#ykinmk

[nevcolleil]

[aerin67]

I really think we need to bring back the phrase “Your Kink Is Not My Kink” when talking about fanfics.

So often I see posts complaining about a writer’s choice for a character, or a particular kink. Babe, that’s what the tags are for. They exist so you can see what’s inside and make a grown‑up choice about whether you want to read it or not.

And further to that, if you don’t like it — JUST STOP READING.

You do not have to leave a comment to let the author know you don’t like their stuff. If you picked up a book at the library and didn’t like it, are you going to send a strongly worded email to the author to complain? No. You have a moan to your mates and move on.

So why is this such a hard concept for people to grasp? Your kink is not my kink — and that’s fine. That’s what the back button and the tags are for.

[ginnvngagap]

honestly the only thought that gives me hope amidst the rise of christofascist anti-sex rhetoric in woke clothing with ThE yOuThS is remembering that back when I was 16-20 during the YouTube anti-SJW era I was firmly on the right and I managed to get educated out of that trashfire, so maybe the gen Z baby puritans can, too? please?

[wolfmaggot]

doing alot of blocking on twitter

yes paraphilic disorders arent sexualities, they're disorders

BUUTTT paraphilias that arent disorders are sexualities (IMO)

yes also u shouldnt date an irl animal or child or dead body or any non-consenting living thing

but for the anti contact one....yall remember how the conservative homophobes were saying stuff like "eventually all gays will touch our kids" or something dumb like that?

yeah no being anti para doesnt mean you are anti abuse in fact i think it means you are ignoring the fact if you are anti para you are denying paraphiliacs to get help :/ (again this is my opinion)

and honestly anti-contact is anti abuse because it prevents abusers from hurting non-consensual beings

i mean u shouldnt feel prideful of your paraphilia (i think?) but i think you should embrace your paraphilias and learn to live with them better :) dont feel ashamed just accept the fact if u do have paraphilias and yknow just embrace it

(reminder fictional animals/kids/dead bodies dont count as the attraction to irl stuff like that)

ALZOO!! kink belongs in pride thanks

[sakuranightmarez]

Do you ever think the guys found out about Prompto getting Luna's letter? They totally would have given him shit for the sniffing thing.

[academicdisasterfic]

The Laws of Fandom Protect Whiteness.

Disclaimer: I do think that fandom only works if people stick to the Three Laws of Fandom, i.e. SALS, DL;DR, and YKINMK. I am anti-anti and I believe that writing problematic things does not make you problematic in real life. Basically: I'm on your side, fellow fic writers.

But there is a caveat. We have to remember why the Three Laws exist. They are there so that fandom is a safe space for everyone. So it can be a place we all come to and feel respected and heard. But this undoubtedly privileges White people.

The Three Laws of Fandom will inherently protect White people's safety because we don't have to worry about unconscious bias or racist conditioning towards our race or ethnicity. The Three Laws of Fandom do not inherently protect People of Colour because White people in fandom will have forms of racist bias that we have to unlearn. Therefore, the Laws only work if White people choose to be actively anti-racist and listen to POC in the fandom.

Let's expand on this.

This is not saying that writing racism, or writing racially-charged themes, should be censored or off-limits to White people. But when we do write them, we need to remember that the Laws also only work because fandom operates on a comprehensive tagging system. We are able to enforce DL;DR because we have tags showing us exactly what is in the fic. Therefore - don't like age difference? Don't like non-con? Don't like violence? You can opt out!

But if you write racially-charged themes and don't give appropriate content warnings, then you aren't giving POC the chance to opt out. In fact, you are endangering their mental and emotional safety by pulling them into subject matter that has real-world implications for them. And yes, entering fiction always carries a risk of reading something that you don't like - but is far more dangerous for POC than for White people.

It is one thing to accidentally read a fic that depicts a kink you don't like, it is another for a POC to read their own experiences being depicted in a way that makes them out to be no big deal, and not even a big enough deal to be appropriately tagged.

It is also important to note that a POC alerting you to racist themes or passages in your work and asking you to appropriately tag or consider the way you wrote them isn't the same as them flaming you. In fact, it shows care. This person thinks that you are worth their time and effort to try and have a conversation with. If you shut that down and prioritise your right to write anything you want above someone's safety, that is a racist act.

This type of racism results in people like Stitch's Media Mix taking a hard line against the Laws altogether, as they are so regularly used as excuses by White people to justify racism. While I disagree with Stitch's ultimate conclusion, can I blame her for how they got there? The Laws have certainly never been leveraged against me to dismiss my lived experience or concerns, and have only contributed to fandom being a safer space for me. But Stitch is Black and speaks about antiblackness and racism in fandom - and gets barrages of death threats and hate mail for doing so, from fans participating in these spaces.

How are we supposed to tell POC that the Laws keep their spaces safe when they so clearly do not?

On a related note, I think the prioritisation of ✨positivity✨ over any sort of critique or conversation is another mechanism to protect Whiteness. It's important to remember that particularly in slash fandoms, the majority of fans tend to be white queer AFABs or genderqueer people, so the normal structures of patriarchy and heteronormativity that we navigate in our regular lives don't enter into fandom as pervasively. Whiteness, however, is the oppressive structure that tends to persist in slash fandoms, and therefore we need to be cognisant of how this can marginalise and isolate POC fans.

If you avoid difficult, race-based conversations because you only spread "positivity", then you do not actually care about everyone in fandom having a positive experience.

Paraphrasing from 'Conflict is Not Abuse' by Sarah Schulman, conflict isn't inherently bad. It's productive. It shows care. It's growth.

The Laws of Fandom can and should work for everyone. But we are the actual enforcers. We have to recognise the potential ways people can abuse the Laws to marginalise, threaten and isolate POC fans.

People of Colour deserve a seat at the table of fandom. They deserve a safe space. They deserve to feel wanted and seen and respected.

I don't have all the solutions for this - I'm White and recognise that everything I'm saying here I only learned from POC and have probably not said it as well or as eloquently as they have been doing (but no one's listening). I welcome any additions, critiques or insights from POC to this post.

The type of fandom I want to cultivate is safe and inclusive for everyone, and we need to start thinking about what that actually means.

[icemankazansky]

I think it’s because people are more willing to say that they want the characters to have sex with them and not go through a proxy relationship- ex: writing a penny/Mav fic rather than reader/Mav.

The younger People aren’t as afraid of OCs, SIs and being accused of being a Mary-Sue now and since a lot of them may be dipping their toe into the Top Gun fandom for the first time, that may account for the new surge you’re seeing.

That all sounds completely logical, although I'm not thrilled that you juxtaposed me with, "the younger People" (though I suppose I started it.) I know x Reader fic has become a thing in recent years—I have a number of friends who write a lot of it for fandoms in which I do not participate—it's just that it is, as you mentioned, Something That Wasn't Done for many years in fandom. Additionally, and this is just me and not a value judgment at all, but it's never appealed to me. (It could have something to do with my place on the ace spectrum or the fact that I don't want to interact with the characters; I want to explore them interacting with each other. In all honesty, I never had the desire to write any kind of self-insert, etc., even when I started in fandom as "a younger Person;" it just did not interest me. I do occasionally write about myself, and did, in fact, publish a memoir, but that's all nonfiction. Reading and writing about a fictional version of myself just does not do anything for me.)

TLDR, I have never been in a fandom where this was a popular format, and especially because Top Gun has, for the past 36 years, been a very small fandom, it's super weird to me to see the tide turning like this. It's like, "A thousand more people showed up to your party, but they only speak Japanese." I'm thrilled they're here, I'm so happy Top Gun is finding new fans and inspiring them to create, but for me on a personal level it's a bit strange.

[theequeerstrian]

Me seeing a human AU: YES, YESSSSSS GIMME THAT *grabby hands*

Me seeing a Turning Human fic: what the fuck. Get this away from me. I'm mad I even saw it.