Very Specific Question, But Do You (or Anyone Else) Know Of How To Get Rid Of That Nagging Feeling Of

Very specific question, but do you (or anyone else) know of how to get rid of that nagging feeling of sharing everything you create?

I'm a writer, both in the fanfic sense and of my own stories. I'm also proship, but nobody I care about knows that fact due to be so severely anti to the point of me mentioning the discourse (to test the waters) gets a blatant "proshippers aren't human beings and should kill themselves".

I really want to write a small fic about a problematic ship (young child x older person) that I don't even actually like! I don't ship it, though I don't care if other people do. But I'm fascinated by the idea of it, the possible dynamic, because it's very popular in the proshipper circle of the fandom and it's been nagging at me. The problem is that I write and then want to share it. Writing for myself feels.... Wrong, almost? But I cannot share it with my loved ones. I had previously already suggested writing a similar idea to a very close friend and he was severely disgusted by it, asked me if I was genuinely considering writing it and I had to very quickly play it off as a joke.

And I know the next suggestion will be the proshipper side of the fandom, but sharing my work online for others I don't know to see makes me personally uncomfortable, which is a major shame.

(I'm not even going to touch the fact that your "loved ones" think people like you should kill themselves.)

But. A good way is to treat them like an assessment opportunity. Make a copy of each piece and use something like Google Documents to annotate and evaluate what you've written. Move all of the originals into a secondary folder.

Not only will this help improve your writing in the long run, but it somewhat changes the intent of the literature from something written to, at its core, be shared, into a personal resource.

There's also the option of making new friends. You don't have to go out and gather people up like a squirrel with a winter store, but even just one likeminded person whom you can get to know well enough to feel comfortable sharing your work can help sate that need to share and engage with someone about what you create. You can send your content to them privately, then, rather than uploading it for the masses.

But. I would just gently like to say that perhaps its not the need to share that you need to reflect on and try to negate. If you have to ask how to stifle yourself so that your loved ones don't think of you as inhuman meat that needs to be slaughtered, perhaps you're asking the wrong questions.

Because I said 'there needs to be spaces' and the first thing you said in response was that 'actually X is a different matter and needs to be given spaces.'

My point isn't that every single fandom space should be free from these things. My point is that there should be at least some that are, regardless of what relevance an issue has to the fandom.

By saying 'X is a different matter. There needs to be space for it' you either made the completely irrelevant point that it should be present in the spaces that I'm not talking about, or you're making the contradictory point that they should be in the spaces I am.

I am actually begging some people to just let some spaces exist untouched by real-world issues and horrors.

Like I've lost count of the amount of times peaceful game or fandom servers have been ruined by people stampeding in with political rants, bitching about world issues, demanding internal activism, demanding vent channels so they can whine about their shitty parents, ect.

Like. Respectfully. Not every single space has to be inclusive of and welcoming of outside topics. The real world sucks. We don't needed to be reminded of that absolutely everywhere.

Hello ^__^ I have a question that I'm hoping you could educate me on: I recently watched a video where a reviewer criticized a dark romance book, and kept insisting that the pairing between a male/female student/teacher couple was considered grooming despite the characters both meeting after they were adults & having a 7-year age gap (minimal imo). I understand that there were themes of power-imbalance and possessiveness that might turn readers off, and aside from this being fiction, I'm genuinely curious as to whether this would constitute as grooming in the real-life definition of the term? I'm familiar with this being used to describe CSA, but I know that antis like to warp and abuse certain words, and I just want to make sure I'm not downplaying or brushing off anyone's irl experiences. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Grooming is intentional behavior. It can be done by anyone at any age, although its most commonly (and legally) defined in regards to minors.

While there are inherent power-imbalances and differences in experience with "older age gap" relationships and, as per your example, relationships where one person is in a position of authority over the other, it entirely depends on how the relationship is treated and how the person with the most power treats the person with the least.

Realistically; nobody can control when or with whom they fall in love. Its something that simply happens. However, within the relationship there are easy ways to identify points of concern that turn the relationship into an unhealthy or imbalanced one.

For example: (Assuming the teacher is the male.)

Does he wield his authority over her inappropriately? Does he use it to gain dominance over situations or choices?

Does he use his age, experience, position, ect to benefit from the relationship or choices within the relationship, against her will or to her detriment?

Did he actively pursue her with reasonings relative to her lack of authority against him, the vulnerability or convenience of her being his student, ect?

Is he controlling, manipulative, pushy, overly possessive/jealous, emotionally abusive, ect?

Does he deliberately mislead her or manipulate her with positive emotions, acts and thoughts?

Such behaviors are what constitute as grooming and are what make a relationship between two mature, aware, consenting adults unhealthy and inappropriate.

That said, its a dark romance book. Anyone complaining or criticizing a dark romance book for whatever topics or depictions it may contain are buffoons.

You seem p good at answering AO3 questions, so.

I'm writing a story for a fandom that has A Lot of characters. I am making a whole lot of characters show up, mostly for a scene or two here or there. The whole story will be 5 chapters.

Would "cameo character A" etc work for those characters that show up? They DO have dialogue and interact with the main cast for a moment at least. But I don't wanna mislead fans of the characters by tagging names of ppl that show up like twice.

The 'Cameo Character A' tag is a great tag for this, yes. Its also not an official tag but you could also use 'Brief Character A Appearance.'

The purpose of tags is to tell your reader what your story entails and contains and where possible, to what degree. The best way to think about how or what to tag is 'will people search for this' and 'will people want to exclude this.'

Its also why there's multiple variations of one tag, to communicate the depth of which it is present in the work.

(E.g; violence/graphic violence/mild violence)

To go back to The Salmon Analogy, lets say you go to a restaurant and see that they've got a 'salmon platter' on the menu. You'd more or less expect salmon to be the primary or at least a significant ingredient, right? So it'd be pretty misleading if there was only a small sample portion of salmon amongst many other ingredients.

How do you tag characters who are only mentioned in Ao3? Like Character A mentions Character C to Character B over the course of the fanfic/story but Character C never make an actual appearance

You can use additional tags such as:

Mentioned Character C

Referenced Character C

Background Character C

I wouldn't tag the character in the actual character tags because that would generally lead people to assume the character is physically present in the work.

A good rule of thumb is that unless the character or relationship are overtly present or regularly references significantly within the work, they belong in the additional tags.

Especially relationships. I can't count how many times a work has been tagged as Character A/Character B when in actual fact the "relationship" only exists as a brief mention of them dating in the past or something.

Don't feel obligated to post or respond if you don't want to, I just wanted to give you some positivity. I really love your blog and your opinions on things. I hope you have a wonderful day

Oh god oh wait its fine I'm fine I just oh god a minute I need a minute