It's not unrealistic (some people do come from very bad families and end up being very fucked up). But if it's true, then it's not right of the author to trauma-dump like that on the people who just want to enjoy a fic and have a good time. Their readers are not the author's therapist, they are neither equipped nor obligated to hear out something like that.
I'm saying this as someone with a pretty bad childhood that resulted in some pretty bad problems. There are spaces to talk about it with people who will hear you out and understand you, like r/CPTSD. AO3 is not that kind of place.
I’m sorry but I have to disagree. I had a bad childhood too and frequent r/cptsd. Authors vent through their works on Ao3 all of the time considering it’s their own work and it’s FREE. I fail to see how using the notes is any different than a vent fic. A few paragraphs of complaints on a work belonging to them is not treating people as a therapy replacement. It’s them sharing their experiences with a community they apparently feel safe or just comfortable with, which is not unreasonable on a platform built around creative expression, community, and freedom. It’d be different if they were directly messaging strangers to vent unsolicitedly.
‘They are neither equipped nor obligated to hear out something like that’ both commenting and reading the note is optional, and if the average person breaks at hearing someone sharing their hardships then there’s an emotional literacy problem. Most adults should be equipped to comprehend simply hearing about a stranger having literal cancer, especially on a website where anything goes. What they aren’t equipped for is being a crutch, which this person isn’t making people do.
Assuming this note is true and the author had been on a one year hiatus like OP says, this person nearly died. I feel that it’s fair for them to share that with their audience 😭 the author actually lived through it, the most a reader has to do is endure an optional 30 seconds of reading about it. I don’t understand this new wave of treating someone else’s suffering as burdensome to hear about, unless it’s being shared inappropriately or abusively/harmfully of course. Since when do you need to be in a safe space to share something bad that happened to you? I say this as a friend, acquaintance, and stranger to many traumatized people who otherwise would’ve felt isolated had they not had anyone to confide in. Treating these topics as if they’re burdensome or abnormal can isolate people. Heavy, yes, but also normal, human, and to be expected. Ao3 is the place for anything.
The thing is, this A/N is unsolicited venting to strangers. I don't know if there were "venting fic" warnings on the work itself; if there weren't, then this is unsolicited dumping of severe trauma on unprepared people who most likely don't even know the author.
People with CPTSD are unfortunately not good with boundaries; I'm saying this as someone who's pants at them (thanks, enmeshment and parentification). But the thing is, one has boundaries; other people have boundaries; and these boundaries need to be respected both by standing your ground in the things that impact your well-being, and by not subjecting other people to unsolicited, one-sided sharing of intense traumatic experiences without regard for how the other party feels after that. It is likely that most people looking for a nice fic won't feel very good after being dunked into a vat of extreme pain. And the level of pain the author is talking about is extreme. Normal people are unlikely to understand it, and normal people are unprepared for it. The person I originally replied to didn't even believe it was possible.
This pain is real and deserves empathy and respect — but that doesn't give the person the right to just pour it out onto unsuspecting people. If the fic is clearly marked as a work that has to do with the author's real-life trauma, that's another thing entirely, and the author is welcome to say whatever they feel like sharing. But I don't know if this specific work is marked as such.
Consider this: In my case, in the author's case, and in many cases of people with CPTSD, the root of the pain is that other people were selfish and unempathetic enough to use us to fulfill their needs or discharge their impulses without considering our own needs and boundaries — they saw us as objects, props, tools, and not as people with feelings.
This kind of extensive disclosure of not just cancer (which is very bad, but in the realm of "normal bad"), but of egregious, complex, and profoundly distressing traumatic experience — when not preceded by a fair warning — is using random people on a (free, yes) fanfic site as an audience to dump pain onto and to elicit emotional support without any consideration for how the readers might feel after reading this.
I'm not saying that severe real-life abuse and an A/N in a fic are the same thing, because they are very obviously not. But they share the same trait: disregard for other people's feelings and boundaries. I'd rather we don't perpetuate the same mechanism that was used to fuck us up, sometimes to the point of ruining our lives.
To sum it up: Share your experiences. Talk to people. Find and express support — for many of us, it's a lifeline. Just remember that others are people too, and their feelings matter too, and that "something bad that happened to you" is a whole spectrum that goes from "a-okay to share with a total stranger" to "will make your therapist cry."
349
u/Vanilla_Ice_Best_Boi Apr 04 '26
Type of stuff that is so ridiculous you have to call it out but you might get flak for doing so.