😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who are not punished by the narrative by the end of the story.
😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who win.
😈 You are allowed to have evil characters who make evil look fun and cool.
😈 You are allowed to make your fun, cool evil character the protagonist.
😈 You are allowed to glorify, romanticize and eroticize evil characters and villainous acts.
😈 You are not obligated to teach your audience a moral lesson.
😈 You are allowed to slap it,
only once.
In all seriousness, as evidenced by the original tags on this post:
This post is meant to conflate writing “proship” fanfiction to rebellion against societal concepts that lead to the creation of the Hays Code (which, by the way, regulated film, not literature).
In fact, literature involving power dynamics within romantic relationships has been on the rise. “BookTok”, a trend of certain kinds of romantic novels being heavily advertised on TikTok, has frequently pushed novels involving power dynamics, such as having a relationship with your employer, or a mob boss. This trend has been so prominent as to have dedicated sections in retailers such as Barnes and Noble. “Fifty Shades of Grey”set records as the fastest-selling paperback in the United Kingdom.
There is no large, active, cultural / political attack on the fanfiction (or published fiction) championed under the “proship” label. There have been no political movements with momentum within the US to crack down on literature romanticizing incest, csa, or abuse.
As far as the Hays Code goes, the sympathy from writers and the general audience towards villains has been quite high for a while now, with films such as Maleficent and Cruella seeking to humanize popular villains previously shown in an unsympathetic light. Films featuring morally dubious protagonists, such as The Suicide Squad, are also fairly popular and recieve large marketing and merchandising pushes from their publishers (Warner Bros., In this case).
The ideology behind the Hays Code is associated with US Conservatives, and yet relatively little pushback from conservative groups has been seen concerning these media trends. What has been seen is a political push against literature with gay or trans themes, sex education topics, and which tackles the history of race & white supremacy in the US. A library in Llano County of Texas has threatened to cease operations after being ordered to return books which were illegally removed without notice, such as “They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group.”
When you see posts like these, consider whether the OP is talking about a form of censorship which exists in reality, or whether they may have run into someone who didn’t like their fanfiction on AO3, and spun a narrative for themselves.
@ the tags: imagine thinking someone saying “you don’t have to follow the Hays code” and for some reason thinking that meant “I am being persecuted by the Hays code” and not just “you can write things that don’t have a ‘good moral lesson’ if you want to”
No one needs the reminder “you are not bound by the Hays Code” because literally no one today thinks they are. Not only is no one being persecuted by the Hays Code specifically, but literally no one today is writing shit while thinking “I better follow the Hays Code.” The point of my tags was that this post was addressing a non issue, as does the entire “proship” online space. An issue that does not exist in the real world. It’s only an issue if you’re an ao3 writer getting mean comments on your fanfiction, and even then I’m doubting anyone in the ao3 fanfiction comments is demanding you to follow the Hays Code specifcally.
Friend I have literally seen people on Tumblr in the last two weeks say specifically that the hays code wasn’t bad or that we should bring back the hays code.
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