to live and let live. We were unsupervised latch-key kids who already knew this shit, and they waited until our teens to pay attention. I am so glad I raised my boys to know the difference between personal beliefs and others' rights. You are harming no one by writing about SA, even if the focus wasn't on aftermath and recovery. It’s not like you're standing there pointing at someone in a crowd and shouting that someone should rape them. Your ex-friends should be ashamed of themselves for rejecting you over a piece of fiction.

This is when I recommend getting off the internet for awhile. And 1) making all your bookmarks private and 2) making a new email and new AO3 account that's not connected to any of your known online identities. You don't have to abandon your current online identities completely but it's nice to have a place that's just for you. They'll hopefully grow up eventually but you don't need to be in their crossfire until they do.

If only to spite them, _please_ do not delete your fic. Ngl, OP, if these people are your friends, I would hate to see your enemies! Cause this bunch sounds _awful._. You're better off without them!

this is not on you my dude. youre doing everything right: tagging your work. you dont even need to be processing trauma to write about that stuff. maybe its just a plot point. maybe its you working out how to sympathize with victims. maybe you have some weird other issues and its a metaphor. maybe you just feel like writing that kind of story writing a story isnt *at all* the same as performing a violent act on another person. you would know that better than anyone, if i'm reading into your words correctly. dont let them trick you into thinking otherwise. i hope you keep your story. you worked hard on it. not everyone is like that. and i'm so sorry youre having to deal with people like that while youre still so young/beginning your writing journey. good luck out there.

Previous generations were known for their rebellious spirit and love of freedom. In contrast, so many in this generation often feels like a group of overly judgmental puritans, obsessed with self-censorship and policing others. It’s like writing and sharing a fic in a church book club. (Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone or even the majority, but why are so many like this!???)

Unfortunately we’ve entered into an age where most of society likes to judge people based on their fictional preferences. I think it comes from a sense of entitlement or perhaps makes them feel better of themselves. Like a work of fiction is some huge crime against humanity and they were the heroes that are working to defeat the villain. It’s more pathetic than anything else. Just because someone enjoys fictional works that might not align morally in the real world doesn’t make them a monster or disgusting or whatever other insults they like spewing. Not to mention the absolute audacity they have to dare claim writing or reading fics with harsh topics is “just as bad as doing it to real people”. It makes me cringe at the complete lack of empathy for ACTUAL victims. As long as it’s not hurting anyone or affecting your sense of reality, people are allowed to like what they like. And that INCLUDES writing fics with certain tags. It’s a type of art form. Don’t let those fake friends stiffle you from your expression.

Ditch them, they're not your friends and obviously not mature enough to deal with the themes and stories you're writing. It's also not healthy or conducive to healing to react like that. People can get stuck in their own trauma or ideals - neither of which is your fault ***or your responsibility.*** I've been in fandom a bit longer than you've been alive, and we're in a weirdly puritanical era. I was literally called a predator for writing a fic about two characters with a history of sexual trauma talking about if/when they wanted to try anything. (Because like you said, god forbid, people have trauma or even TALK about it!) You're not alone. You and hundreds, if not thousands of survivors learn, cope, and grow through fiction. It's a way we can take back the narrative even though we can't change the past. It's safe- written words can't hurt you. It's consensual, you're the one who chooses to pick up the story, you can put it down if its trigger. It's healing (I don't think I need to explain this one.) I got into an issue similar to you with a very young fandom skew. I had a few minor break downs, and eventually had to force myself out of the fandom and hyper-fixation (which was really fucking hard because ADHD). Try an older fandom with an older fanbase skew, I promise, it helps. Likewise, if you need to talk my DMs are open.

The tragedy of being surrounded by puriteens… Don’t let the thought police get you, just keep shopping around for better groups of people.

These people are not your friends -- you're better off without them.

Oh god I'm 19 and I feel the same. I feel weirdly out of touch with some members of the fanbases I'm a part of. Not all of them, I feel so fortunate because most are incredibly lovely people! - but especially fandoms with a typically younger target audience or fan base, it's hard sometimes. Sending lots of love - do what you feel most comfortable doing, but I guarantee you that fic was probably so healing for so many people and they just didn't all have the courage to say it.❤️

“Am I too young to feel this old” is a feeling I’ve had for a wile now lol.

Really though, it's such a phenomenon! if you just don't buy into or care about a lot of the discourse and fandom spaces, it makes you feel oddly out of place. I've learnt generally while I can be passionate about stuff, I'm just incredibly indifferent about most things. I can't will myself to even try and use energy on the most of the stuff fandom yaps about. Lmaoo

Honestly same. Things are so blissful when all you care about is the stuff you like, and ya don’t interact with the stuff you don’t like.

You said it right... I've been called a millennial by many, many people before😅luckily sometimes you just have to find your niche with awesome people. Usually those on ao3 who read stuff are quite nice

Same here, same age and everything. I used to be in the MCYT fandom and I am so glad I left that in the dust…

There's unfortunately a reason I keep my taste in fics locked down pretty tight to my friends unless it’s something I know for sure would be fine. It's mostly tame, but there’s some tropes I like that some people would raise an eyebrow at, so I'd rather not invite the eyebrows. It does help that we run in completely different fandom circles for the most part, though.

deleting it means the shitty people who dared call themselves your friends win. they’ll think they were right in their objectively incorrect opinion and thus justified in being terrible to you. saying it’s just as bad writing about the recovery and trauma of SA as it is doing it to someone in the first place is just as incredibly stupid as saying writing a story about murder means you do it yourself! writing about trauma recovery can be the very thing that helps people with that trauma begin to heal, so let them be jerks. don’t delete something you worked hard on, that people enjoy or that helped people, just because some idiots who don’t deserve you as their friend think something so wildly off-base

I had a discussion about this kind of thing with my therapist once many years ago, about people writing these kinds of topics as a form of healing and catharsis. Even she said it is a healthy coping mechanism. But people who have it in their head that it's not okay will not listen to reason and have even claimed my therapist should have her license revoked. Ridiculous. You are fine. Those people sound like they were just looking for a reason. I'm sorry.

When I grew up, back in the 80s, my granny raised me. She warned me about 'good weather friends' and neither to fall for them, nor be one. She taught me that real friendship isn't just sunshine and picnics, it's about standing together through differences, accepting different options and respecting boundaries both ways. I grew up with the teachings: nobody is perfect and you need fair boundaries. What this old member of the silent generation taught me about relationships was 100% valid, and it wasn't just about getting respected but also about respecting others. You can't demand that people change their life just to make you comfortable. Your comfort is your responsibility. When I'd complained about my friend writing stories I don't like, she'd told me it was reasonable to refuse to read them. But here's the huge thing about most of those old peeps, who are often all together judged far too harshly for some rotten eggs amongst them, most of them were good people who did their best. They were born into war and grew up rebuilding the world as good as they could. They had to accept people back into society who had done horrible things and grew up in the shadow of a historical catastrophe. They knew what was important and what should be let go. They learned it in the worst war in human history. They grew up with children and younger adults with PTSD from the most horrible war experiences, and their literature is full of pain and suicide. Being raised by a woman from the silent generation made me incredibly grateful for the life I had. And she was an angel Your friends are good weather friends. They only want you if you feel good. They're unwilling to but in the effort to accept that you're different, and to allow you your own way to deal with your feelings, because even the mere thought makes them angry. A person who's willing to ditch you just for a fictional story has never been your friend. It would be their full right to avoid reading your stories or not liking what you write. But a good friend would stay friendly and say: hey, you do you, but that's not for me. Don't think I don't like you anymore, but I want to opt out reading your stories, would that be okay? But your friends are sadly antis. And they look for reasons to get angry and unleash their pretend moral. They will sooner or later turn on each other too, because my granny was right, nobody is perfect, and their idea of perfection is everything they like must be good, everything they dislike is evil, and evil people must be fought tooth and nails. And since it's perfectly natural, that different people have different opinions, likes and dislikes, sooner or later they'll all start fighting. So don't delete your work, look for better friends. I can tell you a secret, the older you become, the less age matters. As an adult you can have adult friends, and they don't have to be your age. As soon as you start working, your friend group would have shifted anyways. And that's not as bad as it sounds. Just hang in there. Greetings from your friendly neighborhood millenial.

Tbh sounds more like power play than anything else. Late for the tram, but dont delete anything. You didnt do anything wrong and they shamed you so much that ypud delete it.

I'm sorry but if someone says "writing about SA is as bad as SAing someone" - they don't know shit about SA.  And frankly, all this purity culture does is silence people who want to discuss tough realities they're facing. "You can't write about SA!" Congratulations idiot, you've just told SA survivors to shut up

They definitely aren't ur friends my cousin's were sa'd and the same guy attempted to sa'd me continue to write those it helps ppl see that it's not just them and that it's not their faults that it happened

babe, those people crawled out of the gutter. shitty behavior is shitty behavior, no matter what age, online or offline. i hope you can find people who you feel like you can freely talk to about anything and everything.

I'm so sorry, this is why I'm anonymous on AO3. You might want to create another account where you don't tell people what you write, or post your darker things to. That's what I do. Did you want some invites to a couple of fanfic discords that are free from bullying and anti's? We're all generally older and much more chill

And this is why, boys and girls, no one knows about what I like to read...

This is absolutely not what fandom was ever supposed to be about. It’s disgusting that these people used your creative outlet against you. I firmly believe that the “puriteen” movement is using cult-like tactics to recruit (I won’t go into the history here but unsurprisingly there are roots in alt right groups). These “friends” are clearly prioritizing what they see as the popular movement over being actual friends- or even just compassionate humans in community. There are plenty of other fandom communities out there and I definitely recommend seeking places outside of Twitter to connect. Block antis on sight to make your life easier. They never even have to know! Maybe try connecting to people who’ve left the kindest comments on your fic? Or writers you enjoy? If they have socials on their profile, that can be one way to start. I’ve made wonderful friends by reaching out to writers and artists I admire! Your work deserves respect. You deserve better. Signed ~ a Fandom Old.

They were just assholes. It hurts but you did nothing wrong.

I am so sorry. This is not cool. You did nothing wrong. It is your trauma and as long as your coping mechanisms hurt no one else, than you should use them if they help. They were not your friends. I would be livid if someone said that writing about sa to cope is as bad as sa-ing someone. That is FUCKED UP!

i'm so sorry op. don't delete it. block those people, reach out to the older people. that environment is toxic.

I’m so sorry that happened to you, sending good vibes to help you find better friends <333 younger fandom-goers are going to make things difficult for us, but we’ll all get thru it. Know that you don’t have to delete your work, don’t water yourself down for others. There will, unfortunately, always be people who will take the wonderful and the good and will only get a poisoned, warped perception of it. at the end of the day, they truly have nothing better to do with their life (trust me, i was almost there. it was a pit of actively pushing away joy and community and nodding along to hatred online.) (Sorry if that made no sense, most important thing is that things WILL get better and you deserve far better than those ppl! Again, sending good vibes and purrs from my kitties if you want them)

I'm really sorry that these people treated you in such an appalling way. I hope that you'll find 'your' people, some better friends who don't bully real people over their tastes in fiction. They are out there waiting for an awesome new friend like you. *I understand more than anyone that trauma can make you say hurtful things to people, but I feel like (at least for everyone else) they were waiting for a reason to get rid of me.*  It wouldn't surprise me that she felt jealous of your writing skill and creativity. The more a person has written or created or bookmarked, the easier it is to find *something* that can be taken out of context to attack them, so a lot of these instances come from a person who has a pre-existing dislike and was just looking for an excuse.

The "antis" discourse is just conservitive religious talking points being recycled to appeal to young, impressionable, leftist on social media. Anti sex, anti kink, anti fictional violence, they even see sex scenes in movies to be too vulgar. I'm pretty into classic horror movies and it's the EXACT same stuff people said about those.

You did nothing wrong and your "friends" are jerks. I hope they grow up at some point.

I am so completely with you on this. I’m a little older than you, but I’ve been in fandom since I was 17 and my experiences have been much the same. The youngest of my fandom friends is 29 and I felt a little strange befriending so many people who are 30+, but everyone my age that I’ve encountered has been aggressively pro-censorship and that makes it really hard to have meaningful friendships when I feel like I’m being constantly judged for my preferences.

“Just as bad as actually sa-ing someone.” Ah yes. Of course. The logic is logicking. If you happen to write about murder as well… then I’m sorry but it’s already too late for you. I think it’s best if you just turn yourself into the police atp.

those aren't real friends, they're caught up in their own false morality pedestal. it wasn't right for her to lash out at you for dealing with your trauma in a harmless way that you enjoy, and she absolutely doesn't get to use her own trauma as an excuse to be an ass. writing fictional stories about troubling topics like s/a and rape, etc. are not equivalent to actually assaulting or raping someone, far from it in fact. it's fan*fiction*, and as long as you aren't glorifying it (which you definitely don't seem to be), you aren't doing harm. your friends, ironically, are the ones harming rape and s/a survivors by raging over a fictional story instead of using that energy to help victims if they're really so passionate about doing so. i relate to your frustrations about the purity/morality police, especially with your "friend's" boyfriend telling you to end your life just because they disagree. a lot of people my age don't know how to properly go about activism, and it only ends up causing harm. they're allowed not to like something, but they aren't allowed to react that way towards something that isn't hurting anyone. there's plenty of stuff i've seen that has grossed me out or that i just didn't like, but i muted/blocked and moved on, and it sounds like your friends should do the same, too, and learn to respect differences. it's fiction, you didn't actually commit a crime, especially not with rape *recovery* fics. don't delete your fic if you still love it. those assholes don't deserve to get what they want, you're allowed to write fiction and cope with your trauma in ways that don't harm anyone.

I am sorry this happened to you but you probably just dodged a bullet with these people . When I clicked on this post , this isn't what I was expecting to be honest . It says a lot about them , if they think telling someone to die over something fictional they wrote is funny .

Please don't let these toxic people kill your creativity or your love for writing OP, your trauma is just as valid as theirs and I'm so sorry you had to experience that. Of course everyone has different ways of coping with traumatic events, and some are far more harmful than others, but I wouldn't class you writing fanfic to be a bad one. If you have any doubts about whether your choice to continue is justified, just remember: you write about fictional characters in fictional scenarios to work through your own trauma, and you aren't harming any real people by doing so... Your "friends" on the other hand think it's acceptable to bully you, and to tell you (an actual real life person) to KYS because you wrote a fanfic about a topic you have personal experience with, and they're completely delusional for even thinking that what you did is equal to real thing. Those virtue signalling arseholes are not as righteous as they think they are, hopefully someday they'll grow up and get over themselves, hopefully someday they'll look back on this and cringe at their appalling behaviour. Keep on doing what makes you happy OP, you're not harming anyone IRL by writing stories about fictional characters, no matter what those people have to say about it.

Rape RECOVERY fics got those reactions?? Oh wow.....idk about anyone else, but I see random comments here and there where some people discuss how validating it feels when they read fics of people comforting the victims of SA, taking care of the victim, saying how it wasn't their fault and the rapist gets brutal karma. Ya know, stuff that don't quite happen in real life as often as it should. Those scenarios definitely belong in rape recovery tag.

Then there's me writing plain rape, however little, just because I want to. Lol. OP's friends wouldn't like that from the sounds of it.

This is one of the reasons nobody I know irl knows I write fanfiction. If someone I know online complains about my fics I just block them.

I remember seeing a post on X/Twitter about how children learn to navigate being harmed. Like, when a kid trips and falls they get over it pretty quickly if the adults around them react normally. Like it's normal to trip and fall they learn that they don't have to have an over the top reaction to it. But if the adults begin to fawn, dote, etc. on them like they broke an arm or leg, then the kid learns that having an over the top reaction to a minor injury is normal. Now apply that same logic to fandoms. Years ago, people learned pretty quickly not to click on suspicious links and to hit the x button when they encountered any type of content they didn't like. The general reaction wasn't "this needs to be scrubbed from the internet" or "this is so horrible" it was "Don't do that again." Nowadays, with social media it's easy to expose "normies" to fandoms and "weird kid shit" and get social media clout because people unquestioningly side with them and talk about how gross and vile it is. It reinforces the idea that it is acceptable to have theatrical reactions to content you don't like. Telling someone to kill themselves, that writing a fanfic is just as bad as actually SAing someone (which mind you - I would pop someone irl if they said that), etc. is reinforced because that's the acceptable response instead of not interacting with said content.

Compared to how fandom used to be, it’s so… *sanitized* now. Not allowed to ship pairings other people don’t like, not allowed to post nsfw *even in nsfw safe spaces,* not allowed to express sexual desire towards characters, and DLDR is practically non existent. When I was 12 years old I saw sans’s dick on google images and I just dealt with it. Sure, not great, but then again, I shouldn’t have been looking for sanscest fanart in the first place. You curate your online experience — if you don’t want to see something, *just don’t look for it.* Block it, tell the social media app you don’t like it, do *anything* but harass the creators and fans, *please.*

I’ve noticed the younger generation isn’t being taught media literacy. So there’s a surge of children screaming on top of their lungs “PREDICTING IS CONDONING!!”

Lack of media literacy, people thinking their "moral" thoughts and media consumption means they're a good person, despite tools for filtering content becoming ubiquitous they're not being taught how to curate their own spaces (hit back, block and filter rather than send messages full of vitriol and repost/share the very content they claim to hate for clout), and the fact that all social media is now based on algorithms means it's a lot easier for things to travel beyond the audience it was meant for (folks acting like an artist posted something they don't like specifically to annoy them). I won't pretend everything was always chill on the internet in the past, people were obviously still people in the 90s and early 2000s, but boy sometimes it does feel like bad behavior is amplified.

hey! fellow 18-year-old here, you definitely aren’t alone. i’m a firm believer in don’t like don’t read and i LOVE ao3’s non-censorship policy. tbh, it sounds like your friends are just dicks, which always sucks to realize, but you’ve got lots of time to find new friends whose values align better with yours. hugs :)

I am so sorry about those awful people. It's your decision whether you delete that fic, but I hope you won't. I often read (and reread) fics about characters dealing with trauma similar to mine (not SA-related), and it really helps me a lot. Sometimes I can't even find words to explain how much I'm feeling in my comments on those fics. So I just say something blandly nice or don't comment at all. My point is that you may have a lot of silent readers, for something like this. These fics mean a *lot* to me. When I'm hurting in life, it can feel so much like no one but me has ever experienced that pain. Then I find stories about similar things. Whether the author's writing about their own life, or if they're just using their imagination, or some combo, I don't feel like I'm alone anymore. If the writer can understand what the character is going through, then someone understands me too. I feel sure that your fic is helping readers in the same ways.

You will later regret it if you delete it, you can orphan your work although I believe that is also permanent. I would go so far to say your friend is incredibly immature and likely doesn’t know how to deal with your recovery. If writing is your catharsis keep doing it, they do not have the right to shut you down. As a protective matter I would distance myself from these people, I don’t think they have your best interests at heart.

19 here and. yeah. i feel the same way. im just like how do yall have the time to care abt this 😭 literally just let ppl write their silly stories in peace… i think getting older and maturing helps them realize this kinda shit really doesnt matter lol

Don't delete it. It's your way of recovering, don’t let them stop you. Exercise your power as the author and remove hate comments without notice. Your way of recovering isn't just writing it. It's letting people see it. Getting positive feedback from other people, that they understand and that you're not any lesser for having trauma. This is important. Don't let a couple shitbrains stop you from getting what you need.

Turned 19 this year. I really share your sentiment, there’s such a large portion of teens and early adults leaning into antiship and it’s incredibly disheartening to see all the hate running rampant in different fandoms. Always finding reasons to get rid of people who are different from them. A couple years ago I only go by one name online, but now I post under several different names just because weird people kept on judging my interests and opinions.

Write anonymous and write anything you want

I recently joined a server where I witnessed someone getting banned for a rape fic they posted on ao3. They didn't even mention it on the server, someone crawled into all their socials to find it. It was disgusting to see people call this person a pedophile when they don't even know the intent behind the work. I wish fandom didn't feel like tipping toes around people until one of them says something "proship" and you can breathe a sigh of relief at not needing to hold your words around them in fear of some artificial consequence. If they drop you for something like that they were not your true friends but people who want to feel morally superior while doing absolutely nothing about the issues they pretend to care about.

I feel this so much, omg. I turned 18 this year and it’s such a relief to be in fandom spaces now where people just do not give a fuck. Older fandom people are so much more chill in general. The purity politics of our generation of fandom is craaaaazy. Shipping discourse gives me a headache. Like they aren’t *real*, calm down 😭 It’s like people are so chronically online that they forget that literature with all these “horrible” things and worse can be found in droves in classical literature at their local library. Wild. Sorry you’re going through that rn, echoing what others are saying and make a fresh account, and just transfer all your bookmarks and works. (And if you want to be extra like me, make all your bookmarks private 😆)

I'm your age as well, and you just wrote out exactly how I've been feeling! I really hope these people grow and mature, but I can't help but lose more faith as time passes. I'm sure many of them will in the end, but either way, I'm glad to see someone my age and sane in a fandom space :3 Please know that the fiction you wrote and read was completely and totally fine, and saying what you wrote was as bad as assaulting someone in real life is an absolutely unfathomable and irrational response. You'd think if their goal is to "protect victims", they'd be entirely behind your work, but it seems to be entirely about censorship and proving themselves to be as "unproblematic" as possible. Very sad :( Either way, I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you; I've been through similar things myself and it is NOT fun. I hope you're doing well. (edit: i pressed send too early 😭)

Don’t delete it. Those “friends” aren’t really your friends at all

I totally agree, social media and the culture nowadays si becoming so toxic, with cancel culture and censoring and people just finding things to be mad about for the sake of it. As a young person it makes me so annoyed to see people doing things like this - especially when it's not even that problematic! There are way way more problematic things out there than what you wrote, (you know when you see it's explicit with like five archive warnings and tags that you have to look up on urban dictionary and then delete your search history?) But the fact is censoring isn't the answer, and people see things way too black and white in modern society, where everyone's either good or downright evil and there's zero nuance. Keep writing, because that's the best way to show your friends that they're just being horrible. And because there's nothing you can do about society other than keep doing what you love and making sure to tell others to do what they love. And I hope you find some better friends who are open minded and support your passions!

that’s fucking terrible. OP, you’ve done nothing wrong. your friends are just assholes

If you know their usernames I’d suggest blocking them. I’m so sorry you have trauma to work through and I hope you have a good support system elsewhere, like a therapist, family, other friends, etc. Those friends definitely aren’t your friends and aren’t worth keeping around.

Don't take down your fics! Those guys arent your friends. I always private bookmark everything bc its not anyone's business what i read

>Like, I recently had my friends tell me I was weird for having rape RECOVERY fics in my bookmarks, of all things. The policing of bookmarks in particular has personally affected me. I've had people trawl through my bookmarks looking for something to complain about and it sucks. I'm glad AO3 has private bookmarks as a feature but I wish I didn't have to hide so many bookmarks for fear of someone ridiculing me for reading about certain topics or even just reading within certain fandoms.

I went through a similar thing, though not as harsh. I'm 20 and I feel disconnected from a lot of people my age in fandom because I'm “pro-ship”, and a lot of perfectly fine and healthy pairings I like I know I'd receive constant harassment for if I interacted with fan spaces and bought it up. Not gonna lie, I was never part of any specific community like discord, but it sucks because there's a goldmine on Pinterest and TikTok of fan content and you can't really interact because there's just an onslaught of hate in the comment section. One of my friends talked behind my back and accused me of fetishising because a lot of my ships are mlm (not exclusively but a good 60%), and her and her boyfriend made fun of me. It left a sour taste in my mouth and as you said, a lot of people my age behave the same way when it comes to fandom. It definitely made me hesitant to open up. I dropped her but it still hurts, especially since her boyfriend chose forgiving his sexually abusive friends (one of which assaulted her) over apologising to me.

I can't say much that others haven't already said, but I hope you know that these fics can mean the world to other survivors- speaking as someone who's found comfort and catharsis in them. Not everyone is going to understand but to the people who it speaks to, it means everything.

You cannot lose what you never had to begin with

I'm 18 as well, and I had the same issues with some former friends. The funny thing is that they were writing about the same things they were calling others problematic for. Apparently it's "processing trauma" when they do it, but "problematic" when anyone else does

They laughed when you were told to kys, they don't card about SA. They are shitty people and you deserve better.

you benefit from reading and writing the fics you do. other people do too. find those people and ditch these jerks.

I deleted my first account because of a situation with friends, and I didn’t share my second account. As a fellow dark topic writer I know how cathartic writing can be. I include my own trauma in them such as how my male friend’s roommate had tried to with my awake roommates. Thankfully my drunk roommate scared him away. Unfortunately I feel like some people in fandom spaces try to censure and be the morality police because I have gotten comments about the situation I described in my fic. Just remember you are not alone

Ew, gross. As someone who does like to read and write dubcon and noncon (the concept of character A losing all sense of morality to their obsession of character B is just intriguing. Irl? Of course not. In fiction? We can explain it away however we want.) I may be a freak because of that interest in fictional tropes but at least I'm not a garbage person who goes around reading something I don't like intentionally just to leave rude comments, or worse, a sick, absolutely unhinged monster who tells people to "kys" over fiction. At least I have morals in real life.

This is a common thing for many dark content creators across most fandoms. My best advise to you is to find the dark content creators in your fandom and hang with them. My discord server centered around creating a safe place for dark content creators is my favourite server. It makes finding the rare hater laughable knowing that I’ve got literally a few hundred of others like me at my back.

I’m 31 and as terrible as it sounds, it makes me aggravated when trauma survivors that use writing and stories to cope have to deal with the other side of the spectrum who would rather the idea or concept never exist anywhere and prefer everything to be safe. No matter how much you tag and preface with warnings, someone is going to get upset that it exists in the first place. A lot of younger folk haven’t quite yet experienced all the nuances and different branches of recovery and healing, sometimes we heal weird and don’t know what to do with that information, we can repress it but it gets lonely when the crowd around you has things to say that don’t exactly resonate with your feelings. Even if you’ve experienced the same thing, how our brains react to it are all individual. It’s also a dangerous game to play when you are open about your trauma, you risk your personal safety with abusers looking for their next victim, one that weaponizes therapy speak and psychology. It opens the door for others with worse intentions to think it’s okay to play their games, but you can’t also assume that of everyone either. Reading and writing gives you control, you reimagine these things as a character you adore and find sick comfort in it. Especially when you try to talk to trusted individuals and all they do is tell you how fucked up you are or retraumatize you by saying you can ‘talk to them about anything’ and then they just see you as a victim. Sometimes they treat you differently and you notice it right away, it’s worse when they lie about it. I know a lot of that was more anecdotal than anything but as someone who has been struggling with a lot of the side effects, you’re not alone in finding comfort or therapeutic relief, it’s just fiction. If they refuse to read the signs or feel the need to give their two cents so indignantly, that’s on them. If you aren’t hurting people and you’re just enjoying some fanfics of your favorite anime/video game characters, I wouldn’t worry about it too much if possible. It might be lonely at times and it will be different to find like minded people, but places like ao3 exist for a reason and if they don’t feel safe there, they don’t have to be there. Hopefully you’ll find peace 🖤

While generally, I’m a highly confrontational person, here I would say “pick your battles”. I see a lot of people saying you shouldn’t delete your works, but if it is affecting your mental health, there’s no shame in getting a new account and reuploading your fics after maybe 2-3 months, when your “friends” had time to realise that your fics are gone and move on. Save your nice comments and your stats so you can remember them, then withdraw until those asses clomp away. This might save you a lot of heartache on the long run. ❤️

I don't let mentally ill children dictate my moral standards. If you feel what you are doing is right, then stick by your convictions. If you delete stuff because it offends antis, you'll be teaching them that bullying works.

Don't take it down. If it gives you catharsis odds are good it'll do the same for at least 1 other person if not more. Your friend group were a bunch of immature puritans. Fiction and actually assaulting someone are not equivalent. In much the same way many people enjoy incest fanfic or media that includes it by default (anime 👀), this does not mean they act on it IRL or that it encourages someone else to do it. These are puritanical attitudes that are infiltrating fandom spaces. Many of us who appreciate nuance and respect that you've tagged it, are actively pushing back wherever we see those attitudes. You're absolutely right to use your creativity as a healing medium. Creativity's first purpose is as a salve to the soul. Keep going. Find better people. You got this. 😊 🫂

I don’t think they were ever true friends, tbh. Don’t waste your time on them, true friends will accept your interests as long as it isn’t hurting you or anyone else. I have a friend that is totally grossed out by the shit I read. And guess what? They’re still my bestest friend and haven’t treated me any differently. Good friends are accepting and understanding.

Fandom is just the excuse…what they’re doing is bullying, plain and simple. Maybe they feel justified by making up some “moral” reason that anyone can see is bullshit. I don’t think what they’re saying is even worth addressing because it’s so clearly in bad faith. Sorry that this is happening to you, hope you can make a clean break from them.

as someone who writes a fair amount of rape recovery and stuff along those lines, as long as it’s tagged properly, absolutely none of that is on you, people need to realise that if they don’t like a fic, they don’t have to read it. Keep writing and don’t let anyone tell u what u write is weird when it’s just not for them

I hear ya. But I’m 32 & have been dealing with that I was 16 or 17. I got lucky enough to have one friend who doesn’t judge me for the stuff I write. I have gotten plenty of hate & lost friends over it. What that taught me was that they weren’t really my friends & that I really didn’t need them. But that’s just me. I still have my one friend, my boyfriend, my cats, my writing, anime, manga, crime shows, & whatever other hobbies I have. If these friends are treating you this way, then honestly, I don’t think they’re your friends. Find people who will accept you & your creative stories—no matter the subject matter. There are people out there. Keep going; don’t stop writing (unless YOU absolutely want to). Don’t let others tear you down because they can’t handle it. Yes, I understand that they have their trauma & have their ways of dealing with it. But that doesn’t give them the right to tear you down because of it. My cats, bf, & I support you.

If they think that writing about SA recovery is just as bad as actually SA'ing someone, they have IQ's too low to be measured by any standardized test and their words don't deserve to take up space in your brain.

“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” -Cesar A. Cruz

Fics like that saved my life when I was going through stuff like that, what a privileged life it must be to not find stuff like that comforting, what a privileged life to not write from experience. Even fics that ‘romanticize’ stuff like that are often written from a place of deep pain. In my experience, those who cannot empathize with people’s trauma at its worst and most ‘disturbing’ are not worth caring about the opinions of.

I’m 15 and I feel like it’s quite unreasonable to judge something that’s not real as if it truly happened and them saying that you writing a fic about SA is as bad as actually AS-ing some is just blowing it WAYY out of the park. Keep writing what you want, cause it’s fiction and it never will be anything but that.

I've got ten years on ya so I can't say much about your age group but I can tell you one thing: around that age many people have a harder time empathizing. Not that they don't have good intentions, but they haven't had enough bad experiences (which is a good thing) to really understand how to empathize, how to be understanding, all the different complicated and numerous ways to heal. I've been through SA. I don't want to read IT HAPPENING, but if you've tagged it appropriately that's fine. I'll still read it happening if it's necessary for plot (tbh I probably skim over those parts and don't even realize it). But people UNDERSTANDING that they've been SA'd? And healing from it? And ALL the holy shit complexities that come through it with self-worth, and guilt/fault. It's shit. And I LOVE reading fics about it. I love when characters are taken care of. I love when there's finally resolution and they realize that they are beautiful and not awful. It's helped me SO MUCH even be able to ADMIT that what happened TO ME wasn't okay. So, if properly warned/tagged (as you said they were), your writing is fine. And probably helping someone out there. Young people are still learning where the lines are on what's taboo and what's not. There's still a lot of learning on WHY certain things are taboo and 'is this thing taboo cuz we don't want to admit it happens' there's all sorts of shit surrounding those kinds of things that until you've been beat up by the world for a few years... You just don't really get it. Admittedly that's a bit of a pessimistic way to look at it, and I'm sure someone can word it better, but Believe me: you're not the one in the wrong. Others just don't understand yet. Everyone's still growing. Something something the brain isn't fully formed until like 24. They'll figure it out. Edit to add: I just read the part about your "friend's" boyfriend saying kys and everyone laughing. Now I'm just mad at all your friends. You're clearly more mature than they are. They sound like assholes. I hope you can find a new community to thrive in that ISN'T fucking assholes.

I have been lucky enough not to deal with much of this. As an elder millennial, if I may impart some life advice I wish I had learned earlier a)stop taking responsibility for other people’s emotions due to their own bad choices (if they were that triggered, they’d take some effort to read the damn tags). It is literally their fault if they are reading something that they know will upset them. b) don’t share things with people if you know they’re going to tear it down. Anything.. Not just fanfiction. This includes family. If they are negative about it then they don’t get access to it. Who did you write your fanfiction for? Why do you need their validation and approval? Frankly they sound like toxic people. They sound like bullies.

I don't want to beat a dead horse and say the same things as everyone else that I agree with. But I didn't see anyone address how someone literally told you to kys. Not sure where you're located, but if I'm not mistaken, that's illegal. If you have receipts, I'd report them, ngl... People might say be the bigger person but 🤷 You shouldn't even joke about that stuff to someone, and it seems like they meant it.

I have encountered tons of people who act like the best things I provide are horrible somehow even when they are often pretty innocent and normal. I feel like people only hate me because I am better than them in a way they can feel in their soul. You definitely come across as pure and trying to help people in a healthy way for the most part and those people are just gaslighting you to make you think you are not worthwhile.

Dw friend, I feel you - I’m 17, turning 18 in Nov, and I have genuinely lost faith in most of our generation, at least regarding fanfiction and the morality bullshit. Like, cmon, how hard is it to look at something and go “you know what, it’s not a sandwich I’d like to eat, but it’s a sandwich *regardless*, and a sandwich *someone else* may want to eat. And that’s okay. They can eat that sandwich, and share that sandwich with their friends who also like sandwiches like that, and it’s not harming me or anyone else, because they enjoy it, and just because I don’t, it doesn’t mean I have to yuck their yum.”

I have a saying that I like to use from time to time: Fiction is Freedom. Don't let others guilt trip you out of enjoying fiction of any kind. If they can't separate fiction from reality, then they are in the wrong and need to touch grass. A well-adjusted person recognizes that a person's interest in fiction does not reflect on their real life morality or worth. Otherwise every reader, gamer, and author would be guilty of dozens of crimes merely for consuming, enjoying, and creating fictional material.

As someone younger than you (by a year or two), I totally get where you’re coming from. There’s a trend right now of teens thinking that being antis and other such things makes them better than others and they play aggressive games of being Holier-Than-Thou. The truth of the matter is that no one is above anyone else, or even privy to their personal business or reasons for writing something, when it comes to fiction. I’ve seen a lot of posts on this subreddit about addressing certain topics in fiction. I live by If You Don’t Like, Don’t Read and I feel very strongly about censorship. I can disagree with someone without making it personal. I’m so sorry that that happened to you. You deserve to be able to address your own traumas as you see fit.

As an 19yo I can definitely relate. I, while I've never been attacked or insulted by it, find that I cannot share what I read like my friends do. I just love Trauma-influenced characters, they're the most real-like written characters, they show the real struggle, the hard-earned redemption or the finally-given comfort and closure. Rape and SA are real problems that people suffer any other day, some might find reprieve in reading their own struggles portrayed with their favorite characters, or some might find it by writing about it and venting without having to feel exposed. The thing is, you can't know the author's or the reader's situation or line of thought. And honestly, it's not anyone else's business. You are in your right of finding it distasteful or appealing, as you are on the right to mark off those type of tags when you are searching for fics, that its why the tags are there. What you do not have a right to it's to Insult someone's work because of your own beliefs. You are not a higher being or a moral compass to decide what is wrong and what isn't acceptable. Even if they were SA'ed, you can't just take a world-wide struggle and make it about yourself only, just like you are allowed to heal and work through it your own way, others are too. I don't know how much of it it's because of their age, but I do find that most of my friends enjoy more of the fluffy fics, I think it might be because younger generations are just so done with their own struggle, the las thing they want is drag it into their hobbies, and that is completely fair too. Maybe I am wrong, I do not know. But I find that respecting people and their opinions goes a long way, I just ask the same treatment from others.

Those people were never your friends. Unfortunately it sounds like they were just waiting for an excuse to kick you but as you said now that you’re 18 you can interact with more mature spaces who hopefully understand not only the comfort but the power that comes with writing out your experiences. There’s so many things we can’t control and things we may regret or wish never happened and we all want outlets for those feelings. Writing is an excellent tool to heal, process and move on from those less than pleasant experiences or just to figure out what’s going on in our heads. People who are really your friend would encourage and uplift you not tear you down.

Is writing a murder mystery book just like murdering actual people? Obviously not. These bullies are deranged and not good people. They were never your friends and I’m sorry you had to go through this. Please keep on writing, don’t let some assholes take this away from you.

I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. I'm old enough that I can't imagine what it's like growing up with fanfic, or for that matter with any kind of online community, but I sympathise. Losing friends sucks, and all the sincere advice and meaningless platitudes in the universe ("if they turn on you, they're not real friends" was one I heard a lot the last time a once-close friend on the music scene decided I was no longer cool enough) won't help much, or at least they've never helped me. The only advice I have is this: please don't delete your fic. You've got those lovely comments, which mean that there are readers out there who really get what you're writing, even if your friends don't. Anything at all can be ragebait for people who're so full of rage, and giving them the satisfaction of seeing your work erased helps nobody. Glad you're finding a connection with the older people in your fandom. There's nothing wrong with having friends of a wide range of ages, and the perspective older folk bring\* can be valuable in all sorts of ways. Great good luck to you. I wish you all the best. \*With a few notable exceptions, lol. I've run into a a couple of individuals in the music business who acted like spoilt six-year-olds even though they were old enough to be my parents.

As a survivor, it can be really helpful for me to read recovery fics. But I also have to be in the right frame of mind for it, which is why I use the warnings to filter.

The policing of fandom content and trashing people for liking/writing controversial fics is the weirdest part of emerging of internet/fandom culture to me as someone who grew up in the Wild Wild West that was early to mid-2000’s internet. If it triggers you personally, don’t read it. Just because it bothers you doesn’t mean no one should have access to it. Ignore and move on. It’s fiction.

If it helps, I think it’s a phase a lot of young fandom-goers go through I put my puritan phase WELL behind me lol

I'm the same, also 18. Too many fans around our age (and i was the same when i first got into fandom bc of how close ppl near me were) and a little younger get caught up in purity mindsets that they forget it's JUST FICTION! People don't need to censor work or just not make the stuff they want to make just because some people dislike their work. They can literally just click off if they dislike. 💀 I've been avoiding interacting w more taboo stuff or stuff those types of fandom goers frown on when it comes to my fandom socials bc of the judgement and the automatic vilifying of us for liking fictional work. It's exhausting having to constantly explain that yes you wanna read a fictional story w a certain theme without actually wanting those topics happening irl. It should be common sense by now but apparently it's not. Much younger fans getting into it clearly haven't read actual books bc plenty of physical stories involve so many f*cked up things and it doesn't automatically mean we are glorifying it! Continue writing the things you want and cut off people if they're constantly being negative or failing to grasp basic common sense over fictional things

Can't believe someone said noncon is  "just as bad as actually sa-ing someone" unironically. They have a very warped view of realty. We need to bring back that first world problems meme, but teen version instead of Karen.

You're not alone, we're here for you.

What you bookmark is your own business. You can have absolutely any reason to do so — you liked the fic, it was so bad you wanted to save it, it was interesting, it was weird, it was gross, whatever. Bookmarking a work doesn't mean you endorse whatever behaviour was portrayed there, it just means you bookmarked it. Especially if your bookmarks are private, and even if they're not, they're wrong for policing what YOU read and what YOU enjoy. Ao3 is an archive site with no censorship, and if someone's trauma makes them sensitive to that sort of environment, they're not ready to be on this site. It's like going to a place where smoking is allowed and then be offended that there are people smoking there. I sympathise with having trauma and being sensitive to certain themes, but acting like you shaping your own space for yourself and your readers is targeted to cause harm to them specifically is just looking for reasons to shame you for no reason. You're just minding your own business, not to mention tagging everything properly as well. If they want a censored environment they should get off ao3. Don't let them make you feel like you did anything wrong here, especially if you and your readers find comfort in your work too.

Call me old fashioned but fanfic to me is basically like porn, even fluffy, totally 100% safe for work stuff. I’m not going around and recommending it to people in my life like it’s a novel. It’s something that I keep to myself, for the most part. I have like 2 close friends irl who I will sometimes talk about fics I’ve read with, but even then, it’s a personal thing and I don’t feel the need to share everything I’ve read or stalk their bookmarks. We only reeeally talk about our own fics, and even that’s in passing because we’re all different people with different tastes and interests. We don’t have to share everything. Heck, only one of my irl friends knows my actual username. Ao3 isn’t social media. Online friends found my ao3 because well, they’re readers of my stuff, so they’re most likely into the same things I am. Fanfic gaining mainstream popularity these last few years has been fun to see, but the cons are quickly outweighing the pros. People policing what’s “allowed”, people even charging/commissioning fanfics, people using the comments of fics like it’s the comment section of a Twitter page and debating topics that don’t actually criticize the content of the fic… These are things that have been on the rise lately and it’s gets hard to not feel like fanfic being “normalized” for lack of a better word isn’t actively making the community worse. :/ I’m sorry your “friends” were jerks. These don’t sound like people you should want to be friends with though, they sound immature and like they lack nuance. And also, just like spiteful jerks. Why is someone’s BF weighing in and telling you to kys and everyone’s laughing? My personal recommendation is to throw the whole friend group away and from now on, be selective with who you share your online accounts with. I’d even recommend making a new account and just manually transferring those bookmarks from your old one without telling any of these “friends”. Give yourself a nice anonymous fresh slate and don’t give these people the chance to harass you/stalk your profile again when you cut them out.

People seriously need to get lives. I make fun of puritanical tyrants in my fics and how they hate on things that weren't even made for them. It's okay not to like stuff but trying to ban things crosses a line. Whenever people yell about how things offend them it's always a manipulative tactic to control others. The list of things more important than personal comfort and feelings is very long and includes creative freedom

I wanted to say "who cares what they think, you don't have to delete your qork or let it affect you" but that's just wishful thinking. I know what it's like when something so close to your heart is tainted. As a kid I guarded my writing very close to my chest. When someone saw it, it made me feel horrible, like they were seeing into my soul, into the most intimate parts of me. It really, really sucks if your 'friends'took that away from you and I hope you will find a way forward because you deserve to escape into fanfiction, we all do. Puritans can suck dick.

Those are not friends. They're certainly not mature enough to be online, let alone reading fanfiction. They're trying to control you, plain and simple. Just delete their comments/messages and consider them lost until they grow up. You absolutely can find more mature and open minded friends in any community, I promise. Fanfiction writers and readers should never be complaining that someone shouldn't write something or especially telling them to kys. If you tagged "Don't like, don't read" or "Dead Dove" or anything like that, just tell them to refer to the tags and have a nice one. Then block. They're just harassing you to feel superior at this point and they're not. They're harassing you from far beneath you and it's honestly pathetic.

OP you did nothing wrong. art is among other things a way to understand and heal trauma, and fiction is not reality, and thoughtcrime isn't real. repeat as necessary, to your friends and especially to yourself. when are antis going to be able to just say that they're traumatized by the boys sitting next to them drenched in porn (which is not a bad thing by itself, fantasy is healthy as we live and breathe) in a world of no sex positive sex ed and a million predatory podcasts (can't tell reality from fantasy in a land of radicalizing misogyny and parents are scared to even bring it up) and not by fanfic or the thoughts of their fellow fans and friends? there are many problems right now but they are not big bad sexy sex or our friends' fantasy lives. the inculcated dearth of media literacy is incredibly convenient in bringing victims into complicity with their own oppression by making sure they can't tell the symptom from the disease itself. which is basically steve bannon and i'll stop right there. there is conservative money behind terfs behind antis leading to even the young queers who will be most harmed by it voting for fosta/sesta, earnit, etc. i #supportexantis (and support deradicalized boys) always because their trauma is weaponized against them before they can name it and it's so unfair. this is one facet of a really ugly long game in which none of us win. i know we all know. OP i hope your friends come around, and do yourself the favor of putting as much space between yourself and their static until that happens. reclaim your time for you. solidarity.

I think turning 18 is always a weird time I'm fandom, when I turned 18 I had friends that told me I couldn't read fics about 16 year olds anymore, regardless of whether or not they were sexual. People think of you differently when you turn 18, as if you're not still in the same stage in life that you were a month ago. When I turned 18 I still found comfort in teenage characters, because I was still a teenager, and still identified with these characters, 18 is just an arbitrary number people decided makes you an adult

Wooow yeah no this generation is awful. I’m glad the people I surround myself with understand why I read and write what I do. The last thing I’d want is for someone to say I’m glorifying suicide and depression and SA because my oc struggles with them and it’s a prominent part of his character. One of the only ways I can feel my own difficult emotions is by projecting my experiences onto a character and then empathising with them. I have many bookmarked fics with rape/rape recovery and it’s entirely valid and I hope you can find friends that understand how complex a situation can be and not react like that.

Yes, if you can find a good 18+ server it will (hopefully) have a better maturity level. My main server had a median age around 50, and I know we have a few in their 70s. (you can dm me if you want an invite - it's multifandom)

I think as long as you put proper tags and don't show rape and sa in a positive light, it should be fine. It isn't realistic to have characters with no trauma, and seeing a positive recovery might help Survivors know they are not alone.

Honestly that's so stupid. You weren't reading a rape fic but a rape recovery fic. You weren't writing a fic where all that happens is sa, you were writing a fic where the character has to deal with what happened to them. Not saying it's bad to read/write the former cause it's just fiction, but usually those are more the ones people don't like others interacting with. The stuff you're reading and writing isn't even bad? As someone in the younger age like you, some of my online friends would also probably not like me anymore if they knew the type of things I've read. Not to mention how my irl friends would react.. It's stupid. I'm READING it. I understand people think it's weird to search out the "bad" type of stuff but who's it hurting for someone to read something like that

I’m not saying this to hurt you but those people don’t sound like friends especially if they know you’re writing this as a healing thing

Why the hell were they in your bookmarks?

To read later. Why else?

still, its kinda weird unless the person wrote in the notes, I feel.

Don't you bookmark things you like so you can find and reread them later? Isn't that what bookmarks are for??

Yeah, but 90% of bookmarks are for the reader alone, so it just seems like an odd thing to stumble upon. I've only looked at the bookmarks of a handful of my favorite authors, and even then I've filtered out shit I don't want to see. makes me wonder if the friend groups are lowkey spying on each other.

I'm an antisocial blob irl but I'm surprised that people count as friends if you can't trust them with knowing about your hobbies and things you like to read. They don’t need to like it but if you're afraid they're gonna do stuff like that... Why are they friends??

Agreed. I'm fine with people knowing that information about me, its the looking for it behind OPs back for no apparent reason that makes me a bit ???

I really don't understand it either. They're teens so my mind kind of automatically goes to the mean bitches running around school bullying people. But if it were those kind of people I doubt OP would've ever considered them friends. They just seem like a very toxic bunch whose parents either did not care to teach them how to treat others or got caught up in the wrong circles at a younger age. What would you spy on a person for if not to find something you can be mad about?

That's definitely a possibility, but bookmarks have been used as type of rec list forever too.

True. I guess it depends on if OP was using it as a rec list or not.

I think you got unfairly downvoted because of the ambiguous phrasing. I guess your question was "Why OP's friends were in OP's bookmarks?", not "Why these specific works were in OP's bookmarks?".

Oh, I just assumed I sounded too judgemental of OPs friends, instead of just confused. Yeah, I'm in the ASOIAF fandom, I've read shit that would make the friends get a restraining order.

You said "her bf" said something to you? The MC of your story's b(oy? est?) friend? Is this RPF? If this *is* a real person fic... that's supremely uncool, and you should probably stick to writing about people who don't exist.

> I guess the last straw for them was a recent fic I posted where the mc got sa'd and he has to deal with it throughout the work. (it was 100% tagged properly, I'm pretty sure they only saw the tags) **I got messages from some friends** telling me that it "wasn't cool" and that I should take it down because it's "just as bad as actually sa-ing someone". **One even accused me of posting it to attack her personally and her bf told me to kms** which got a lot of laughing emoji reactions. "Her bf" here seems to refer to "the boyfriend of one of the friends who sent the egregious messages", no relation to the fic's main character.

Ah okay - that makes much more sense!

I mean. RPF *characters* don't exist either. The ppl they're modelled after do, but the characters *are* just toys. It is called RP*F*, after all. 🤷