[ SECRET POST #6517 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6517 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



__________________________________________________



02.
[Elden Ring]



__________________________________________________



03.



__________________________________________________



04.



__________________________________________________


























05. [WARNING for discussion of underage]




__________________________________________________



06. [WARNING for discussion of underage, rape/non-con, incest]




















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #931.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. [WARNING for discussion of underage, rape/non-con, incest]
https://i.imgur.com/o3EKVc9.png

[(Anonymous)]

I'm sympathetic to this concern. I wish readers would use context clues instead of jumping the gun. Like, if something was tagged "incest" but the ship that's the focus isn't incest, I'm going to look at the author tags or note for further info on if this is a backstory thing or lore, etc. This shouldn't be so hard.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel like it's important to recognize when some of these claims are clearly being made in bad faith. Like when it's clear the person making them is trying to push some view. It's shitty but some people are just intellectually dishonest or sneaky and will try to take advantage of human nature to be provoked my a mention of some obviously bad red button issue like the protection of children and being against abuse, and it's important to be aware of that and not succumb to their game and get made without thinking.

Sadly sometimes I fear this is becoming more and more rare and these types of people will call out those who try to be wary of these tactics by casting suspicion on them.

[feotakahari]

This is less of a problem on AO3, but when I was on FIMfiction, some people didn’t seem to get the concept of Mature-level violence. Mature was for porn and only porn.

[(Anonymous)]

Haven't run into this issue in my fandoms but that sucks. The big warnings are there for a reason, to let people know the story involves that subject matter, no more, no less. The tags, summary and author notes let you know how the subject is handled and whether you're looking at a smutty incest shipping fic or fic about a character dealing with PTSD from incest abuse (neither of which are "bad" anyway, my point is more that there's a difference between them even though both would involve an incest warning).

[(Anonymous)]

People also use this as an excuse to not tag things because it "spoils the story." As if I can tell what you're doing just because you tagged it. Like, my dude, until I read the story I don't know if the incest/underaged/non-con/whatever is meant to be a warning or an advertisement, or if it's even integral to the plot. Just tag the thing and don't harass people who tag. Sometimes I feel like everyone has regressed to kindergarten.

[meadowphoenix]

i think this is a hard hard lesson to learn about art, but what the audience thinks about your framing when it comes to what they want to invest in actually isn't any more your business than what your personal views are theirs. you can't control what people think, and the best way to connect with engaged readership is to tag appropriately regardless.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel you. Like, I've got a fic I'm working on (though it's a small enough ship that I'm not really worried about enough people finding it to misconstrue anything, the only people reading it are people who already know me and I've personally talked out the plot with more than half of them), where a character's past history of sexual abuse and assault is a big plot point-- most of which happens when he's over the age of consent for his state, but it does include molestation by both a teacher and a relative, and he goes through a period of hypersexuality followed by shutting that part of himself down entirely for a while, and like... there's more to his story, it's about healing and about finding someone who he can connect to and open up with and talk about their histories of trauma and how to move forward. And the incest is SUCH a small part in the face of all the good things he's going to get, but like... it is there!

[(Anonymous)]

It's just straight-up bullying. I don't care what someone writes as fiction and it doesn't reflect on their personal morality. If you want to point at someone and cry "Incest writer!!!" well, who cares? The correct response is, "Yes, and?" or nothing at all. If you give an inch to the bullies they'll run you down forever (this applies strictly to fandom cultures!)

[(Anonymous)]

The "dead dove" tag is the closest solution I can think of that's meant to let readers know that whatever taboo subject is in the tags isn't supported by the author, but it's still, eh, not perfect. Like, you could start tagging for "incest" and following it up with "non-romanticised incest" but that places a value judgment on fics that don't have that tag, or fics where the incest is romanticised but that's because it's a fictional kink and has nothing to do with the author's opinion of IRL incest.

[(Anonymous)]

about ten years ago, I started publishing fanfic regularly on ao3 and my fandom had some people who really didn't like me and what I was writing and they called me 'the rape girl' because I had exactly three stories with rape/noncon (and one was sex pollen). I was so heartbroken and felt like I was being judged. I had someone I had thought of as a friend write me a DM to tell me I was a bad person for 'promoting rape culture'. when I protested that I had been raped as a child and as a young person, she simply said 'sorry about the rape but that's no excuse'. I cried a lot after that.

now, I have been writing for many many years and have 46 rape/noncon stories on ao3 and I don't even care anymore. I like what I like, I use it as a cathartic tool, and I also find the situations hot so like... I'm not ashamed anymore but I know well what it's like to have people hate on you because of the tags you use.

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, sorry to hear that. The reaction to you sharing your past trauma is really rude. Glad you write what you want these days. If someone doesn't like it they can just scroll past or block.

(I'm the same fwiw, I like stories of non-consent because they're cathartic and hot to me as someone who went through similar things myself, so I definitely understand where you're coming from.)

[epicurean]

Tags are there to tell people what to expect from the fic. If the reader reads the tags and still clicks the link just to end up clutching their pearls then that's 100% on them. The author did their job by adding the tags.

[(Anonymous)]

Only tangentially related, but I just had someone ask me to tag a fic for a ship because Character A and Character B have sex in it, and I understand where the commenter is coming from, but those two characters aren’t romantically paired beforehand, the sex is awkward and bad, and they don’t get together afterward. I even tagged it “Platonic Sex” and “Friends With Benefits” like… I don’t know. I’m just being butthurt, but also it’s kind of on that reader for not being willing to understand to context. >:P

[feotakahari]

If anything, it seems more rude to tag a ship if they don’t actually get together.

[(Anonymous)]

da and yeah, I agree. I'm currently writing a similar type of fic that involves two characters having sex in a transactional context, so I'm not going to tag it as a ship because there's no ship involved. They're just fucking because they both want something out of it, not because they actually have any intention of getting together.