I really want to write my own story but I am so afraid of antis. Todays people are horrible and they compare fiction with reality.... I am really scared they would find my story and start to send me death threats since my story is really REALLY dark. What should an author do if this happens? I know ignorance is a bliss but I don't think that I would be able to ignore it for so long. Sorry for my ask and thank you, Pia.
Hi anon,
There's a few things going on here.
Firstly, have you noticed that you speak in some absolutes that just aren't true? Saying 'Today's people are horrible' is just...not true. While it's definitely true that antis exist, the vast majority - the absolute vast majority - of readers and folks who interact with stories out there, aren't antis, and don't think fiction is the same as reality.
If you're telling yourself things like 'today's people are horrible' you're not giving yourself a chance to tell yourself things like 'there will be people who want to read this' and 'most people just won't read this if they don't feel like it' and 'most people do understand the difference between fiction and reality.' It's really hard to encourage yourself to share what you're writing if you imagine the world to be more falsely mean-spirited than it is.
Secondly, I don't know why your fic is so dark (i.e. I don't know if it's like a 'regular' amount of dark that's found in dark fics on AO3), there are ways to mitigate the anti response. Write under an account name that's not associated with any of your social media accounts. Make a separate email address and a separate account, and then make sure you set your fic to comment moderation.
You may still get flak from antis, but no one else will see it, and you aren't in any other way contactable on your main platforms, and you can just focus on approving the comments that support the fic. Most antis starve without internet oxygen, i.e. they go elsewhere after a while of trying to spew invective if no one else can see it. (Antis try to start shit with me via anon way more often than anyone truly knows, but once their asks get immediately deleted (and they get blocked), they almost always vanish after the first ask).
You can write it and not publish it, or choose to wait until AO3 introduces the ability to block users (this is eventually coming) so that you can block anyone who harasses you.
If you do get death threats, and you're really worried about it, then I can't tell you to 'write the fic anyway.' Antis have definitely stopped some people from writing fic, and caused others to sadly delete their fics (please always orphan, folks!), and I can't like, tell you to not be affected by things like that since obviously people are, because targeted bullying is harmful and it sucks. I don't know what kind of person you are, or whether you'd need professional or friend support to get through that, etc.
I'm pretty much teflon when it comes to antis, because I know the science re: fiction and media and reality (esp. when it comes to violence and sexualised violence). But not everyone is the same. And if you're someone who really believes that all of today's people are horrible, or doesn't believe that people will find your fic who like it (and honestly with some of the most extreme fics I've stumbled across, there are still people who kudos and comment on the fic if they find it well-written / it speaks to them), you might not be in a good space to encounter a minority of people who are horrible, it might feed into the untrue / irrational absolutism that all of today's people are horrible, and like, that...would not be great.
But yeah either way I'd definitely suggest starting a new account not connected to your pre-existing social media or other AO3 account. It takes 5 seconds to make a new gmail account, and about 2 minutes to link it to your pre-existing gmail account so you can get emails from it there. This is what I did with my 'thespectaclesofthor' account - though for different reasons - I made an account that had, for maybe a year, zero connections to my not_poignant account.
You can even post a 'test fic' with some of the content you write and see what happens. If the response is too intense or you don't like it, you can actually turn comments off that fic and then antis have literally no way of contacting you in that context ever again.
Things are more complicated if you write a really dark / extreme fic attached to all of your main accounts and your public identity (let's face it, the folks writing '3 year old Mob gets raped and/or tortured by Reigen' are not normally doing it under any username that's connected to their real identity or their main Twitter/Tumblr accounts etc). The fact is, most antis do actually stop being little assholes after a while and find someone new to target, but some don't. I've been lucky so far that I'm not regularly harassed, but other people are.
And you have to ask yourself if you're writing the kind of fic that will make even people who aren't antis not like the fic. Like, if you're just torturing and murdering a cast of beloved characters, pretty much not many fans in the fandom are going to enjoy that (though some still probably will), especially if you're doing it from a spiteful place - and then you have to ask yourself what you want to get out of publishing it. I.e. Do you want to upset people? Do you want people to feel uncomfortable, awful, or miserable? Are you prepared for the kinds of comments those people leave? Because those folks aren't antis at all, but people speaking through an emotional response can leave very strongly worded, even cruel comments - some people will just try and immaturely inflict the hurt on you, that you gave to them - are you prepared for that too if that's the kind of extreme content you're writing? (The best response to something like that is 'you saw the tags and warnings! Maybe avoid fics like this in the future' - neutral, and a reminder that they're responsible for themselves.)
Anyway as you can see, different types of 'extreme' can create different responses. I have no idea what you're writing! Not all 'extreme content' is built the same. But tl;dr - a separate AO3 account and using it to 'test' the platform with the kind of content you want to write can be a good way of seeing how you respond to the experience. Always, always make sure you tag and warn appropriately - over-warn even - for extreme content, and it can help to place a disclaimer in the author's notes to additionally warn people that if they don't like what they read, it's on them.
I hope you find a way through that works for you, anon!
I am home, my arm is numb, and I am resting. They had to remove a "fair amount" of scar tissue which war preventing me from using/moving my arm in any useful ways.
Wish me luck. I have lots and lots of physical therapy and exercising to do.
