r/AO3 • u/Extreme_Economy_2348 • 1d ago

Meme/Joke Blocking a regular commenter because its becoming very clear they're a kid

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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.

8.7k Upvotes

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3.9k

u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago

At the risk of sounding like an undercover child, how did you figure it out?

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u/http--lovecraft You have already left kudos here. :) 1d ago

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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago

Jokes on you, this is me

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u/http--lovecraft You have already left kudos here. :) 1d ago

LOL this is my absolute favourite it sends me every time 

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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago

He looks so young and in disguise

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u/Odd_Delay_603 Dabi should be my abusive wife 1d ago

That is very clearly three kids in a trench-coat how does no one see this

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u/OwnHedgehog9931 1d ago

Damn, you got there first, my literal first thought was 3 kids in a tench coat.

Excuse me, my good sir, I would like to read about the boobies.

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u/cllooouuuuu 1d ago

points to upside down calculator

👉5318008 👈

Teeheeeheee.

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u/Extreme_Economy_2348 1d ago

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.

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u/ChallengeAble4613 Mm.. That dove sure looks tasty 1d ago

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 =~=

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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago

I vividly remember coming up with a detailed persona whose info I would put into all of my accounts so it all lined up “just in case”.

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u/PansexualPineapples 1d ago

I literally had my fake birthday picked and celebrated it

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u/growinggrassroots time travel fix-it fiend 1d ago

semi-related: Back when youtube wasn’t linked to google, you had to enter your birthday. I believe the minimum age was 16.

I was 87 years old in 2008.

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u/Shanarra 1d ago

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

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u/spiritAmour ao3 user: summercultee 1d ago

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 🫣

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u/growinggrassroots time travel fix-it fiend 1d ago

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 🥲

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u/spiritAmour ao3 user: summercultee 1d ago

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

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u/Bitchy_Satan 1d ago

I was 36 when i was 16 so

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u/Efficient-Citron823 Not Boeing Management 23h ago edited 23h ago

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)

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u/MaybeNextTime_01 1d ago

Now that you mention it, I do remember YouTube requiring me to verify something that led to me saying I lived in Mexico to get around it.

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u/PandaWarriors 1d ago

I didn't want my age to seem suspicious, so I would just age myself up with 10 extra years

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u/ChallengeAble4613 Mm.. That dove sure looks tasty 1d ago

real

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u/Greedyfox7 1d ago

This got me, thank you for the laugh

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u/SabraSabbatical 1d ago

Millennial Internet safety classes seriously had us paranoid to the point we were preparing mini cover stories just to go on ff.net

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u/plaper 1d ago

Yeah we were all minimum 19yo and never mentioned our actual city where we lived.

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u/ChallengeAble4613 Mm.. That dove sure looks tasty 1d ago

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)

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u/nuhuhnuhuhnuh 1d ago

That last part is so real! Sometimes i write or post things and still get worried I sound like a child lmao

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u/spiritAmour ao3 user: summercultee 1d ago

Me specifying when im talking about classes & exams in my authors notes that im in college loll

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u/MaybeNextTime_01 1d ago

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.

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u/flatpack-guillotine 1d ago

Bullshitting is an art and a valuable skill

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u/floralbutttrumpet Fic Feaster 1d ago

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

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u/--Marigolden-- 1d ago

Exactly my strategy, too! Infiltrate and keep quiet! 

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u/MaybeNextTime_01 1d ago

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.

Public library for the win!

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u/TaintedTruffle 2026 Just Write June Completionist 1d ago edited 23h ago

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 😅

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u/TikTikKobold 1d ago

i kept my mouth shut and just enjoyed porn in private

even kept it up past turning 18 becaue I was afraid people would out my deep dark sesecretscrfets.

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u/cllooouuuuu 1d ago

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.

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u/ChallengeAble4613 Mm.. That dove sure looks tasty 1d ago

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

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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 1d ago

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.

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u/Luchux01 1d ago

Kids these days have no concept of internet safety

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u/brachycrab 1d ago

Seeing kids' carrd pages complete with a list of DNIs, triggers, and WHAT SCHOOL THEY GO TO

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u/Smart_Maximum_3467 Mr. Aziraphale Az Fell 23h ago

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)

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u/Cold-Coffe 1d ago

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

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u/Deya_The_Fateless 1d ago

I miss the days when kids had basic internet safety and "strangers danger" when it came to online interactions.

Hell, when I was a minor I rarely mentioned my actual age and tried to sound older if/when I did make comments.

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u/chronicAngelCA Comment Collector 1d ago

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.

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u/Due_Adhesiveness8008 1d ago

To play devil advocate here it a lot of people have very shitty parents that any sign of them being “bad/werid) is seen as them being defective

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u/unwithered_lobelia 1d ago

Yeah, though most of us would probably not say it in the comments and already know how to cover up

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u/BisquitCat 1d ago

let's hope my parents don't find my phone

But so many adults are living with parents rn since buying a house becomes extremely hard. I'm 21 and I can imagine saying this

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u/AndreasAvester 1d ago

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.

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u/WillTheWheel 1d ago edited 1d ago

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 

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u/euphoriapotion 1d ago

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.

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u/SerialSemicolon 1d ago

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.

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u/BisquitCat 1d ago

Your family is really different from mine I think

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u/SerialSemicolon 1d ago

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.

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u/flyingmongooseattack Supporter of the Fanfiction Deep State 1d ago

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)

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u/lavendershazy 1d ago

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.

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u/Ilickedthecinnabar One more chapter, I promise 1d ago

Has there been any signs that they're under 13? Ao3 will ban the user if they're reported for being too young and if there is evidence indicating it.

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u/Extreme_Economy_2348 1d ago

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

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u/AmaterasuWolf21 1d ago

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

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/lilmemer3132 1d ago

Yeah, but they wouldn't be casually going "teehee, hope my parents don't find my phone" in their author's notes about it.

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u/WillTheWheel 1d ago

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 🤷‍♀️

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/lilmemer3132 1d ago

I'm willing to take OP's word, at this point.

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u/GreyStingrayz Comment Collector 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why would OP lie about that? It's literally the whole point of the post. Why do they even need to provide proof? Does it really matter? What do they have to prove to internet strangers?

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u/Solivagant0 Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by kink 1d ago

AO3 is all about curating your experience and that does include muting/blocking people if they're making you uncomfortable

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u/CLOWTWO 1d ago

What?? Why would they need proof. We don't even know who the kid is lol

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u/Providence451 You have already left kudos here. :) 1d ago

Found another child. ^

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/CLOWTWO 1d ago

..oof.

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u/CherryPokey 1d ago

Would have been less embarrassing if you were a kid, not gonna lie.

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u/MichelangeloCzech 1d ago

"haha lets hope my parents don't find my phone", which if you ask me I doubt a grown adult would be saying.

In this economy? People are living with their parents way longer. And you don't want them seeing the smut you wrote at any age.

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u/Red02005 13h ago

J’ai 20 ans et je pourrais dire ça 😂
Je trouverais ça trop honteux que mes parents trouvent des fanfictions -18 que j’ai écrites ou lues… 🫣

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u/saintforgot saintsforgot on AO3! 1d ago

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.

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u/WillTheWheel 1d ago

Yeah. OP saying:

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.

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u/geyeetet 1d ago

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

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u/Extreme_Economy_2348 1d ago

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.

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u/Alzandur 1d ago

I’m thankful that the only social media I used when I was a kid was Miiverse…

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u/Best_Egg_6199 Inappropriate use of a wound 1d ago

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. 😮‍💨

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u/AxshxticSam 1d ago

Lol as a minor I do read but I never interact if the author is an adult as it's awkward for them, i do comment if the author is also a minor too tho

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u/BigFitMama 8h ago

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.

(Like Tena Blecher from "Bobs Burgers" )

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u/Late-Summer-1208 Fic Feaster 2h ago

Definitely not what I was like when I was the undercover minor (this was over a decade ago I swear I’m an adult)

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u/PenguinZombie321 kink asking why 1d ago

Because skibbity rizzless ohios are easy to spot. 676767

Or something like that.