u/hayrideswildride

before i start, i wanna say this is VERY MUCH a ranting post. i think the situation i was in is a bit... unique... compared to other cases of writers getting harassed offplatform.

this is gonna be a loooong post so theres a simplified tldr at the bottom.

content warning for discussions of sexual harassment and extreme parasocial behavior.

ok so im an author on ao3; shocker, i know! a solid majority of my writing isnt porn, its mainly just gore and the occasional angst. however, under another pseud, i have 3 fics rated E. one of which being very much a fetish fic. its very blatant in its content, as i obviously tagged it. now, this fetish is a rather stigmatized one online, despite being ultimately harmless, its been like that since ye olden days of deviantart cringe comps. on a large video-based social media platform im on, being accused of having such a fetish is enough to get you "cancelled" and ran off the platform.

i make sfw fandom content on that social media platform (horrible mistake, i know), mainly edits and memes. i wouldnt call myself popular by any means, i do have a small fanbase but its not large enough to call me a niche fandom microcelebrity or anything. and, quite frankly, i like it like that. i can have fun and post whatever without the terrifying downsides of having a massive fanbase watching your every move.

or, at least thats what i thought. i had this one follower who seemed weirdly obsessed with me. im not gonna go into the "hows" of it, it was just typical parasocial fan behavior, like constant unwanted dms and insistence that we were friends despite very much not knowing eachother. now, in a perfect world, i wouldve blocked this person right here and there. however, im not a perfect person. i worried that i was just being overly anxious and paranoid due to negative past experiences with people (in general), and that they were just being an innocent, if a bit overexcited, fan.

aand then they found my ao3. ding ding ding, all of that was just a prelude! just mere context! the appetizer before the meal! they make a story post (a temporary post that autodeletes after around a day) tagging me, the contents of which being fetish art, similar to that of the one i like, and a "cheeky" comment about how i liked content like this. now, obviously a bit panicked, i did the bad thing and gave them the reaction they wanted; going into their dms and asking why the actual fuck they did that. they iterated that they found my ao3 account and joked about the kinkfic i wrote.

now, ive had people dm me in the past over that fanfic. its jarring and a little scary, of course, (i feel like a kid in the principals office whenever i happens) but most of the time those people always ease me into it and have nice stuff to say. yknow, compliments about my writing they couldnt put in a more public space, which is good. typically just a "i saw your kinky fanfic. im normally not into that kind of content but you wrote it so good. thank you." thing, and then we never speak of it again. so i thought, on some level, the parasocial fan would also never speak of it again, and itd just be caulked up to "wow i didnt know you were into that ok i see you kinda differently now". i am remarkably naive, though, i guess!

they did not stop. they did not "never mention it again". what they did was pivot their direction on how to get reactions out of me. sure, i still got random spam dms and mentioned in "were besties yaaay" posts, but i also got mentioned in a bit more than just that now. fetish posts, more specifically inflation/blueberry stuff. now, theirs nothing wrong with those fetishes, theyre the siblings to my fetish so itd be weird to have any sort of moral superiority over it, theyre just not my cup of tea. though i can see how someone would come to the conclusion that id be into it. besides, regardless of what im into, i dont want to be randomly messaged/mentioned in the comments of fetish content on my sfw platform.

at that point, i knew i shouldve blocked them long before, and i shouldve blocked them then too, however i still couldnt bring myself to do it. they had "dirt" on me ("this person has a weird fetish!"), and i worried that if i blocked them theyd get mad and start showing people my fetish fic as revenge. thats embarrassing in general but, like i said earlier, that platforms userbase has a very specific hatred for that fetish, deeming it disgusting and enough to justify harassing someone. so, regardless of how uncomfortable it made me, i figured i had to just power through and not give them attention. surely, theyd have to get tired of a literal brick wall of a person soon, right!

they didnt. and then they did something that finally made me put my foot down. up until then, they had only mentioned me in fetish content either on their story or the comments of related videos. i wasnt happy at all with it, it was embarrassing, but i deemed it not enough to pitch a fit over. stories autodelete in a day and nobodies going to care enough to sift through the comments of some random blueberry fetish video. and then they posted a video (or, well, a slideshow.).

in all honesty the slideshow was rather "tame" in its contents. it was just some weird little inflation-related tierlist with the characters from the fandom im in. but they tagged me, front and center. and people. saw. it. people i knew as acquaintances or were otherwise fans of myself. i was mortified.

i politely asked them something along the lines of "i really dont like this and ask you to stop mentioning me in content like this". they fired back that i shouldnt be uncomfortable due to it because of the content ive made. i reiterated that i didnt like it and was being serious before, in a flash of clarity and realization that i had free will, blocked them.

im taking a break from that platform atm, and working on my writing since i no longer feel so observed over it.

"so, whats the point of all this?"

well, aside from the human need to vent my frustrations to strangers on the internet, i find the nature of which i was treated and how it was justified by the person to be quite disturbing. finding sexual content i made and then using it as ammunition to sexually harass me (because, quite frankly, i find it to be sexual harassment. it was harassment of a sexual nature, of course!). its also quite disgusting how sexual harassment online is deemed as an okay thing to do, as long as the person has a fetish and theyre being sent fetish content. it feels kinda like slutshaming or something.

but uhh, aside from all that, i wanna know if anyone else has had similar experiences. because i know people do sometimes get harassed for their fanfics, but i dont think ive ever seen someone get sexually harassed like this over it.

i also wanna know if i should add an authors note to the 2nd half of the fetish fic (its a two shot) once i finish it, clearly setting the boundary that i thought was already common sense of "please do not bring up my nsfw word in sfw environments, and do not constantly dm me about it". would that be good, or would it just feed the weirdos?

tldr: posted a fetish fic. parasocial fan on my sfw social media decided to sexually harass me for it, using content they believed id be into. wanna know if others have had similar experiences.