😈 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.
Nah fam, this is about the kids on this app telling others to kill themselves over fictional content and harming actual SA survivors via watering down terms like pedophilia.
As an artist from the country that coined the term “degenerate art”: This is ufortunately way too familiar and I’d suggest looking into (art) history (lmk if i can provide ressources, happy to help!).
Side note: There’s a difference between causing discomfort and actually harming someone. Most antis don’t see this, but i hope you do.
Fiction, on its own, can’t harm. It can be _used_ to harm (but there has to be an intention behind that), or it can be viewed by people whose parents didn’t teach them media literacy. Which is why we say:
If you see content that makes you u uncomfortable, you have to simply use the block button. The internet is not your safe space.
“I’m not trying to ban books, I’m trying to ban gross fanfiction”
Are you hearing yourself?
Im here to remind you, that AO3 was banned in our country 🥴
uhhhhh do you not realise that the whole “banning queer or racist critical lit” is LITERALLY the Hays Code kind of bullshit? we aren’t conflating: by equating queerness with sexuality, conservatives are literally trying to kill us all?
that by encouraging people to enforce morality police even on fanfics it just plays into fucking queer genocide?
and that by banning examination of systemic racism and not letting kids learn the horrific truth about the holocaust and the antisemitism that led to it, is upholding white supremacy? the same thing that regularly kills poc and the terrifying rise in antisemitism?
this isn’t about getting squicked about a ship or kink you hate — you can filter those fucking fics out easily on Ao3.
it’s about conservative fucking propaganda taking root in queer community. just as fucking bullshit as every other exclusionist talking point because the point is to divide and conquer us.
i’m ace, and not the sort of sex positive ace that would be proverbially handing out those water bottles for an orgy. no, i’m the sort to tell people to have fun and then retire to my room with industrial strength noise cancellation headphones and a videogame.
but sex, sexual arousal, kink, and porn are not about me. it’s for my fellow queer siblings, and their fights are my fucking fights because:
a society with free sexuality means that anyone can have as much or as little sex with whoever they want. whenever they want. without interference or the fear of being policed by others.
so fuck off with that. show some fucking solidarity with your fellow marginalized queers, poc and jews. especially cos we can be more then one or all.
and if you’re like me: just don’t read those fics or enjoy that porn. that is the sexual liberty of a free society.
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