TW! Mentions of abuse, pedophilia / csa, suicide baiting.
Just to get this out of the way, so I don’t have to repeat myself a trillion times;
- Yes, fiction can affect reality. Especially if people consuming said fiction are ignorant of the topics.
- Pedophilia is disgusting and traumatizing.
- Yes. Dark content should be thoroughly tagged and people should be informed of what they’re getting into. There is legit no excuse to not tag and that shouldn’t be a discussion.
- No, real problems affecting real people aren’t ‘fandom drama’, and if someone is being predatory or a bigot, they 100% deserve to be called out for it.
- I don’t think liking things like ‘Dadgil’ or any ‘problematic’ ships, makes you a bad person. When I compare the two, I am merely pointing out the hypocrisy of a (lately) popular rhetoric.
- You are responsible for yourself. If you are a minor, you don’t belong in +18 spaces. If you are an adult, you must be responsible and not be a creep to children and should have your accounts reasonably tagged and organized.
Ok, now that’s out of the way, here goes;
If you claim to hate certain ships because you ‘care about real victims of abuse’, as a real victim of abuse and csa, I have a few things to tell you;
- Shitty parents being portrayed as sweet and caring can be triggering to victims of abuse. Vergil, Handsome Jack, etc. being cute dads has been genuinely triggering to me in the past and has completely ruined my day on several occasions, and I know people who feel the same way. But, I have seen zero criticism of ‘Dadgil’ and a lot of people who claim ‘proshippers’ are bad people and hurt survivors, seem to love it. Which is hypocritical as fuck.
- Some of the survivors, including me, feel very disrespected and ignored when you compare our trauma and suffering to anime pictures and fictional dynamics, in general. Some of us had to suffer, or even continue to suffer, in silence, and have serious mental and physical health problems acquired from the trauma and saying that a fictional thing is ‘just as bad’ as the real thing can be extremely hurtful and ignorant.
- Accusing us of ‘re-traumatizing’ ourselves is also extremely harmful and ignorant. Saying that enjoying dark fiction in a controlled environment we create for ourselves is as bad as people who took safety and control away from us, devalues us and takes away our agency. Furthermore, you are inserting yourself into the life and decisions of another person without anyone inviting you into it. Even if you are a professional (highly unlikely), and ESPECIALLY if you really are a professional, you should be aware that this is wrong and you have no basis to express an opinion on someone’s coping mechanisms if they are not a patient you have personally worked with.
- If you claim you want to help survivors, that should include survivors that disagree with you. You can’t disregard the voices of people who have suffered at the hands of awful individuals because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Survivors are not a hivemind. We disagree on things. Our personal and cultural backgrounds are different and so are our experiences. Some of us will get along and some of us won’t, but disregarding each other’s experiences and interrogating people about their stories is awful and frankly, straight-up evil.
- You don’t have to make your presence in a fandom a social cause. You don’t have to think of me or anyone else. All you have to do is give people basic respect by tagging and by being honest about your preferences.
- I don’t believe that any ‘antis’ or any ‘anti-antis’ care about me or any other survivors. I just don’t. I believe all that wankery is nothing but meaningless soapboxing for validation and likes. No one is changing the world through fandom discourse and it’s all utterly useless, IMO.
- I have been threatened, suicide-baited, interrogated about my trauma, had my mental health history shared with people I didn’t consent it being shared with, and am still being stalked at this very moment for being ‘problematic.’ If you think that doesn’t fuck up people you do it to, but fictional drawings do, you gotta get your priorities straight.
- When you call out issues like racism and misogyny, but tack on a ‘oh, also they write dark stuff!’ onto it, that is the reason a lot of people don’t want to touch those posts. I promise you. I have spoken about this to many people and people are fucking burnt out on content policing and rpc dramas, and when they see a callout, they don’t take it seriously. It is a problem and I’m not saying that they are right, but I’m saying that their stance is understandable given their experiences. ‘This person is a fucking racist/predator/manipulative shit’ does not stand on the same level as ‘they write things I don’t like’, and when you put them on the same level, a lot of people won’t take it seriously.
