Does @ao3org have a #troll problem?

[carolinelamb]

Comments

[akatnamedeaster]

Do you receive more hate than before? Oh gods yes. You're not wrong love, fandom in general, no matter which one, has become a much less friendly place in the last few years. I'm not sure what's driving it but yes, there is a lot more hateful crap going around than there was way back when

[alexicyn]

Wait!?!?!? Who is giving you a hard time??!?! Let me at em! So help me Circe, if they make you sad and you stop gracing us with your beautiful talents.... GRRRRRR

**Looks around and wonders who she has to bite!**

[akatnamedeaster]

Thanks babe, it's all good though but I do have a lot of detractors out there, comes with being loud, opinionated, and prolific. It used to make me really upset and sometimes still does but overall, I just shake my head and hit the delete button.

The one that cursed me out was funny though. I honestly thought they were joking at first. Ah well, at least they're really passionate about the material. ;)

[alexicyn]

I will never understand that *shaking my damn head* I've seen some comments where I'm look 'well, you entitlement happy little asshole'. I read an author who says plainly on the start page of her site that unsolicited beta and con crit is not asked for, or welcome. And folks still try to do it. It's rather amusing watching her rip someone a new one, but rather bullshit that she has to do it all

[akatnamedeaster]

Yeah, it was really weird and I wanted to say to the person "look, I know you were interested in seeing the deets, but there's another extended sex scene at the end with all that and I still have 30 pages to get through. These comics are a very labor and time intensive business and I can't show every little thing since I'd never finish. So yeah. Get over it please." But I didn't because all those things should be obvious

[carolinelamb]

I have to admit I do need often a warning for who bottoms. It's fandom. I mean who's get to say what's not a squick or not

[akatnamedeaster]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend with my opinion on that. I think because I am flexible with my own pairing and don't really care who bottoms or tops in a fic that it seems to me something that isn't typically warned for or doesn't have to be

[carolinelamb]

The whole top/bottom thing is a bit of a mystery-it's not sexual kink like IDK watersports. It's not a genre either, like "Fluff

[akatnamedeaster]

Don't feel self conscious about it, you feel how you feel and I didn't take that into consideration before spouting off

[carolinelamb]

<3

[torino10154]

For me, I'm very resistant to the idea that bottoming means anything more than the character likes to get fucked in the ass. I really don't like assigning any greater meaning to it than that and I absolutely despise the notion that it somehow means that he's a lesser man than the top. Not to dismiss Caro's feelings, because obviously something that's a squick is a squick, but this is exactly how I feel

[akatnamedeaster]

It's unfortunate but a lot of people really do have this heteronormative idea about what topping/bottoming means and assign characteristics to a character based on a position in bed. I realize that a lot of people use it as a sort of shorthand for aspects of a character's personality, but like you say, I don't want them bringing those preconceived notions to something I wrote since that shorthand isn't present in my stories

[torino10154]

I suspect that as being gay loses it's stigma (yes, there is a long way to go but generally speaking) a lot of the traditional "roles" will, if not go away entirely, just lead to broader acceptance of all manner of relationships. Like M/F where now some people maintain a traditional bread winner/stay at home, others have moved to two people working, while still others buck all of that completely--there was also a recent survey that said more girlfriends complained about lack of sex than boyfriends. I see LGBT people also deciding, you know, *I* don't have to do X because I am gay or Y because I am a lesbian and being "a top" or "a bottom" rather than just enjoying a particular sex position may be one of them. Which isn't to say that yes, some people really prefer one or the other. Which I have no issue with. But this idea that you must be one or the other or that people will say, "Oh, he's definitely a bottom". Basically the lines should be blurring in all manner of relationships gay straight or anything along the queer spectrum as

[carolinelamb]

Obviously one needs to be a better writer than I am, but I do try to write actively against notions of hetero-normativity in my fics

[torino10154]

Saying that, I've read very few fics where topping/bottoming has no connotation at all. A lot, if not most bottom!Harry fics do feminise Harry, some more subtle than others.

I agree with you, actually. And I hate it. I probably still do it, though hopefully more subtly most of the time. Why do people have so much trouble writing two men as men? IDK but it's something I am trying to work on myself.

[akatnamedeaster]

Saying that, I've read very few fics where topping/bottoming has no connotation at all.

I agree with this and I'm sure it's not in small part due to the fact that the vast majority of slash writers are women and we're drawing on our own experiences and the way male/female relationships are presented to us in the world. The receptive partner is by definition weaker, more emotional, usually younger, and in need of being conquered/taken care of in that world view so it's understandable that this view of what being the one penetrated "means" will be present in the way many women write the bottom in fic.

Hell, even the word penetrate carries a connotation of power. No one thinks of a vagina engulfing a penis, after all.

So, while I really don't like the idea that bottoming=feminine/submissive, I understand why it's often presented that way but damn, I wish there was a whole lot less of it. :/

The idea with tagging is though that you don't want to scare off a majority of potential readers/want to lead them to your fic. A thought on