what the

[beelikej]

This morning I witnessed some awful parenting on the bus. A woman was confusing the hell out of her kid. He was trying so hard to be sweet while mom kept snapping at him for no reason whatsoever. It was painful to watch.

I'm also quite upset about yet another request that showed up on my communityflist. Is it just me or are new/young people in fandom getting more and more obsessed with humiliation and torture? What is the attraction of reading stories in which your favorite characters are being abused? I don't get it. I do understand the hurt/comfort idea, but it seems there is a growing need to see people being hurt for kicks and that just makes me shiver.

Sometimes I despair. And then I notice an update of my favorite comfort zone and life gets a little better. A little.

Comments

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

God, there is so much bad parenting in the world. Don't even want to think about it, it makes me so angry.

Um, and since when is this a new thing? I mean, for as long as I've been into fanfiction, the number of stories where people are raped, abused, raped some more, suicidal, anorexic (oh, bandom) an raped some more far outnumber all the rest. I mean, it was like that when I got into X-Files and Buffy and it's still there now. It's because the majority of fanfic reading girls are deeply emo teenagers with no real grasp of human emotion yet, unless it's extreme. They grow out of it, but that doesn't mean we have to read that crap! ;)

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I know it's an existing thing in fandom, I just don't remember it only being about the abuse. Or at least people weren't as specific or outspoken in their requests for torture fic. Maybe you missed the post that sparked my response, but it was rather harsh. And I'm all for people being forward and outspoken about their wants (what? I am) but it just hit me in the gut.

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

Clearly, you've never seen the epic lulz brought to us by slashseek?

I'm not saying it's a good thing. I'm just saying that this is not the first, or twentieth, comment of that nature I've seen, nor was it the worst. Some people are just creepy.