My Therapist Just Told Me My Problem Is That I Need To Write More Fanfiction.

My therapist just told me my problem is that I need to write more fanfiction.

Oh look. I turned off anon and suddenly the 25 hate mail notifications stopped coming. By golly, I wonder what happened there! Surely it couldn't be because you won't actually tell me to kill myself without the protective shield of anonymity? Surely not. Your internet must've gone down, that's all.

That anon telling you to go to a library made me chuckle. My mom read "Lolita" at a public library when she was 12. It's why she's a pediatric forensic psychiatrist now. The idea of libraries as having less problematic content than fic is silly. But also, the idea of libraries being easily accessible is wild to me. I live in a rural area and it's a 30 minute drive to my local underfunded, understaffed library, which largely gets books from people donating their used books periodically. Due to poor funding, it's not accessible for nearly as many hours as anyone would like. Fanfic is free and accessible quickly at all hours. "Go to a library!" Where? When? Both of the other towns nearest me have shut down their public libraries. The one I have access to has to keep cutting hours.

If they really valued libraries, anon should go out and try harder to get people to utilize the libraries around them so they survive and continue to get funding. Degrading fanfic doesn't make libraries better off. It just makes people go, "Oh, so libraries are full of assholes like this guy."

And the wildest thing is, due to severe trauma from having one of the most toxic relationships of my life due to fandom, I don't even like fanfic right now. But even my highly-biased, emotionally-clouded ass can clearly see the flaws in this "fic bad, library good" argument. And when someone who's messed up and has and issues with the medium of literature in question still sees it more clearly than you... anon, maybe this is a sign you've got some biases to work through.

The best part, though? I was introduced to fanfic by librarians who liked my fanfics (though I didn't know what they were called) about Monster High characters meeting monsters from other franchises and becoming one big found family. The guardians of "real literature", for whatever absurd definition of that we're using today, have always been in favor of "fake literature", because they know that actually, both are lit.

I have nothing to add to this. 10/10 perfect points.

(Except that just like you, my closest library is almost a full hour away in any direction and the one that used to be five minutes away got closed down to "make room for profit-oriented business" which never happened, and now a perfectly usable space for a library is sitting and rotting.)

Okay because I keep seeing these posts, I am just gonna cartwheel in here and say something.

It is not inappropriate to be attracted to real people.

Like, entirely setting aside the question of if you think a fantasy character block men is hot, if you are looking at the photos of a real streamer and you've got hearts in your eyes, I can't overemphasize how normal that is. You're good. Don't worry about it.

These people are funny, and they have good voices, and we watch them be entertaining for hours at a time. This is prime real estate for a little crush. And having a crush is fine, the question is about your behaviour once you have a crush.

I am seeing people thinking that having a crush on a streamer means they're dangerously parasocial, or somehow predatory, or abusive, and that ever breathing a word of it is basically sexual harassment. And like, no. Being attracted to real people is not weird. That's arguably less weird than being attracted to fictional characters. The only question is like, once you know that you want to smooch the real person, how do you then treat that person and the people around you?

Seeing a photo of a famous person and thinking "oh hell yeah I want to hold their hand": this is a celebrity crush. I am aroace and I've spent enough time in some people's streams that I start to go "oh man I wonder if they'd like if if we played D&D together" (medusa-flirting). This has happened to regular people looking at attractive famous people probably since someone in the cave man clan was a particularly good hunter and got praise for it. Thoughts in your head don't hurt people. This is fine.

Seeing clips of a famous person and having sexual thoughts about them: this is still a celebrity crush. Your average boring office worker does this with movie stars. Half the people on the bus are doing this with instagram influencers. Runnning a nice r-rated movie in your head is fine, and doesn't hurt anyone. Thoughts in your head still dont' hurt people. This is still fine.

Collecting photos of a famous person and going GOD they're hot to your friends where the famous person won't see it: still a celebrity crush. There is a standing joke in I don't know how many healthy relationships that your partner gets a certain amount of freebies where you could totally cheat if it's Idris Elba, because it's IDRIS ELBA, that's not cheating that's just sense. You can aknowlege someone's sexiness to your friends, and even joke about it, and you're not being predatory, and you're not being inappropriate. Desire is not a crime. People can publically talk about being attracted to a person, and as long as they're not making it that person's problem, they're fine. Having a "hot people" tag on your blog with careful photos gathered from someone's public instagram where they deliberately posted photos of themselves looking hot? I can't over emphasize how fine this is. If people don't want to see hot people on their dash I guess they can unfollow? But you're literally being totally appropriate still.

Getting a nice private group chat with friends who like to talk abouta famous person and talking about how you'd like to knock him up: Look, what else are group chats as adults for? Are you seeing a trend here? As long as you are keeping your attraction to yourself and not making it other people's problem, as long as you're not bothering the real person with it, as long as you aknowledge to yourself that this is never going to happen and this is just a fun fantasy, this is just like, how attraction works. See pretty person, talk about pretty person, have fun with the fictional imaginings you're having— as long as you're not forcing this imagining on someone else, making it their problem, trying to make it real, as long as you know the difference between fiction and real life, you're fine.

Going up to someone's chat and talking about their dick: This is where you cross the line.

Putting NSFW work in someone's fan art tag. Wearing a shirt with porn on it to a meet and greet. Untagging your fanfic so that people who want to read g-rated works about someone are confronted with e-rated works. Asking one of their friends about their relationship status and if they smell good. This is the bad stuff. Don't do THAT. Keep it away from the real person.

The problem is not the attraction, the problem is forcing the attraction on other people. Like, use your brain. There's a segment of attraction that you can put on main, and then there's a segment that you can put on main but you'd better be sure that the person you're talking about is not going to see it, and then there's a segment you should keep for the group chat, but that's just a very basic sliding scale of "how sexual am I being" correlated with "how private am I being about this". If you want to run a full on porn video in your head starring Wilbur Soot, you're not bothering other people with that, you're not being inappropriate. That becomes inappropriate if you are a) putting that in tags where people who don't want to see the porn video would see it b) talking to Wilbur Soot about it. Those are the boundaries. Wait also c) talking to Wilbur Soot's friends about it, don't do that either.

If the person you're attracted to is an adult famous person, like, people being attracted to them is just part of the landscape. I promise an adult celebrity is not sitting in their room being traumatized because people might be thinking about them romantically or sexually. Putting it up in their faces? Bad. Very bad. I hate it. Don't do it. But I see people freaking out about thoughts. Thoughts aren't real. They do not exist in the real world. You can do what you fuckin' want in your thoughts and you are not hurting people.

Like I know we don't want to be inappropriate with streamers, but that doesn't mean that any sexual or romantic thoughts about them are forbidden, or that mild "GOD he's cute" or picspams on main are hurting people, or that off in a closed group of fellow adult enthusiasts you can't be like "so I think streamer would be submissive if I was domming him" and everyone can be like "oh you'd dom him so well". As long as you're keeping it away from people who are bothered by it, you're fine.

Attraction to real people is normal and how attraction works. You're not hurting people if you think they're cute. You're not hurting people if you want to fuck them, either, as long as you're not making them interact with that desire. This is just a simple matter of keeping the higher-rated material away from the people involved.

Attraction to real people isn't inappropriate. You're fine.

Hi, hi! I just wanted to thank you for your blog. Not only you actually, most proship Tumblr I follow, but I feel very emotional right now so you're getting the thanks haha. I've been feeling guilty about an oc incest ship recently, I've never been that attached to a ship nor into incest but I keep turning The Suffering and The Horny all over in my head. It's reassuring to ground myself in reality and reaffirm that it doesn't make me disgusting. I just have 'ugly' feelings to process. And I don't even need that justification. I mean I've been a Sebaciel shipper since I was a pre-teen but before my current incest ship I've never felt guilt or a need to justify it tbh. It's getting long and rambly but thank you. And fuck thought police.

I do what I do for people like you.

But, really. Its actually pretty common to feel guilt or anxiety about your relationship with fiction or something you're consuming in regards to fiction, and I promise you its normal.

The best thing you can do is what you are; understand and affirm that fiction is encapsulated from reality and it does not reflect who you are or what you uphold. Painting a dead body does not mean I killed someone.

Fictional incest does not equate to a real life crime nor possess a victim.

Sometimes, fiction can even help us to process our thoughts and feelings more than reality ever could. Sometimes its easier to tell a blank piece of paper your feelings than it is to tell a real person. Sometimes it takes us reading someone else's fiction to understand or learn something about our own reality.

In the iconic words of the most shagalicious agent; its all groovin', baby.

I have nothing against the Pro-ship stance as I understand it (ship and let ship/fiction is fiction etc) but I do think it’s odd that pro-shippers never acknowledge how their online communities have become a safe space for actual pedos/zoos/pro-contact folks. Everyone is responsible for themselves ofc but seeing as pro/anti shippers seem to be in a “who cares about victims more” debate 24/7 it’s weird that actual perpetrators of these crimes seem to gravitate towards pro-shippers more and they never address it.

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