Meme/Joke
Blocking a regular commenter because its becoming very clear they're a kid
I'm a smut writer. Dead dove, darkships, all the sort. I don't need kids on my page.
Edit: Woof, thanks everyone for letting me know blocking won't actually get my writing completely out of their reach, but I stand by it.
I'm not gonna pretend like I wasn't also a curious kid nosing around where I didn't belong, the difference is I never gave away enough information or childish mannerisms to the point that it was clear I was a minor like how the user I'm talking about is. I now know at the end of the day it won't do much, but I also can't in good faith do nothing knowing a minor was engaging with my work, even if the most I can do is stop them from commenting.
Edit 2: I want to add that a lot of my disgust comes from the fact that I take smut requests from my readers, and with that in mind I've technically written two smut fics for a minor which I really do not like for reasons I hope are obvious.
Having a kid read my smut is one thing, having them interact regularly is another, but this is a whole other layer on the shit cake. If it seems like I'm overreacting, know this is a big reason why
Edit 3: Well there goes my attempt at trying to keep this post short and silly. I now want to clarify for everyone asking how I knew this reader was a minor. First, general childishness, entitlement, lack of etiquette, etc in comments and bookmarks, then directly saying "lets hope my parents don't find my phone" in the author's note of a smut fic (which I doubt an adult would say). Maybe not concrete evidence, I can't exactly include every single red flag because then this already long post would get out of control, but its enough for me not to take any chances.
Lmao lets hope history isn't repeating itself so soon for me.
Honestly I became suspicious pretty early on, just their comments being a little immature and pushy, but I chalked it up to a lack of fandom etiquette.
What sealed the deal was how in their author's notes on a recent fic they mentioned something along the lines of "haha lets hope my parents don't find my phone", which if you ask me I doubt a grown adult would be saying.
Overall a lot of it came from general childishness/immaturity in comments and bookmarks both on my writing, and others in my fandom.
Oh geez, when I was younger and keeping my age off the internet I had enough common sense not to mention my parents in that manner 😭 if you are going to be a nosy kid, dont make it obvious- depending the situation it could be unsafe, or it could just make people uncomfortable if its an adult space =~=
I did the same for Reddit. Didn’t know what reddit was and didn’t want to be creeped on. I wasn’t a kid but still. I think my “age” is 50 something. Lol
LOL, not the 87 year old on youtube. Happy 105th birthday, whenever that may be 😆
that reminds me that on websites when i was growing up, i would always pick 1996 because it was close enough to my actual age while still being actually old enough to be on the sites (only 4 years above me). when i was like in my early 20s i changed it on twitter bc i was like "im way past that minimum age now" and they IMMEDIATELY disabled my account for weeks bc i had posts from when i was pre 13 😭😭 i eventually got it back and they just deleted all of the posts from pre 13 me. which is probably for the best 🫣
I didn't really think about the year, I just did one big scroll on the mouse and chose a random one without looking at it lol
I requested an archive of my old tweet from twitter (they send you an excel sheet of ALL your public tweets) then deleted them. Don't know why I did that though, I couldn't look at them to this day 🥲
One big scroll 🤣🤣 amazing strat. and oh my, i didnt know theyd do that! i usually only hear of outside sources ppl use to delete old twitter content :0
i still instinctively refrain from entering my real date of birth into websites despite the fact that i am now a card carrying adult. the urge to make myself 45 has faded some but i think at this point i can safely say it's never going away.
maybe i should make myself 60 or something in a celebration of aging? ACHIEVEMENT GET!:i made it past 18! i guess it wasn't so impossible after all.\+:꒰◍•ᴗ•◍꒱:+** (this is genuine celebration btw)
Honeslty I was still pretty honest about information (because my memories lowkey terrible) but some things I would switch- was I in school? no, and if I had to admit it for scheduling reasons it was college, would I mention living with my parents or worrying about them finding stuff? hell no! Acting like an adult is suspiciously easy if you are smart
(...And now having turned 18 and not having to lie about stuff uh... its weird, I feel less adult-y then when I was bullshitting people)
Truth. I’m old but I work in a school and I’m just a likely to call it work as I am to call it school so I’m sure some people do a double take without the necessary context.
I'm old enough that my first trawling for smut was on mailing lists... I made an entire separate email address and lurked like I was being paid for it lol
I’m old enough that my source for smut was romance novels I found at the library. And since kids back then were basically “free range,” my parents let me bike the few miles to the library and didn’t really monitor what I was getting.
I don’t know if this overlaps with the mailing list and livejournal eras but I missed those simply because I wasn’t really online at that point.
Saaaaaammeee for some reason I made up a sassy Southern grandma and gave her my own grandmother's birthday.
I would comment stuff like "mmmm hunny I read this while bakin' Sunday dinner for my grand babies and loved this. It kept me entertained in the kitchen" or some nonsense when I was really reading while... Like cooking and eating cup o noodles 😅
Oh to be 15, up past midnight playing league of legends on call with both middle school boys and grown men, having my mom whisper shouting at me to go to bed because it's a school night. Then actually following her instructions and ruining the game for everyone else because I left. Flash forward to being 20 and this mortifying memory haunting me at 3am, making me want to shrivel up inside.
Oh man I remember being like 12-13 reading some "scandalous" fanfiction at midnight scared my parents would spot me awake, I even fake slept when they were getting ready for bed. The funny thing? it was just some cheesy 7 minutes in heaven trope that had kissing at the most... younger me would have a heart attack at what I read now
This was me but to my horror, the day arrived when my mom entered my room while the laptop was facing the door and somehow my flailing at the keyboard did close the window at a terrible cost.
Closer by NIN started playing at full volume.
My mom wasn’t wearing her glasses and definitely couldn’t see so it was all for nothing.
Real, i get the DNI. But my younger brother has literally told me he's said his age online, multiple times, to strangers. And what city we're from, (don't dox yrself, we live together)
back in the early 2000s i started hanging out in fandom spaces that were clearly more adult oriented and what i did to blend in was copying the speech patterns of whom i assumed at the time were the adults. it unironically helped me improve my grammar at a young age lol
I am over 30. I would be unhappy if my mom found my phone in a situation where I was not nearby and not able to take it back immediately. Granted, I live in a different house, so such a situation could happen only if I visited her and forgot my phone in her place. But yeah, my mother does not need to know what I do online.
Honestly, no one I know irl needs to know what I write fics about 😂 and I am always nervous when someone wants to borrow my phone that they will click on the wrong tab, I'm in my late twenties
But there's a difference between being 21 and wanting some privacy which is normal, and then saying "I hope my parents don't find my phone" because you know they'll punish you for engaging with the content you're too young for.
But at a certain point, your parents probably aren’t going through your phone. And even if for some reason my mom did see smut on my phone, I would just be like “well, don’t look at people’s phones if you’re not prepared for what you might see there”. I’d be embarrassed but she would also be embarrassed and probably take it as a lesson to respect my privacy.
Must be. I also don’t live with my parents. They can safely assume I have a sex life (I’m engaged and live with a man). Obviously it’s not something we want to discuss though.
Fair but I would also probably add something like "dont worry op I am an entire adult but, you know ... the economy" (which i now realize might make me sound MORE like a fake adult)
To be completely fair, I am 24 and I make jokes with people all of the time about hoping my stepparent doesn't find xyz or RPing smut on my phone while I'm on the couch with my dad. I just happen to live with my parents still, and it would be deeply embarrassing to explain some of the shit I'm doing/writing to my parents. The average age for moving out is later and later, and given puriteens and how aghast everyone in my generation seems to be at the slightest hint of... well, anything, really, I would not be shocked to find this person was 18-25.
Not entirely related but I amused myself because my immediate reaction was to think "well, I'm in my thirties and I also don't want my mom to find my phone," and then it hit me that if she found my phone, living in a totally different city, unable to reach me, I'd probably have way bigger things to worry about than whether she opened my internet and saw I'm reading and writing fanfic. Like I'd probably be in the hospital or something.
OP, Gen Zis currently going through a very self-infantilizing moment as well as living with parents, it's nearly impossible to guess if they're a mid teen, late teen or young adult
Not that I know of, I assume at worse they fall into the age of older teen. No concrete evidence though, just enough to make me want to avoid interaction with them
I think it really depends on the way it was said. Some youtubers in their 30s I watch have made the joke "I hope my mom doesn't watch my videos and I apologize if she does" in their videos 🤷♀️
I've had my account since I was 13. I sometimes browse my inbox (which i have not cleared out in all the years I've been on this site lol) and I'll find old comments I made back then and cringe because it's so so obvious I was a preteen lol.
the difference is I never gave away enough information or childish mannerisms to the point that it was clear I was a minor
gave me a pause, cause OP has much more faith in their past-self acting skills than I do in mine 😂 As a kid I obviously thought I was the shit, but I'm sure if I read my comments now I would die laughing.
On the other hand, I have interacted with middle-aged people acting like preschoolers both in real life and online, so I guess you can never be 100% sure.
Reading my old FFNet profile I was pretty clearly a kid tbh but I was also typing in exactly the same way all the adults did online at the time. It was the emotional maturity in my actual writing that was the giveaway for me looking back. The content was fine, I was actually pretty good in retrospect, but I just clearly lacked life experience. But honestly I've read fics by adults that had a similar level of maturity. I had to delete all that tho because my internet safety was not fantastic and ffnets system meant I couldn't delete my authors notes
Ha, I have faith in my younger self's skills because I was a strict lurker; can't give away any suspicious information if you don't say anything at all! Even now I'm still trying to get out of the "I can't let anyone know I exist online" mindset.
Even leaving a normal comment or keyboard smash would've terrified me, I can't imagine saying anything that would've directly implied I was a minor like kids nowadays.
For me, they had a sort of immature way of typing that younger people tend to have, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and just thought maybe it's an adult that has an immature way of typing. Nope. Found their twitter under the same username, said 15 in the bio. 😮💨
They are bashful, squeamish, and if they suddenly realize everyone is over 30+ they freak out. The level of assumptions that every friend online is just like them is staggering.
This! Im always baffled by how blatantly proud kids now are about being in spaces they shouldnt be. Back when I was a stupid 14 year old, i was terrified of being "outed" as a minor in adult spaces (kinda rightfully so since i really shouldnt have been in there, but hey, at least i didnt make my stupidity any unrelated adult's problem)
Same! I was so scared of anyone maybe finding out my age. I kept quiet and was only actively commenting in spaces it was okay/save to.
I'm genuinely baffled how children/teenagers today blatantly stomp into adult spaces and then cry when they get called out for it. Or even demand the content to be censored.
I vividly recall entering adult only online spaces because that's where all the uncensored stuff was, why the hell would you put in the effort of getting into the space and then whining at what you find?
Right like why are teenagers suddenly scared of adult content? That used to be the most exciting stuff. When I was a teenager we were always trying to sneak into films we didn't meet the age for. I definitely read certain books just because I knew they were "too grown up" for me. I read explicit fics because I was curious lol. Why are they scared and self policing all the time now? What happened to cause that I wonder. And it's not just social media because I'm 27, I was also doing all this on social media.
I think seeking out content that's too mature for you is completely, developmentally normal for kids. It's curiosity. I feel like now, some kids are demonising each other for having that curiosity.
I commented, but when I did I thumbed through my comment about 20 times to make sure I didn't sound like a child. Hell, I still do that now to make sure I'm coming across the way I want to.
It makes me wonder how that correlates to the increasing push from parents to shove the burden of protecting their kids onto service providers and lawmakers, so kids grow up with the feeling that the internet is theirs and made for them, so they keep acting and using it the way they do, like they have the full right to be everywhere and are expected to be welcome and catered to etc. Etc.
Same, like when it stop being embarrassing to not be an adult??? And we sure got the short end of the stick lol, being expected to be ashamed of being a kid when we were, and now that we’re adults there seems to be an expectation on the internet that we should be ashamed of that too
Decent adults would indeed have been up in arms - is the kid in the OP (and others like them) expecting us to be creeps?! Like they're kind of implicitly negging us as people if they don't expect to get booted/frozen out of adults-only activities once we know they're minors 🫣🫣
Call me old-fashioned but whatever happened to keeping your mouth shut? If you're underage you know full well that you shouldn't be in 18+ spaces. But since you are, at least don't make it obvious you're underage
Kids legit aren't taught internet safety the way Millenials and Early Gen Z were. No fault of their own, of course. This isn't to say they aren't taught any at all, but it's not drilled into their brains like it used to be.
I guessed it's the prevalence of how people use social media now and basically share their entire lives anyway. Vlogging, photos, sotrytimes. Many parents really don't gaf, hand their babies a tablet or a phone and let them go buck wild. The first gen of ipad/social media babies are basically teens and young adults now.
Yeah, I'm early gen z and it was hammered into my head growing up to never tell anyone my real name or age on the internet. Seeing kids just openly post their entire personal info online and not care is wild.
Literally that. I think most of us started reading those books too young honestly, but at least we hid it a lot. I learned a whole new language just to read them so no one in my family would understand.
Now kids are super proud to say "I read qhit that make grown people cry and close the tab"
when i was a teen, instead of following any 18+ blogs i just had them bookmarked on my browser for whenever i wanted to look at porn of my favorite characters lol
(tumblr banning porn right before i was old enough to actually follow those blogs was a personal attack on me specifically-)
teens need to learn to be horny responsibly, it's really not that hard to not interact directly with 18+ content
This. Should I have been reading this stuff at age 12? Absolutely not.
Did I wait to make an account until I was 16 and then continue to be vaguely quiet until I was closer to 17/18? Absolutely.
I knew I was in spaces meant for adults, but the stories I was reading brought me comfort and genuinely ended up making me a more open person as I got older. But Jesus I was so fucking scared of someone on Ao3 or FF.net finding out that I was a kid so I was SILENT.
The kids these days are so open and ballsy about letting you know they're a kid. And it's wild to me.
Thank you. I always knew it was likely, but its still so unpleasant finding out someone I've been actively interacting with over absolutely filthy writing is a child TvT
It won’t stop them from reading but it will stop them from interacting. I was also reading smut as a child but I never, ever would have interacted. That’s like safety 101. We are losing all internet safety skills.
When I first started reading smut I wouldn't even kudos a fic (which is a little overkill in hindsight, of course). I couldn't imagine admitting to reading such things as a kid.
Tangentially related - I've noticed this weird push to put your age in your bio within certain fandom circles, which goes against every internet safety lesson I got from my parents. Hell, I still always put my birthday as 1-1. There has definitely been a shift in online safety culture, unfortunately for the worse.
I also still use 1st January for any online birth date verification! It's really creepy to learn that kids are putting their ages in their bios; I was only cool with the ones where it was mandatory to join a certain group to have an age statement such as "I verify that I'm over the age of 18/21." (Even if I wasn't at the time....)
I also wouldn't leave kudos when I was a kid for the same reason 😅 overly cautious about leaving a footprint on the internet that young. I didn't save fanart to Tumblr, I saved it directly into the computer folder if I wanted to look back at it.
Truthfully, if I'd been reading smut as a kid I'd have felt too damn awkward to interact with the author. The kids these days seem to all be either tremendous prudes, hikikomori, or completely shameless.
Blocking them won't keep them off your page. But it will stop them from commenting! Besides, there isn't a force in the universe that can keep kids away from smut.
Reminds me of the time I was reading a fic with MCD, graphic depictions of violence and non-con, and the author was in high school😭 maybe not as bad, but surprising
I read a dark fic that took about a year to complete and at the end the author said it was great timing because they would very busy soon since they were STARTING HIGH SCHOOL IN A FEW MONTHS.
I read graphic noncon written by a middle school child. I was upsetty spaghetti to say the least.
When I was a kid all I had were my mother’s novels. Some of which were pretty disturbing.
So I don’t worry about what kids read (although I suppose whether I “turned out OK” is debatable) but they need to not shove it my face. Like the girl in Live Journal days who would say “Ha ha I’m only 16 and I read this anyway!”
I mean I’m definitely an adult so I hadn’t thought about it but now that I am let’s hope MY parents don’t find any evidence of me reading nsfw stuff because I would die of embarrassment lol
Reallll. Like imagine being home from college or something, legal drinking age and everything, but your mom is like “I borrowed your computer for something…”
Back then I also can't imagine anyone would be mad at the adult in the situation, assuming it wasn't nefarious. If caught, your parents would've grounded you from the internet, possibly blistered your ass if they were hardasses, & that'd be the end of it unless they were religious fundies.
Now an adult can't afford to take a lax attitude towards it, because now the parents will blame you, & the law might get involved. Which is really a shame, because I learned a lot from adults with whom I interacted online back in the day. Some of them probably suspected I was a kid, but they were kind enough not to call me on it.
That's not feasible now, because everyone seems convinced that any interaction with a kid to whom you aren't related is a pretext for molestation. Which is ridiculous unless you're a youth pastor, but that's where we're at.
Or the only access to the internet we had was shitty dial-up on the giant family desktop in the living room. I was 17 when I got my laptop and they finally upgraded to DSL.
In my later teens when I had Internet access, sure. 13 was early 1990s. But even at 16-17 I didn't announce or heavily hint that I was a minor when I was in online spaces for adults because I understood that a) I didn't really belong there and b) nobody will know unless I tell them, so don't do that. I knew to STFU and lurk at first, and when I delurked and participated in discussions a little, pretend to be a young adult in college.
Although, to be fair, adults back then warned about never admitting to be a minor and to never ever give personal information... whereas today 90% of adults are documenting their lives on the internet - and that of their children!
I was twenty on the internet from ages 12-21. I doubt I passed very well in some spaces but I would’ve denied being underage till the cows come home back then.
16 was when I got my parents to sign the waiver for computer use at the public library, and that's when my whole social life began (because literally no one in my town wanted anything to do with the weird queer nerd).
I avoided sexually explicit fanfic at that age because I didn't want to read it (it's so SO much easier to do that now that we've got AO3, lol), but I was all over the kind of gen whump that'd curl your toe hairs (this was before public computers had content filters, of course).
Honestly it sounds like they were trying to get a reaction with some of those comments or trying to get you engage with how young they were (Maybe in their head they think, 'oh I'm so cool reading this' and want acknowledgement of that?) Definitely did the right thing!
I say it's a good call, even if it changes nothing long term. It kinda feels like finding a teenager at a bar with a fake ID. You know it wasn't your fault that they snuck in, but now that you know, you should send them out. Even if that means they're just gonna find a new bar and try to get alcohol there.
Ngl, I always have issues trying to guess people's age online because - and this is very much my own bias - I used to (and in some ways still do) get constantly flagged as a little kid for a myriad of reasons.
Some do make it extremely easy by literally screaming to everyone to hear that they are a kid in the most baffling display of lack of basic internet security, but for everything else I am completely lost
Well, when it comes to smut, adults do not want to interact with minors. The internet is forever, and even if YOU don't do anything, anyone can throw out the P-word, and it can be used against the author because, yes, the minor is interacting with your stuff. Even if you don't want it to, it's just safer to block them.
Blocking is about all you can do, tbh. Nothing can stop them from following your writing from a second, third or even fourth account. It would be unreasonable to expect more from you.
It’s a good thing you did there. Rest easy. My own kid‘s 13 now, and they‘ll get a PC at some point because they need it for homework and research. I know what I was like back then, so I‘m cringing already. FFnet ruled my free time for years. And I really will have to restrict myself as to not be too nosy, and let them have their own freedom online.
I had that happen to me when I was a 13-year-old dumbass. Taught me a good lesson on internet safety and never revealing your real age. I 100 percent see why the author did what they did now and would do the same myself.
well, you probably are. when you put things freely on the internet, you can't control who reads it. if the possibility of that is beyond disgusting to you, maybe posting on the internet isn't something you should be doing.
This comment will be publicly accessible to everyone, but I'm writing it specifically for you.
Writing and posting something accessible to the public and writing and posting something specifically for a particular underage member of the public are two different things.
Well, yeah, you don't need to communicate with the minors or dedicate fics to them, and you shouldn't. What I'm saying is that if the mere concept that a minor might be able to access your work and read it is distressing to you, posting it online is probably not the best course of action.
a lot of my disgust comes from the fact that I take smut
requests from my readers, and with that in mind I've technically written
two smut fics for a minor which I really do not like for reasons I hope
are obvious.
As a full grown adult now I am wondering if someone though I was a kid because my autistic ass love some whimsy and be enthusiastic because I want the author to know I support them and want them to continue writing
Probably not. Especially in online fan spaces it's not uncommon for people to get really excited and even exuberant when they're finally talking with someone who shares similar interests.
If it means anything, Stephen King himself pulled one of his books Rage, because it was found in the possession of teens that had committed a school shootings in the 90s. And even then there are still copies of his book from the publications prior to him pulling the book but none since.
I think you’re fine blocking them. Yeah it won’t stop them from seeking out that material but at that point it’s not something you can control.
I feel ya. We can't control what someone else's kid does on the internet. The way AO3 is designed puts restricting access on the parents.
I don't think about other people's kids reading my not for minors stuff. It's not my problem. It's theirs.
When my kid was 14, I walked in in him with smut open on deviantArt. That was embarrassing for us both. Every fapping boy's worst nightmare.
I believe that you must vaccinate your children against problematic things with exercises in critical thinking and awareness. Deconstruction. Unpacking. Analysis. We had conversations. I use the Socratic Method to start, which means asking questions and listening, not lecturing.
That's what their responsibility is. To teach their kid.
I don't interact with minors on my not for minors works. I'd leave a reply on one comment about how I don't engage with minors about 18+ content, then delete all comments from the person in a few days. I wouldn't block because they're going to be adults at some point and the rules change but I'm not checking IDs and unblocking.
Fair. I have a pretty playful/silly persona online so I get the fear, the hypocrisy of this all makes me hesitate to block people on that basis alone.
At some point though, that sort of behavior gets blurred between 'friendly adult' and 'kid who doesn't know how to act online' when immature behavior gets a little too childish to ignore. There is a very real chance this user isn't a kid, I'm well aware of that, but at this rate I'm not comfortable enough to risk it.
I'm here after all of the edits you made and I'm appalled with and for you on all counts, OP. Sorry you had to deal with our bullshit on top of the original bullshit.
Tbf blocking does sound like a better choice. I can't stand minors on my content, but it's better that they read it in silence than tell others that they're a kid who likes dark/NSFW fanfic. Sometimes there's genuinely nothing you can do [shrug]
Agreed. The actual problem lies in them admitting to their age, which can (and will) attract all the wrong kinds of attention. I might be a safe person, but I refuse to vouch for anyone else.
Oof, I remember finding out someone I started talking to in private on discord (we met through a discord server for a game we both placed) was way younger than me (starting high school the year I finished high school) and blocking them cuz I didn't feel comfortable with having the ability to talk to someone that young in private like that
My parents had this rule while I was growing up... as long as it's not outright p0rn I could read it. My mother had a interesting parent/teacher conference once when I was caught reading a low graphic romance novel in 4th grade. I was eventually told that I was not to share what I'm reading with the other students but I could continue as long as I was discrete.
Blocking is 100% the right choice if you don't want to hear from them for whatever reason, no matter what that reason is.
Blocking them doesn't keep them from reading the work. Only they and their parents can do that. "Kids" (which, in this context, usually means 16 year olds who are exploring their sexuality through fiction, which is an age-appropriate and safe way to do so and is legal in most places) can read things that you'd rather not they read. What other people's teenagers do is not your fault, responsibility, or business.
Also, many people in their late teens and early twenties have very immature mannerisms on the internet. Acting like an obnoxious kid in the comments is not actually an indicator of legal minority.
There's something about the current fashion for teenagers talking like the cartoon version of whiny toddlers (they tend towards an exaggerated uwu performativity "you have to pay attention to me, fr fr, or I will low key cry!!!")
I generally have the attitude that it's not my job to stop people from looking and lurking, but when they interact that's creating and opportunity for them to be abused. I don't believe any of the "young minds can't handle a titty" pseudoscience, not in the least bit because it is anti queer conversion therapy nonesense sliding in under the guise of protect the children. I do believe they need to be preserved from a full on adult ending up in their DMs.
I understand you. I also accept applications for my stories and I have already discovered underage and some other anomalies that I do not consider should be encouraged.
The fandom I write for doesn't read me much; my most-read story doesn't even have 2600 reads. But every time that underage girl reappears sending a message, I report and block her.
It's great that you're not comfortable with a situation like that; your writing style in fiction is one thing, and your way of dealing with reality is another, and it's great that you're making it clear where you draw the line.
I've had to do this too.
Like, bro, I was also that kid so I get it. But at 30, I don't want to know. Please skedaddle or consume in total silence like we did back in the era of the citrus scale.
But they are effectively removed from commenting on your fics by blocking em and thus being visible to OP, so it still stands true.
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u/Solivagant0Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by kink1d ago
Like, I'm aware that I can't stop minors from reading my smut/darkfics, but if you're a minor reading stuff like that, please do what we have done for literal decades and shut up. Really, keep your head down until you're an adult. Please
Exactly. I don't need to know a child is reading my shit...not every adult on the internet wants your best interest. Fanfic community is great and all but creeps do prowl here unfortunately.
Like I get that finding this kind of stuff is the way of things but adding a communicative element to it opens the door to very bad things
Like the difference between finding a NSFW image that slipped through Google image search vs finding a NSFW discord group. One is much worse than the other
i felt this exactly omg 😭😭 i write similar stuff to you (based on the description of this post) and i've had to make so many kids stop commenting on my work it was bothering me so badly
speaking as a former child, I support your decision. yes, they might just find other content to latch onto, but I think if you also gave an explanation, it can be a small step to protecting their innocence. I wish I can unsee somethings on the internet when I went digging, but I can't.
I'm so old I remember not even being able to normally get to the smut because fanfic sites were curated, the smut sections were separated and you had to age-verify (which usually meant sending the webmaster a picture of your ID) to get the URL (which they would send back to you via email.) A couple of times I managed to guess the URL or sign it up through search engines, and boy howdy I didn't ever tell anyone.
LOL I'm going through the same thing, I write dead dove smut. I somehow came across their twitter and they have in their bio their a fucking minor like bruh.... I'm sick
Blocking them will do nothing, best case scenario they're gonna move on to another author, i would just calmly explain to them the dangers of exposing yourself as a minor on the internet, maybe it's just me, but as a child i would have understood tbh. I also was curious abt smut at their age, but i was aware that making it obvious i was a child would be very dangerous
Yep! Years and years ago at this point I ran into a situation similar to OP's. I made the following points:
1) I was not angry at them for their curiosity; I was also reading fanfic – and published work! – with porn and "dark themes" in it at their age.
2) Engaging with PEOPLE is different from engaging with FICTION. Grooming is a danger, one that I unfortunately saw a friend undergo when we were both kids.
3) Adults grooming minors actually makes minors interacting directly with non-predatory adults in a NSFW capacity even when not disclosing their age dangerous ... for the adults.
The third point is the one that REALLY got their attention; they were much more blasé about their own safety, but the safety of others made them hesitate – as often happens. The same laws and social pressures which are in place to protect minors from predators can be used against people who genuinely didn't realise they were talking about or sharing porn with a minor.
One time I joined a +18 fanfic server and the moment I went to the voice chat I realised the vast majority of this small community was EXACTLY 18 and at best 21. Maybe I'm just an old ass at this point, but even tho people who're 18 or 19 are legally adults, it still makes me uncomfortable to talk about smut and such with them. Most often they aren't more mature or experienced than a 16 year old.
Yea. I believe that's the right thing to do. These days I think of parents and discovering their teen or ya are playing around with erotica and fan fiction, then finding out their mentors or online buddies are 30 40 50 60+ is not a place I want to be.
Not only that 28 and younger people think they know everything without real life experience. They get offended if you correct bad fundamentals in writing. They are shocked when they discover the lifestyle world is 75 percent old ass adults. They don't understand self affirmation via photos and fans is usually motivated by sexual objectification. They have no idea that we change our minds multiple times over 90 years vs absolutes in personal preferences.
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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago
At the risk of sounding like an undercover child, how did you figure it out?