I mean this in the most respectful way possible but some people really could use a reminder that if your blorbo isn’t your own original character, you do not own them — and that means there will be people who involve your blorbo in things or ships that you hate. “but it’s incest”, “but it’s adult x minor”, “but it’s rape”, “but it’s abusive”, “but my blorbo would never do that”. well, there is nothing you can do about that.
and as long as no one in real life is being hurt, your call out posts against them and your encouraging other people to harass them will not make you morally superior, it will only make you a bully who values the nonexistent lives of fictional characters more than real living, breathing people.
thought crimes are not real. fantasies are not real. no living thing is being harmed because of someone’s dark fantasies. the fictional characters you try to protect are not real, they don’t have life or feelings. they are just fantasies that people play with.
more often than not, the people you call red flags or predators, for involving fictional characters in dark fantasies, are victims who use dark fantasies, in an environment they can control, to cope and heal from their trauma.
but even if someone was never a victim, they still have the rights to freely express their thoughts through fantasies, be it fanfics or fan art or anything else.
the bottom line is that no one in real life is harmed and no one owes anyone any explanation as to why they create and/or enjoy dark fantasies.
(if, hypothetically, someone lets fiction affect their mind so much to the point that they harm real people in real life, then the issue, the real problem is that person’s inability to separate fiction from reality, not the fiction they consume and/or create that have taboo contents in them — and chances are that they are already troubled and a danger to themself and those around them, with or without the fiction they consume.)
“things that are taboo and morally wrong have no place in fandom” actually what has no place in fandom is fandom police. the point of fandom is for people to have fun. you don’t own the fandom you’re in. you don’t own the fictional characters that you love (unless they’re your own oc). other people have as much rights within fandom space as you do, and that is “as long as you have fun, you can enjoy your favorite fictional characters however you want”.
there are things in fiction that I don’t like, things that make me extremely uncomfortable. what I do is that I ignore, scroll past, mute or block them when I see them and I mind my own business. I don’t harass real people over fiction.
it’s really important to curate your own internet/fandom experiences, protect your own peace of mind and Not Be a Bully. mute/block what you don’t want to see, instead of harassing real people for the sake of fictional characters.
