taraljc:

littlesystems:

The biggest argument I’ve seen on here against two consenting adults* in a relationship is that said relationship is unhealthy, and therefore should not have a place in fandom. This has been applied to a lot of different pairings for different reasons – villain characters, mental illness, incest – but I think the one that gets the most attention is age differences.

The logic goes like this: age differences are always unhealthy and are therefore also immoral, and we cannot “normalize” this bad behavior lest the children (think of the children!) think that age differences are okay in real life.

If this is you, I have some news that’s gonna rock your world: age differences ARE okay in real life. People marry people older than themselves every day! Right now there are millions of people all over the world in relationships with 3+ years difference between partners and that’s okay. Your personal values – that everyone should be in a relationship with someone close to their own age – are not everyone’s personal values. And, your personal values are inherently subjective yardsticks with no real inherent meaning other than that which you ascribe to them.

“But age differences are abusive!”

Nope. Nu uh, no way. You can have a relationship with 2 people born on the same goddamn day that’s a dumpster fire and you can have a healthy and loving relationship between people with 10 or 20 years between them. Saying otherwise is the worst kind of conservative republican pearl clutching, and if that statement surprises you then you need to take a step back and look at what you’re advocating.

My sister and her husband are six years apart. My parents, 12. I have a friend whose parents have a 26 year age difference. Do you find that personally gross? Maybe – who cares! It’s not your life, and no one else is telling you that you have to marry someone you find old and gross. But it is every person’s individual right to be with the person that they want to (provided that that person is also a consenting adult), and saying “but I don’t think they should be allowed to be together because I personally find it icky,” is literally the far-right’s justification against the LGBT community.

“But what if one of the people is really young and the other is really old!” 

Is the younger person a legal adult? Yes? Then it’s not your problem! Is it unhealthy? Maybe! Power dynamics can be complicated, but complicated ≠ immoral. Half the fun of fandom is taking two people that don’t automatically fit together and figuring out how to make that work.

Do large age differences have the potential for abuse? Sure! Is that abuse pedophilia? That depends – did you answer “yes” to the question about being a legal adult? Then no! It’s not pedophilia! If neither character is a minor, then it’s not pedophilia! Period! End of story!

I made a post talking about a 40 year old dating a 50 year old, and got this comment:

“it’s creepy to normalize such large age differences, yes, and such relationships can have their roots in pedophilia, but they’re not always such”

Pedophilia has GOT to stop being everyone’s go-to word for “things that I personally dislike” because there is literally no way in which a 40 year old dating a 50 year old can be pedophilia. The power dynamics between someone that’s 20 versus 30 can be complicated. But 40 and 50? The difference in power and shared life experiences are negligible.

Your personal feelings of disgust ≠ objective morality.

If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

*two consenting adults, two consenting adults, two consenting adults – everything written here is about two consenting adults. I better not get people on here saying that I’m advocating for children in relationships with adults, I s2g.

zombie-twink:

marysuewhipple:

marysuewhipple:

writers: *intentionally write villain as sympathetic*

fans: *sympathize with villain*

the purity police on tumblr dot com: 

For everyone on this post asking which villains I’m talking about/what kind: this post was written especially about the all villains that you particularly hate, and it was written to spite you, personally.

Additionally…

Writers: *didn’t write the villain as obviously sympathetic, but gave them a couple of experiences and powerful emotions that some people share and thus relate to, while making the hero too perfect and sweet to necessarily be relatable to those people*

People: *write AUs and the like to explore their own more sympathetic version of the villain and potential redemptions*

The purity police on Tumblr dot com:

sarah1281:

frostyemma:

thisdiscontentedwinter:

lizdexia:

conflict is bad. misunderstanding is bad. miscommunication is bad. the basic tenets of storytelling – introducing conflict and then resolving it – are bad. any portrayal of two people in a relationship that is anything less than aggressively healthy and perfectly happy are bad. imperfect or unhealthy people are not allowed to be in relationships in fake made up stories, especially not with someone who might be at least marginally healthier than they are, because that creates an abuser/victim dynamic. which is bad.

are you sure that ship isn’t pedophilia? i know they’re both adults, but are you really, really SURE??? have you double checked? is one person older than the other? worse yet, is one member of the ship “child coded” (i.e. having canonically consumed candy or maybe a slurpee)?

you’re a bad person. the FBI are on their way to take you to Wanting The Wrong Fictional People To Kiss Jail.

TFW when satire nails it so well it takes you a moment to realise it’s satire… 

*looks at my Symbrock WIP*

welp, guess I’m fucked

@janiedean

kink-tomato:

kink-tomato:

People who want to shut down Ao3 are the antivaxers of fandom tbh

Ao3 & OTW: is the crowning achievement of fandom, protects all fans’ right to create content, maintains a safe and stable archive to host that content without profiteering or interference from corporate interests

Someone too young to remember the dark days of C&D letters and arbitrary deletion: but even though I have no data to support my position I just KNOW it’s harming children!!!

fandom-is-for-pleasure:

Shit I want: fandom spaces that go back to catering to all female pleasure, not just the anodyne, pastel-pink, oh-so-healthy uwuuuu, ultra sanitized version of it. For example: 

• spaces that respect the fact that nonconsent fantasies are extremely common among women / that don’t shame women for such fantasies and that teach them how to engage with them in a way that doesn’t put women at risk of harm;

• spaces that don’t shit all over women who are sexually submissive / that don’t force these women to place themselves into sexual roles they dislike or outright hate, for the sake of someone’s barmy-ass politics;  

• spaces that don’t brow-beat women for enjoying harlequin romance-style stories and instead gently teach young and inexperienced ones about IRL dynamics of abusive relationships, while allowing them to engage with all the fictional ‘bad boys’ they want; 

• spaces where women of all sexual orientations can enjoy shippy content in all its permutations (M/F, M/M, F/F, M/M/F, etc) without being screeched at by brain-fried randos that they’re ‘fetishizing’ a bunch of anime characters.