Read on Twitter
a store opened up here recently where you pay thirty bucks to throw an axe at a wall. a literal axe. i walked past last week and saw a middle-aged white lady in a fight stance. but this store isn’t encouraging you to become an axe murderer, you know? it’s not increasing violence
i want to use this to make an analogy about fandom. to put it simply, if you read fan fiction (walk into the axe throwing store) and you interpret it as sex education (decide to start throwing axes at everyone you hate) that is a failure of the education system and your guardians
the axe throwing store has made it very clear that its goal is to simulate a specific scenario in a safe space so people can vent their negative emotions. it is not a tutorial on how to enact violence. if someone decides to axe a friend afterwards, that is the person’s fault
fan fiction and its numerous authors have made it very clear that it simulates a specific scenario in a fictional space so that people can explore things which might not always be condoned in real life (like axing people). it is not a tutorial on how to live
there’s a reason we draw a line between fiction and non-fiction. there’s a reason self-help books aren’t counted as the former. i’m worried about people whose only form of sex ed is the 55k e rated voltron fic. but there are more useful people to hold accountable than the
random married 30 year old fic writer who writes this shit as a way to destress from their desk job. that person doesn’t even know you exist. if someone goes on a killing spree, you look at their family history. their childhood. teachers, parents, siblings, et cetera
no one goes to call of duty or the axe throwing store and says ‘they made him do it’. stop holding people who are hanging out in their own spaces accountable for every aspect of your personal lives. there’s a lot wrong with the world. i promise ‘no lube’ is not our top priority
