You're saying "kink = bad" again without one word about the quality of the writing. Please don't.

Subject: You're saying "kink = bad" again without one word about the quality of the writing. Please don't.
Author: Neshomeh
Posted on: 2022-01-04 04:24:28 UTC

Look, you're entitled to find other people's kinks squicky. Nothing you've brought up so far is my cup of tea, for the record—heck, I'm gray-ace. It took me years to be okay with any shipping in fanfic.

However, because preferences about sexual activities are very personal and very subjective, "don't like, don't read" actually applies here. You can't objectively judge the quality of subject matter you wouldn't enjoy even if it were written well.

... I'mma get on my soapbox for a minute. Please don't be alarmed.

Ahem. You also shouldn't pass judgement on a subculture without learning something about it first. Do you know enough about how this kink is practiced by real, consenting adults to tell if it's being written well? I haven't looked into it extensively (not my thing, after all), but I find the whole subject of human sexuality to be intellectually fascinating, so I have come across a thing or two. For instance, this comic (NSFW) about age play on the sex-positive comic archive Oh Joy, Sex Toy (still NSFW). This was written by an adult who practices the kink because it empowers them, not because they or their also-adult partner actually want to have sex with children. That's a refrain I've heard about lots of different kinks: people do it because they find it empowering, and they do it as consenting adults with other consenting adults who don't confuse fantasy with reality and, if they're being good partners, do thoroughly discuss and agree to everything beforehand.

With that in mind, I skimmed this fic. It actually seems pretty decent to me both writing and content-wise up until the bit about the chocolate laxative in the cookies, where consent breaks down. That might be grounds for sporking if it continues down that road, but I stopped there because, frankly, I don't want the mental images. Up to that point, though, the writing was mechanically decent, there was what seemed to me like a fairly reasonable explanation for why the character might have that kink, and the other character was engaging in it out of curiosity and friendship, without coercion. Mind you, I never got into One Piece, so I don't know the characters, but since most works of fiction aimed at younger people don't detail the characters' sex lives, there's rarely anything in the text that explicitly rules out having a secret kink, just like there's rarely anything to rule out a character having an orientation other than straight. Therefore, it's possible.

Anyway, "people who like age play must actually be pedophiles" is basically the same stereotype as "people who like BDSM must actually be violent psychopaths" or "people who play vampire RPGs must actually believe they ARE vampires and also wOrShIp ThE dEvIl *clutch pearls*." In all cases, for the vast majority, it doesn't hold water.

TL;DR, if you're going to keep reading kinkfic, please make fewer assumptions and do more research before you get up in arms about it. Or just stick to ones you actually like! {= )

~Neshomeh

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Think this is enough to merit a PPC mission? by AstralCat on 2022-01-04 00:19:51 UTC Badfic report Reply

Here's the link to the story. I don't know if it's just me, but I find ageplay (this is a One Piece ageplay fic) to be a very squicky kink. It gets worse when you realize the implications of having your romantic partner act like a baby- it goes straight into borderline-pedophile territory. (Bleepfic warning)

Potential Badfics? I've seen a few by Novastorme on 2022-01-05 18:13:17 UTC Reply

But I've only got one to hand in today (so far), been doing a lot of reading on AO3 over Christmas, and came across this little beauty (if you want to call it that)

One Potential Badfic Here

It's called The Order of Free Andrastians, in case you're not familiar enough with the fandom to work it out right away it's Dragon Age and more specifically it's a Dragon Age Inquisitor AU where the Herald doesn't become the Inquisitor. No warnings that I'm aware of, it's rated Teen.

That on it's own is not too bad, what does make it bad is if you stick around for a while this interesting concept unfortunately devolves into what feels like a fairly typical Mary Sue story with an overly obvious bad guy that's so bad (in all the right and wrong ways) it'd be funny if this wasn't meant to be taken seriously, a Protaganist who is even more special than normal (this one actually talks with Andraste (read Dragon Age Jesus) in her sleep guys) and most of the canon characters go completely OOC (especially the actual bad guys, it's weird).

There is one downside to this though. It's 141,000 words and 89 chapters long at the moment, and it's still going at around a rate on one chapter a week, so it might be too much to be taken on.

Also hi, to any newbies. To any non-newbies, yes I do still exist even after I left Discord (long story, not going into that here) and will continue to lurk for the forseeable future, heck I might even get a mission or two out some point in the next millenia, you never know.

Have fun and a Happy New Year to you all.

Novastorme

Speaking of potential badfics... by ClaireBook1 on 2022-01-05 22:25:56 UTC Edited Reply

This dratted thing is part of a Witch-king of Angmar/reader series. It's a series of Youfics. In this one, the Witch-king and the main character have a daughter and name her Morwen (filching the name of Morwen Eledhwen!). I'm pretty sure that the Witch-king is several thousand years old at the time of the fic, so he would be much to old to have kids. Also, he isn't really solid, so there's that. And then, any woman insane enough to try to get close enough to have it off with him would probably die of the Black Breath.

The SPaG isn't too bad, but the Witch-king is very OOC and acts like a loving father. I think he might possibly be a character replacement. Possibly the only good thing about it is that it's only about 4000 words long. I'm thinking about claiming it after I get Permission. -Claire

Bad biology. by Calista on 2022-01-11 00:47:24 UTC Reply

Yep, unless the writer is seriously thinking through the implications, this sounds like a badfic. The Witch-King is almost certainly infertile. Remember that in Middle-earth, only Illuvatar creates life (well, the Dwarves are an exception, but not a very big exception); so the Ring, and its subordinate Rings, can only stretch the one lifespan you have into infinity--to the point that you are essentially undead, because there is so little life left in you. Being able to make a baby in that condition really stretches credulity, even if he were to somehow work around being a wraith. And as you said, the Black Breath would be a huge threat to any partner, let alone the pregnancy itself.

And yes. The Witch-king acting like a loving father is a character replacement. It's anathema to everything he is. Maybe it wouldn't have been, when he was human, but by the time he's engaging in hobbit-stabbing antics, he's incapable of anything like love.

I'm pretty sure the author did not think things through. by ClaireBook1 on 2022-01-11 21:25:23 UTC Reply

The implications make me wish Bleeprin was real.

Would this be a DBS mission or a DMS mission? Doesn't the DBS have a division that deals with bad Het?

Bad Het division is a thing. by Calista on 2022-01-15 00:18:21 UTC Reply

Bad Het is a division of Bad Slash. Bad Slash came first because there were so many people writing horrible slash fics in Lord of the Rings who had absolutely no idea how gay sex worked, and took the characters completely out of character doing it. But of course there's plenty of bad het, too.

Since this is a You!Fic, and You can be of any gender or none at all, it could bounce to either Het or Slash.

If You is a Mary Sue, then it could go to DMS, too. Some You!Sues are proper Sues; some are just stand-ins for the reader.

Consider how you'd like to handle the fic, too, when you decide where to send it. DBS agents are generally less violent, but more kooky, and they're good at knocking the canon back into the canons. DMS is for killing a Sue; Assassins are more trigger-happy, and more competent with fighting. There are other departments for specialized problems, like horrible grammar, abuse of geography, and completely off-the-wall weirdness.

You're saying "kink = bad" again without one word about the quality of the writing. Please don't. by Neshomeh on 2022-01-04 04:24:28 UTC Reply

Look, you're entitled to find other people's kinks squicky. Nothing you've brought up so far is my cup of tea, for the record—heck, I'm gray-ace. It took me years to be okay with any shipping in fanfic.

However, because preferences about sexual activities are very personal and very subjective, "don't like, don't read" actually applies here. You can't objectively judge the quality of subject matter you wouldn't enjoy even if it were written well.

... I'mma get on my soapbox for a minute. Please don't be alarmed.

Ahem. You also shouldn't pass judgement on a subculture without learning something about it first. Do you know enough about how this kink is practiced by real, consenting adults to tell if it's being written well? I haven't looked into it extensively (not my thing, after all), but I find the whole subject of human sexuality to be intellectually fascinating, so I have come across a thing or two. For instance, this comic (NSFW) about age play on the sex-positive comic archive Oh Joy, Sex Toy (still NSFW). This was written by an adult who practices the kink because it empowers them, not because they or their also-adult partner actually want to have sex with children. That's a refrain I've heard about lots of different kinks: people do it because they find it empowering, and they do it as consenting adults with other consenting adults who don't confuse fantasy with reality and, if they're being good partners, do thoroughly discuss and agree to everything beforehand.

With that in mind, I skimmed this fic. It actually seems pretty decent to me both writing and content-wise up until the bit about the chocolate laxative in the cookies, where consent breaks down. That might be grounds for sporking if it continues down that road, but I stopped there because, frankly, I don't want the mental images. Up to that point, though, the writing was mechanically decent, there was what seemed to me like a fairly reasonable explanation for why the character might have that kink, and the other character was engaging in it out of curiosity and friendship, without coercion. Mind you, I never got into One Piece, so I don't know the characters, but since most works of fiction aimed at younger people don't detail the characters' sex lives, there's rarely anything in the text that explicitly rules out having a secret kink, just like there's rarely anything to rule out a character having an orientation other than straight. Therefore, it's possible.

Anyway, "people who like age play must actually be pedophiles" is basically the same stereotype as "people who like BDSM must actually be violent psychopaths" or "people who play vampire RPGs must actually believe they ARE vampires and also wOrShIp ThE dEvIl *clutch pearls*." In all cases, for the vast majority, it doesn't hold water.

TL;DR, if you're going to keep reading kinkfic, please make fewer assumptions and do more research before you get up in arms about it. Or just stick to ones you actually like! {= )

~Neshomeh

About the chocolate laxative thing by AstralCat on 2022-01-04 15:34:54 UTC Reply

After the whole chocolate laxative scene, there's one where Robin straight up forces Koala into not using the toilet. Yikes.

Yeah, that's a yikes, all right. by Neshomeh on 2022-01-05 16:18:44 UTC Reply

I'll add that the paragraphing in the story is a mess, too; I actually went back and looked a bit closer. I hate arguing from ignorance. Alas. >.>

However! None of that necessarily means it's mission material. The question becomes, would the mission be fun to read? And, perhaps more importantly, would it be fun to write? Fics that exclusively make you angry or horrified tend to be un-fun to mission and, as a direct result, un-fun to read. What tends to work best is something with one or two elements that make it a deal-breaker on top of many errors that make you laugh along the way. Being able to see how the fic could have been better helps, too, since it allows you to make more interesting commentary than "that's wrong, that's bad, that's gross." Not that reactions are bad, of course—the trick is for the agents to react in ways that are funny of themselves—but if that's all you have to say, it doesn't make for a good story, and the goal of a mission is always to tell a good story in addition to being a fun deconstruction of the fic.

I wouldn't recommend missioning this, because I don't think there's that much intrinsic humor to extract from it and I don't think it would be worth the effort to try. Plus, again, we're not here to attack the kink itself, so probably best to avoid a fic written specifically to feature said kink.

If you haven't done so yet, I recommend reading some of the guides on the wiki, such as the Slash-Sporking Guide and the more general Guide to the PPC and Mission-Writing Guide. It's a good way to get a better idea of the approach we take to badfic and what we do and don't find mission-worthy.

Of course, the BEST way is to read more missions, and I can't suggest a better place to start (besides the Original Series, of course) than with Agent Trojanhorse of the Department of Bad Slash. Two caveats: we don't mission real-person fic anymore, and we don't make comments about the author anymore. A lot has changed since 2004! In general, though, RC 45 remains a fine example of how to handle delicate subject material in a way that is non-judgemental and hilarious.

~Neshomeh

Dunno, looks like it's considered a legitimate kink by too many people to rule against it by Shirayuki on 2022-01-04 03:19:34 UTC Reply

After all, wanting to rape your partner isn't good, but few people are against consensual rape roleplays.