A Star-Forged Ruby

from a long twitter thread about the topic, and stripped of any id's, but:

really. who gives a fuck if someone writes something dark or edgy for shock value?? is it good? is it not good? you can just choose not to read it. you can have the opinion it is a bad piece of fiction, that it is poorly written, in the same way that some fiction by dudes about women is poorly written and lacking in nuance etc.

but like. who. gives. a. fuck.

I feel like these people want it to just... not ever happen? Not be allowed?

bad fiction is allowed to exist, and you are allowed to have a negative opinion of it. god knows i have Opinions on things.

And sometimes it's just down to skill -- that border between "nuanced" and "edgy."

anyway this conversation makes me feel very old sometimes.

unpopular opinion time: fucked up, "dark" fiction that has in fact been written purely to be edgy and for shock value and without a Valid Reason To Exist (like dealing with real life trauma or stuff like that) should also be allowed to exist, no caveat.

Sometimes you write a thing to create or express a feeling. It doesn't need to be to convey a deep idea. Just write it because it came to mind and you wanted to put it into words. That's fine.

I feel like people who are anti dark fic just dont...like...read much? And realize that ALLLLLLL of the things they criticize dark fan fic writers for are also readily present and available in PUBLISHED commercial fiction as well?

My two favorite examples to point at:

These two books are dark fiction and fairy tale anthology series (both are fucking amazing btw). I’m pretty damn sure at least MOST people are going to recognize one or two names (at minimum) from these lists because they are anthologies made up of WELL KNOWN SUCCESSFUL PUBLISHED AUTHORS. These anthologies also contain stories that explore incest, rape, murder, necrophilia, p*edophilia and other extremely uncomfortable topics.

Look at the summary on the back of the Outsider anthology - look at this wording:

The anti rhetoric about fan fiction and AO3 being filled with predators who get off on the fucked up things in dark fic are showing just how ignorant and sheltered (and also intentionally trying to be high and mighty and better than) they really are.

This is not a “only fan fiction” thing.

This is not a “only predators” thing.

This is a HUMAN thing. Completely putting aside the very real fact that SO MANY dark fan fiction writers are using dark fic to process their own trauma....Humans get a sense of control and catharsis and enjoyment from exploring the forbidden, the dark, the fucked up through art. And art is a normal and safe and HEALTHY way to explore the worst parts of humanity. If you think that this isn’t a basic human truth....you’re an idiot.

The constant attempted shaming and silencing of survivors on this hellsite? that makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Every time someone writes “you can’t write about that even if you’re a survivor and if you do you have to keep it to yourself”, what I read is the implied “you can’t write about your own trauma with the comforting distance of putting it on fictional characters, and if you do you’re not allowed to look for validation from other people.”

I read “you can’t share your story because it makes me uncomfortable to see it”.

I read “you should just be ashamed of the bad things that happened to you”.

I read “you should just suffer in silence”.

People act like not talking about abuse can… somehow stop it? And that’s not how it works. Shaming survivors only makes it easier for abusers to manipulate their victims. Silence protects abusers from discovery. It harms survivors by not letting them have the catharsis of understanding, and keeping them from support.

And I don’t feel like it’s anyone’s place to tell a survivor they have to out themselves to share, either.

So yeah. It’s not the only reason I’m anti-censorship, by a long shot, but there’s one reason I’m very much not on the side of “bad things can’t ever be written”- or on the side of shaming people who do write “bad things”, no matter what apparent reasons they have.

fiction–fanfic and profic–was what gave me the tools to contextualize what had happened to me s a teenager and young adult. yeah, probably i should have had therapy, but that wasn’t accessible to me when i needed it, for a variety of reasons. books were. fanfic was. it was the first time i felt like i wasn’t alone, that other people understood all that messy, ugly, complicated shit i was dealing with. that even if i’d never be able to talk about it out loud, i could write about it, and someone out there would understand.

so i have pretty much less than zero patience with people who want to delete everything that isn’t perfectly wholesome from fiction. sometimes you need to be able to read something ugly. and you know what? i don’t actually give a flying fuck if people are reading or writing it as masturbation material. human sexuality is a strange and complicated thing, and what other people jerk off to is none of my business. i care that it’s tagged and warned for properly, but beyond that, all that dark, disturbing, violent fic gets to exist. not only that, i want it to exist, because i guarantee you someone out there needs it