I enjoy fanfiction, but I am also in my 30s, and not infrequently find that I'm enjoying a work when suddenly it becomes apparent that the author is rather younger, as I'm slapped in the face with a truly wild take on aging, relationships, alcohol, jobs, and suchlike, as if stepping on a rake. I'm not going to explicitly name any of these, nor contact the authors in any way, as that would be staggeringly rude, but I am going to complain about these moments in the privacy of my own blog. I'm going to lightly anonymise the fics, canons, and characters, too, for the same reason.
One fic took the premise that a group of superhumans lived together, seperate from non-enhanced humans, and followed the adventures of a few humans who come to live with them, as well as the superhumans' increasing political power in their region. These superhumans live for centuries, aging very slowly, and have greatly enhanced strength, speed, and sensory perception. Very fun, although betraying an increasingly concerning attitude to colonialism, democracy, and dictatorships as the political plot goes on. What caused me to yelp aloud, page desperately through the remaining fic, comments, and author's blog for a more thought-out take on the implications, and vent at length to my spouse, though, was the complications implied by a plot point introduced largely for porn and as a haphazardly-reasoned fix-it, namely the idea that this superhuman quasi-immortality can be sexually transmitted via regular top-ups of bodily fluids. This is presented as cute, a revelation of uncomplicated joy, so that the central couple can remain together and will never have to face the inevitable aging and death of the non-enhanced human. It is
nightmarish. If any of the human-mutant couples ever go through a low-libido patch, or want to break up, or to seperate, or to spend more than a couple of weeks apart, say, travelling, working in different places, visiting family... they are facing the potential death of the human partner. One partner is held hostage in the relationship on pain of death, with the other partner their unwilling jailer. They have to fuck, in specific ways, on a specific schedule, whether they feel like it or not, for centuries, or die. The mutant character will never quite feel certain that their partner wants them, vs wants to remain young forever. The human partner will never quite feel that their place in the community is unconditional, vs bought with sexual availability. Neither of them can ever quite feel free to turn down sex. If they ever do break up, or cease/pause fucking, the human has to swiftly locate another lover from within the same community for their bodily fluids, or, again, age and die while their ex-lover, their friends, co-workers, family members, community remain unchanged. Physically unchanged, that is; it's made clear that the mutants find the prospect of this happening to their loved ones traumatic, and has led to at least one character isolating himself so as not to become emotionally involved with anyone mortal. There's a
https://twitter.com/madsmiyun/ comic about an alien who needs cum to survive, which gets into the miserable mundanity and nihilistic fear that comes to accompany sex in that scenario. Furthermore, in this fic there is at least one human adopted child, who is obviously not fucking anyone. Upon reaching adulthood, she will face the choice to start fucking someone from the community that raised her, or age and die at a pace that her adoptive parents find horrifying.
So far, so horrific. But what the author means by aging is also quite naive. Specifically, human characters realise that they're reverting to the physical condition and appearence of their early 20s. Now, look. I remember being in my early 20s. I not infrequently meet and talk with people in their early 20s. That is not the universal peak human attractiveness phase. That is a slightly unfinished phase, where the lines of your adult face are starting to show through the teenage softness but you are still, to my eye, a very tall baby. That's partly why your metabolism is so different, why you can do way more stupid shit, eat and drink all manner of crap and go without sleep with comparatively minor penalties compared to later decades; you're still growing. Probably this is great for athletes, especially as you haven't much adult bulk to affect your flexibility, but mostly I remember athletic friends getting injured a lot, partly because they were all power but little support. You are not at peak physical condition, you're a kid. And hell, if I say this only a decade later, imagine how it looks to older adults. Similarly, I cannot imagine finding someone under 26 personally sexually attractive, which really casts creeps-of-my-experience and the general mainstream view of teenage female celebrities in a disturbing light. It is very easy to tell whether someone is a teenager, and absolutely repulsive to contemplate fucking them. I'm not, of course, saying that people under 26 shouldn't fuck each other, I also remember being that age and think it's perfectly normal and healthy, nor am I saying that age gaps are always inherently predatory. Perhaps, to an immortal being, a 22 year old and a 52 year old are both comparably remote in terms of life experience. It's odd, therefore, that the immortals tend to exclusively go for the younger ones. Anyway! Just as 20 year olds are babies, 40 year olds are not, in fact, withered crones. Part of the plot which reveals the sexually-transmitted immortality features a group of women in their 40s who realise they're not aging. They explicitly say that normally they would be anticipating retirement, and everyone agrees that they look totally different to other humans of a similar age. Have... have you ever met women in their 40s? Clearly you possess the internet and can look up images of various women in their 40s, 50s, 60s. They really, really do not look significantly decrepit compared to 20 or 30 year olds. Women in their 40s are, in my experience, powerful forces of nature and extremely hot. You do not have to de-age them to make them hot. You do not have to de-age them to make them professionally competent. This is like that star trek episode where they put dreadful aging makeup on Alexander Siddig, who, now that he is actually the age he was playing, has predictably continued to be an absolute fox (
https://twitter.com/pencilscratchin/status/1231475180372885505). Besides, what of basic bodily autonomy? Causing people to regress into a barely-grown, rarely-taken-seriously state "for their own good" and presenting that as uncomplicatedly positive gives me the willies.
In a different fic, our protagonist, a responsible, somewhat dull man in his 30s, paused on his walk home one afternoon to stop at his local pub. There, he ordered a PINT of GIN, no mixer mentioned, drank it all, had a coherent conversation about his life, and walked home without incident feeling no more than tipsy. He was then launched into a Christmas Carol style AU of the life that could have been, but it was because of the conversation rather than the gin. A pint! Of straight gin! Seems like a totally normal thing that a bartender would give you! You'll go fucking blind like a 1800s satirical cartoon.
This fic also had odd ideas about sex and relationships: a married couple with a comfortable, happy relationship treated all kissing as a prelude to sex. Greeting your spouse at the door when they get home from work, heading out to a party together dressed up, waking up together in the morning; all these kisses were met with "wow, you're horny today, I don't have time/inclination to fuck right now". They weren't described as long or intense kisses, weren't even all on the mouth. The dismissive, shaming attitude towards physical affection that this betrays makes me sad. I kiss my partner dozens of times per day. Avoiding and lightly mocking your partner for a peck is not normal. I have a related rant about cultural sex negativity and the horny jail meme, but that's for another time.
Another character, single in his mid-late 30s, bemoaned that he lost the chance to have children long ago, it was too late for him, he would never be a father because now he was too old. This was treated not as the faintly ridiculous fear-airing of an emotional person who, for example, had recently had a breakup or disovered their medical infertility, but as the truth about a middle-aged avuncular figure who must learn to parent step-children if he's ever to experience that part of life, an object lesson about figuring out what you want from life while you're still in your 20s or early 30s. He later proposes marriage to a woman with whom he is no more than friends and has not spent one-on-one time with, this is treated as a normal way to conduct oneself, and she accepts.
One fic depicts characters in their early 20s in such a way that I am certain the author has recent lived experience, but it does not jive with my lived experience that they are drinking in
literally every scene. Do people in their early 20s drink frequently and casually? Yes. Did I and my friends do so? Yes. Did almost every one of us have a realisation after an average of two years of doing this that we were actually not ok with our personal relationships with alcohol and decide to cut back, to a greater or lesser extent? Yes. These characters drink every time they hang out, fine, ok, it's a social occasion, though I'm still questioning bringing multiple bottles of wine to your friend's room on a weekday to hang out doing homework. They drink when they stop for lunch on a road trip, and then continue driving. They drink when they're alone, working through a bottle of spirits while getting some peace and quiet before starting on wine too. They drink every single time they meet another person, whether it's with their partners, with their friends, with the people they live with and with the people they see once a year. They drink on their lunch break at work, and their boss does not notice or care. They check in to a hotel, drink spirits while putting their bags away, then head down to the bar to continue drinking before dinner. I think it's likely that this author has yet to have that moment of introspection about alcohol's place in their life, and is still figuring out which settings and amounts are normal and acceptable.
This fic also contains the belief that non-penetrative sex is not sex, leading to the overwrought plot arc that a couple who have been fucking for months might make the step to Have Sex, and this would significantly and irrevocably change their relationship. Now, true, penetration can be a particularly intense and vulnerable experience on both sides, but in terms of how well you know one another? If you've been doing hands and mouths, you know what this person is like when they come, you know what it feels like to be inside them, you know how they react physically and emotionally in connection to sex. If you've been sleeping in the same bed, talking about intimate topics, learning what makes each other tick sexually and romantically, there is nothing to support the idea that penetration would change anything apart from virginity-loophole purity culture.
Lest this consist entirely of complaining, and prompt the question "why did you keep reading this stuff anyway?", all of these fics do have positive qualities and are mostly fairly well-written.
The one with the pint of gin has an affecting introspective take on how it feels to reorient your life from what you've been told to want to what you actually want, and uncover bursts of joy amid heartbreak. The one with the alcoholism has gripping intrigue and romantic plots, makes me nostalgic for the vivid depiction of spending time with friends in your early 20s, and powerfully describes the experience of being intensely attracted to someone. The one with the mutants has extremely funny comic interludes, a great take on a favourite topic of mine, that of the administrative skills, tasks, and bottlenecks required to manage a large group of people, and a subplot about a trans character coming to understand herself through years of attempting to repress her identity in various ways that rings very true.
They made me smile, they gave me hours of entertainment, they allowed me to consider interesting ideas and different perspectives. I believe that the authors are likely quite young and will improve with time. Goodness knows I wrote some rubbish when I was young, it's a normal and fine part of learning, and frankly it's impressive to finish long works and post them publicly. I nevertheless find the misconceptions jarring and prefer work by older authors.
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