Ummm.... NO.
Gather 'round for some fandom bitching...
Okay. So, on LJ there are almost no Criminal Minds fan communities left. I dunno where they live now, but it ain't here. There is still a community on this platform who's purpose is to help fans find fics they've read then lost, or to find recs in a certain pairing/genre etc. It's not terribly active either, but every once in a while, someone posts a request.
And the requests are always terrible. Like, seriously. Based on this comm alone, one would assume that all CM fans are perverted, broken toys >:/ And they all involve Reid.
- Reid hides an eating disorder
- Reid marries someone with an eating disorder
- Reid marries a female OC which is a Mary Sue for female fans to self-insert into a fic
- Reid gets raped (by an UnSub or a member of his team)
- Reid is abused (by basically ANYONE you can imagine), runs away, self-destructs, is chased down by his team, and then forcibly 'rehabilitated' (usually by someone's dick)
- Reid mpreg in which he loses the baby in a horrific fashion
- Reid A/B/O fic in which he is feminized and abused as a sex slave
- Rossi is Reid's biological father but they continue to have sexual relationship after Reid finds out
- Reid self-harms (not important why)
- Reid is in an abusive relationship with Hotch, but it's 'super-sexy'
- Reid as a prostitute
- Reid as a virgin who must be 'broken' for his own good
- Reid is hurt in some way and then various team members fight over him like cavemen
The list goes on and on. I've rarely seen a request on this comm that isn't unhinged in some way. I've actually physically recoiled from the screen after reading a few of these. It makes me feel ashamed to call myself a fan.
This leads to an uncomfortable debate. I'm a huge proponent of fandom being a safe place to explore things that might not be acceptable to a lot of people. I also recognize that kinks can go wild, that my kinks are pretty tame in the scheme of things, and that it is better to indulge these things through fiction than in other, possibly harmful ways. But still... I'm so tired of seeing these seemingly endless requests for misery and depravity simply for their own prurient sake and without context of any kind. It's really disheartening. Why do I keep writing when THIS is what people are looking for? How can I proudly say I'm a fan when non-fans point at stuff like the list above and say "you mean a fan like this???"
This isn't about censorship - I don't want that at all. And I'm trying to shine on a "live and let live" fan policy. But - UGH! - it's conundrums like this that make it difficult to hold your head high in fandom.
Okay. So, on LJ there are almost no Criminal Minds fan communities left. I dunno where they live now, but it ain't here. There is still a community on this platform who's purpose is to help fans find fics they've read then lost, or to find recs in a certain pairing/genre etc. It's not terribly active either, but every once in a while, someone posts a request.
And the requests are always terrible. Like, seriously. Based on this comm alone, one would assume that all CM fans are perverted, broken toys >:/ And they all involve Reid.
- Reid hides an eating disorder
- Reid marries someone with an eating disorder
- Reid marries a female OC which is a Mary Sue for female fans to self-insert into a fic
- Reid gets raped (by an UnSub or a member of his team)
- Reid is abused (by basically ANYONE you can imagine), runs away, self-destructs, is chased down by his team, and then forcibly 'rehabilitated' (usually by someone's dick)
- Reid mpreg in which he loses the baby in a horrific fashion
- Reid A/B/O fic in which he is feminized and abused as a sex slave
- Rossi is Reid's biological father but they continue to have sexual relationship after Reid finds out
- Reid self-harms (not important why)
- Reid is in an abusive relationship with Hotch, but it's 'super-sexy'
- Reid as a prostitute
- Reid as a virgin who must be 'broken' for his own good
- Reid is hurt in some way and then various team members fight over him like cavemen
The list goes on and on. I've rarely seen a request on this comm that isn't unhinged in some way. I've actually physically recoiled from the screen after reading a few of these. It makes me feel ashamed to call myself a fan.
This leads to an uncomfortable debate. I'm a huge proponent of fandom being a safe place to explore things that might not be acceptable to a lot of people. I also recognize that kinks can go wild, that my kinks are pretty tame in the scheme of things, and that it is better to indulge these things through fiction than in other, possibly harmful ways. But still... I'm so tired of seeing these seemingly endless requests for misery and depravity simply for their own prurient sake and without context of any kind. It's really disheartening. Why do I keep writing when THIS is what people are looking for? How can I proudly say I'm a fan when non-fans point at stuff like the list above and say "you mean a fan like this???"
This isn't about censorship - I don't want that at all. And I'm trying to shine on a "live and let live" fan policy. But - UGH! - it's conundrums like this that make it difficult to hold your head high in fandom.