You cannot convince me otherwise. Lily and James were 19 when they got pregnant. There’s no way that was on purpose.
Please picture it.
Lily tells James they’re pregnant. James panics, leaves, finds the other Marauders and demands a lads night, you know, no reason, just some drunken shenanigans for no reason at all with friends! Remus notices something seems a bit off and keeps an eye on his friend, but no one says anything. It’s only several hours later, when James is drunkenly crying and wailing on the floor, “He’s going to be so small! How can I protect him? SO SMALL!” that they realize what’s going on. They ask him if he is going to be alright. He sobs, tears and snot running down his face, and nods furiously. “This is the happiest I have ever been!” The others look at each other, shake their heads, and pull him to his feet. Sirius marches him back home to Lily, who has been waiting, scared, alone, and more than a little pissed off at her boyfriend for the better part of the night. She softens when she sees James drunkenly leaning on Sirius, Sirius shrugging in apology, because James is a mess but at least he’s home now. James falls to his knees in front of her and says, “I’m so sorry I ran off. I got scared. I’m still scared. But I’m happy too.” Lily can’t help but smile. “It’s alright, James, we’ll figure–” But James loudly shushes her and points at her stomach. “Wait. I’m talking to my son.” Lily glares at him and reminds him that it could be a daughter. Sirius adds, “Could be twins! Or quintuplets!” Lily glares more and tries not to laugh while James murmurs into her belly, “’M gonna ask your mum to marry me, but keep it secret ‘cause I have to buy a ring first. And a broom. Not for the wedding. For you. Do you like quidditch? You probably don’t know what that is yet. Don’t worry. I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you everything.”
Perhaps it’s my age speaking, but I’m starting to miss the way fandom used to be fifteen years ago. Mostly since back then the concepts of ‘darkfic’ and ‘don’t like, don’t read’ were properly understood and adhered to (usually). The situation with darkfics was interesting in particular, because the entire premise was that the author could write incredibly fucked-up things, with the understanding on their part that shit was indeed very messed-up and with no pretense to the contrary (what usually gets termed ‘romanticization’ these days).
Now? You’ve got to run an entire rigmarole of explaining the difference between romanticization and just straight-up exploring a horrible dynamic in writing as, you know, a writer. And even after that, you’ll probably have to deal with the whole invasive ‘explain every trauma you might’ve gone through, so strangers who otherwise don’t care if you exist can decide if they give you Permission to use writing as a coping mechanism’ mess. Fucking hell.
I’ve said it before. Learn to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Learn to tell the difference between what someone explores on the page as a writer and what that same person believes and advocates in their day-to-day life.
Truth.
Hey guys, remember squickfics? I remember squickfics.
all too well
I loved how we tried to outright one-up each other in squicks and badwrong. Well *I* can write something more fucked up than *yours*!
I know there was moralizing in the past too, but the majority opinion after Strikethrough was outrage, when it was about someone getting their blog deleted for Snarry art. While there were a few people who were okay with that even then, they got drowned out by the outrage. I feel like today, fandom would have thrown a party and sent LJ flowers. I see blogs getting deleted for obscenity even on tumblr (mostly guro blogs, though I think they might be getting deleted for shota? Keep in mind this is 100% drawings) and no one even cares. The outrage back then caused mass migrations off LJ, and spawned AO3 and Dreamwidth. Maybe it’s less of a big deal since it’s not a fandom/megafandom thing, but more of a niche fetish, but getting TOSed for porn used to be a huge dealbreaker in fandom settings. This is why all fictional portrayals of anything are allowed on AO3, no matter how offensive.
It’s also a thing where our generation of fandom pretty much gets slaughtered by these new and changed rules if we dare to get popular or famous for anything. Nobody cares about my old socially unacceptable kinkfic, because I’m fucking no one, who’d bother me about it? But if I somehow had a bestseller or something, they’d dig up all the dirt, all the old LJ commentfic where someone said, “I bet you couldn’t make this badwrong thing work” and I said “IS THAT A CHALLENGE?” Look at Rebecca Sugar, stuck with problematic fave status despite all her great work on Adventure Time and Steven Universe, because back in the day she did some porny Ed Edd and Eddy art.
I actually sincerely wonder sometimes, because it feels almost intentional. We had a renaissance of female creativity, and dozens of fandom alumni went on to have successful careers in creative fields. We taught each other, challenged each other, beta’d each other, shared feedback, and made a community where people who otherwise might not have had a voice could create and reach an audience. And now some of the very things that made that culture unique are condemned by the next generation of that same culture–but only for those who dare to become successful, only for those who go mainstream and monetize. You can still write all kinds of filth on AO3, if you have the sense to keep a low profile and never be anyone important, the only time that really changes is if you have the gall to start getting attention and praise, even if it’s for other, vanilla stuff. It’s a way of making sure no one can ever really like you. It correlates much more to popularity than problematicness, for example, I’m approximately 9,000 times more problematic than say zamii070, but she got the bullying because she’s much more popular than I am, and people can’t stand that.
All the “tell me what trauma you’ve experienced” is rarely applied if you’re a nobody. It’s just a particularly nasty way to deal with people who dared to get “too popular” and put them in their place. Either they’ve been through trauma and you rob them of their privacy, make the worst moments of their life fodder for casual analysis, imply they might be lying about it, and hopefully trigger the shit out of them, or they haven’t, and you get to say they’re a shitlord who is so bad they practically caused that trauma to happen to other people. It’s really win/win for the bullies, no matter what the answer is. It’s how we keep ourselves down as a community, by making sure no member of the community is allowed to rise up and “make it.” We’ll teach you how to write, how to draw, how to vid, how to code, but you definitely aren’t allowed to get too big for your britches and start thinking you’re something special. You’re already problematic, and if you aren’t, we can make you problematic.
reblog and put the highest library late fee you’ve ever paid in the tags
Ok so the highest I have paid is $20 the highest I have is $5000 and still counting and I’m never going back to Louisiana again.
There’s gotta be a good story behind that $5000 fine
Ok kiddo’s sit the heckety down and hold onto your hats and broomsticks. The year is 2006. The setting, hick-fuckville Louisiana. I am but a humble child sitting in my local library reading all of the books that my school library banned, but they kept in the local library to show adults, so that way they can “warn them, becouse if your child is reading these books they are possessed by Satan.” This is the place where I got my first copy of Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” which had all if my favorite things, a male/male relationship, vampires, the Victorian age, and best of all half of it takes place in Fuck-hickville Louisiana (not to be confused with Hick-Fuckville, Louisiana). I have by me all of the books on the “don’t let your child read this or they will become a sodomite” list. I am fucking having a blast, when guess who walks the flip flopity right up to me. That’s right. Pastor AssFuck McGee. And he goes “child, these books are not for children.” To which I reply by saying nothing, picking up each book and checking them out. I walk out if the library, and I decide. Fuck you pastor AssFuck McGee. I am gonna read all if these books. 1 month later, my parents decide it’s time to move, again. I’m chill with this. I hate this town. I hate this state. And I hate Paster AssFuck McGee and I don’t even go to his church, but Kasey who sits by me during lunch does and she says that he’s a “bleepity bleeping dumb slut” and I don’t know how Kasey knows that Pastor AssFuck McGee is a slut, but I trust her opinion on it, and while I normally don’t shame people for their sex lives I was willing to make an exception just for Pastor AssFuck McGee. However, if we move I have to return my library books. But I can’t. I haven’t finished reading all fucking 23 books, 2 magazines, and the informational pamphlet on birth control. So I decided I hated Pastor AssFuck McGee and loved books more than I cared about the law. So I packed all of the library books up and move with them. I said fuck it. I’m gonna steal all of this. I was sure as fuck about to commit my first felony. We move to Arizona. I get enrolled into a new school – one day in the snazy new computer lab I boot up the computer, that terrible fucking dial up noise hurts my ears and I’m convinced God isn’t real, becouse if he was he wouldn’t allow for that God awful fucking noise. I sign on to my AOL. I have an email. It’s from the library in Louisiana. My books are late. I delete the email. I delete the email every week when they send it out. Fast forward too late 2016. I am feeling the nostalgic, I decide to log into my old AOL account I have been on it in over 5 years. I am stunned. I have an email. My books are late. I owe around $5000. I sighn out of my AOL. I never sighn back in. I go to bed that night and I whisper. “Fuck you Pastor AssFuck McGee.”
(Names in this story have been changed to protect individuals )
