Anon · 1y
hello, it's the guy from ao3 with too many questions. in response to your last reply, i agree with there being stuff that sometimes breaks your boundaries and is good enough to change how you feel about them - the hannibal tv series did that for me with toxic relationships, and now i'm not judgemental about people who write/read about them. ig the specific thing i can't quite comprehend is the underage content? i know a lot of people would just chuck accusations around about it but i'm on a bit of a quest for nuance in fandom spaces. when you write it, is it typically stuff like 17yr x an older character? sort of like the student/teacher fantasies that are more mainstream? is it for sexual appeal or just boundary exploration/writing past your limits?
Hello!! Thanks for dropping by :) The Hannibal example is such an excellent one - I feel like it really functioned almost as a gateway drug for many since a lot of the darker themes are inextricable from the series. Also, definitely helps that Hannibal fandom is insanely talented!
And hm on the underage content, I think I've only explicitly provided a specific age once...? Mostly because when I do write anything to do with it, I'm not particularly interested in a specific age range - it's very much about the power dynamics and all the different ways that can manifest, as well as navigating the intricacies/complexities of it. Going back to the whole whump!fic example, there's also something very compelling about reading/writing something that has an inherent element of awfulness threaded through it. And from a writing POV, choosing how to deliver that (explicitly, so that the horror is the point? Implictly, so that them not realising is the horror?) is a challenge I really enjoy.
So to answer your question in a roundabout way: yes, I suppose you could say there are mainstream aspects to it (i.e. I think the power dynamics thing is actually a cornerstone of why people enjoy consuming this?) but no, it's not as specific as 17yo x their teacher. More likely, it'll just be signposted that someone is younger / older and I'm happy for the reader to decide how to visualise that.
Also on the sexual appeal vs writing exploration - honestly I don't have much say in what a reader gets out of my work, so the main thing there for me is that they enjoyed reading it. As for myself, hand on heart I'm too busy fussing with sentence structure and cadence and where does this body part actually go, have I used this word five times already, god how is this going to fit into a twitter thread etc. to feel anything but mild annoyance 😂 hope all of this was somewhat enlightening!
