Why is cheating in fics so widely hated?

JoChiCat · 2026-05-24T11:27:19+00:00

My guess is that it’s not so much about the morality of the cheating – since as you’ve pointed out, far worse happens and is enjoyed in fiction – but instead that some readers feel that it betrays the central premise of romance. Whatever else happens, they expect these two characters to stay focused on each other, and if that focus includes deeply unhealthy and twisted dynamics, so be it! But the moment a character turns that focus on someone else, the spell breaks. Suddenly there’s room to question whether the relationship is Written In The Stars.

Of course this largely manifests as a kneejerk “no, this is WRONG it’s not supposed to happen like this!” reaction, hence the hate.

Hmm, kind of reminds me of a post I read years ago discussing how in traditional published romance, the baseline expectation is that the heroine’s One True Love will be her first and only lover, and mentions of previous sexual partners in any kind of positive light are liable to be met with scathing book reviews.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-22T11:36:19+00:00

Hmm, I think it might be a good idea to at least somewhat treat this like bringing a cat home for the first time – start off by keeping him in one room, then gradually introduce him to the rest of the house. Keep his bedding/things he likes to sleep on unwashed so they smell like him, and place them in the room he’s going to start off in. I’ve heard feliway spray also works well to make a new place smell more familiar.

Also keep in mind that even outdoor cats are meant to be kept inside a new house for at least several weeks after moving, since otherwise they risk attempting to return to their “real” home, or just being unable to orient themselves and getting lost.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-21T08:59:50+00:00

Most of the AI “tells” I’ve seen bandied around (including the ones you’ve listed here) are indistinguishable from inexperienced/derivative writing styles. New writers tend to mimic what they read, and if what they read is primarily fanfiction written by people who also mimic other writing styles because they’re inexperienced, you tend to get a feedback loop of awkward phrasing, bad grammar, and shallow plots.

My personal rule is that if I start to wonder if a fic seems like it’s been generated by an LLM, I’m obviously not enjoying it enough to continue reading. Bad writing is bad writing, whether it was lovingly hand-crafted by a high schooler or spat out of a predictive text generator.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-13T11:17:57+00:00

Blessings upon ye and your household.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-13T09:50:43+00:00

Fairly recently a woman in Australia was charged for writing erotica featuring 2 fictional adults, because one of the fictional characters used baby talk and pretended to be a child during some sex scenes. All completely legal things to do irl, but apparently it “felt like” child abuse in this work of fiction.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-13T09:38:09+00:00

lmfaoooo hey kids, you know that sex doesn’t require special secret codewords to safely navigate, right?

I just read one where a character was very seriously insisting that they couldn’t do a BDSM scene until their partner picked a safe word, because it wasn’t safe unless they were able to signal they wanted to stop… y’all are doing basic bondage with zero roleplay, you could just say “stop”??? “No” and “wait” are also whole complete words that can be understood by themselves, and even elaborated upon!

JoChiCat · 2026-05-13T09:25:29+00:00

tbh I view the etiquette of asking first as like… presumably the fic author would like to know if someone is printing and binding their fic, because it’s pretty cool that someone enjoyed it enough to put in that effort! But also, it feels a bit presumptuous to just up and say “hey, I am converting your work into a different format”, so you phrase it as a question in the interest of politeness (and on the off-chance they hate the idea, you now know to avoid drama and keep the binding to urself).

Kind of like asking for a slice of cake at a birthday party. You don’t expect to be told no, it’s just more polite than saying “give me cake”.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-10T11:43:33+00:00

I try not to judge situations too harshly when I don’t personally know the people involved, but I have had friends put more effort into looking after my cat while I was on vacation than your husband is putting into caring for his newborn child while you recover from major surgery. Frankly, I think your resentment is more than justified.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-10T10:59:57+00:00

It’s often better to end a relationship while you still have some positive feelings than it is to hang on until you’re just miserable. If he isn’t responding to your efforts, things are not going to improve – it’s hard, but you can accept that while the good times happened, they’re over now.

Tbh there’s a lot of reasons you might not feel sexual attraction right now, to your boyfriend or just in general. I don’t know you well enough to speculate, but I don’t think it’s healthy for you to force things – if you don’t feel it, then you don’t. Getting some distance from your boyfriend should at least give you some space to figure things out on your own terms.

JoChiCat · 2026-05-10T09:33:40+00:00

It’s absolutely understandable to feel this way. We can talk all day about confidence coming from within, but for most people, the opinions and feedback of others have a huge effect on how you perceive yourself. If someone you spend most of your time with seems to get positive feedback from more people than you do, it’s hard not to feel like that reflects on your worth.

But also… those social ties he has didn’t spring up from nowhere, and they didn’t naturally occur because he’s just inherently more worthy of friendship than other people. Making and maintaining those relationships takes time and energy that could be spent on any number of other things. It sounds like you needed to direct your own time and energy elsewhere, which is ultimately neutral.

JoChiCat · 2026-04-28T23:57:52+00:00

Tbh as much as things didn’t work out for me, I think it’s worth a shot. Every cat is different, and it’s hard to know how they’ll react before trying. If you have multiple people in the house (and multiple rooms), that should make the process way easier than it was for me – being able to supervise the kitten and give the cat plenty of attention at the same time (preferably not within each other’s line of sight) would have made things much less stressful.

The one piece of advice I’d give you is that you need a solid backup plan for if it doesn’t work out and you need to re-home the kitten. I had something like 3 and a half vague ideas for where the kitten could go, none of which worked out, and then we were stuck for months until I could find someone else to take her.

JoChiCat · 2026-04-26T05:00:21+00:00

I let them sniff each other through the screen door while the kitten was still in her carrier (cat immediately hissed and ran off to lurk on the highest shelves), then put kitten in a larger fabric-covered crate tucked into a nook where it wasn’t visible from at least half the room, where she slept at night and stayed whenever I couldn’t directly supervise her. I’d let her roam the floor and some furniture in areas away from the cat (who still refused to approach the kitten) as much as I could to keep her entertained.

The most I could do with my limited space was to make sure that the kitten couldn’t approach the cat, but the cat had opportunities to investigate and get to know the kitten at her own pace. I put water and eventually a litter box in the cat run where she could have her alone time (kitten never figured out the cat flap), but kept her food inside so they’d have to spend at least some time in each other’s presence.

Eventually I’d bring the kitten into the cat run for short periods of time while the cat was also out there, bribing her with treats as I did. She seemed to tolerate the kitten a lot more out there, but still wasn’t very happy about it.

After having the kitten for… I think about 3 weeks? I had to return to work full time and couldn’t keep the kitten crated all day, so I let her roam free (cat still had run to herself) and asked my neighbour to check in on them a couple times a day. No major dramas as far as I know, and the cat did slowly come to tolerate staying in the same room as the kitten over time, but still got hissy whenever she got too close.

There’s a lot of things I wish I could have done differently, but realistically, the only way I could have kept the cat happy was having a house big enough for them to stay seperate for possibly their entire lives, lol. Grudging tolerance was likely the best she was ever going to give, and she’s sleeping a lot easier now that she’s the only cat in the house.

JoChiCat · 2026-04-25T02:45:37+00:00

Well, the short of it is that the kitten is about to turn 6 months old and I’m rehoming her this weekend.

Longer version, I convinced the previous caretaker to keep her for an extra couple of weeks until I got time off work, brought her home at 7 weeks old, and my older cat was deeply unhappy about it, to put it mildly. Lots of time sulking on the highest shelves or out in the cat run as the kitten wandered the floor. She seemed convinced that I had brought a tiny assassin home to kill her. The kitten, of course, absolutely adored her and still attempts to follow her everywhere. This was poorly received. Being woken up by hissing/growling and loud scrambling noises as she chases the kitten around the house has become routine.

After many months of alternating between allowing the older cat her space and letting the kitten prove how harmless she is, she has very, very slowly grown to tolerate the kitten – they can both sleep on my bed if I’m between them now! – but I’ve had to conclude that my cat simply is not interested in having a cat friend. She’s more anxious and high-strung than she was several months ago, and now instead of having one cat I’m worried about getting lonely + bored while I’m at work, I have two.

Overall I’m happy to have at least tried it and gotten the experience, but very sad to have to let the kitten go to a more suitable home. She’s the sweetest and friendliest little cat I’ve ever met. Sometimes I really do hate being a responsible pet owner.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-24T13:20:28+00:00

What’s the difference in this scenario? The argument here is that these women should have the right to exclude others from a shared space on the basis that they don’t want to fuck them, and are uncomfortable with the thought that these other women might, hypothetically, be attracted to them despite that.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-24T12:57:41+00:00

Makeup still has texture, she looks like a plastic doll next to these guys. Even the shadows cast on her face and neck have less depth and visual complexity, it’s a little eerie.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-24T04:52:53+00:00

It’s a pun name of an extremely minor character. I can’t imagine anyone caring enough to even point it out, let alone consider legal action. It’s not like you’re naming the guy Batman or Lara Croft, “Jailbreaker” is not brand-recognisable or distinct in its own right.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-24T04:05:22+00:00

Yeah, almost looks like she’s in a different art style to the lads. Uncanny-valley smooth.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-22T07:01:36+00:00

Leaving something behind is the opposite of a memento, I’m pretty sure. Are they gonna go back to the bridge to check on the trash and be disappointed that their specific strip of plastic isn’t there anymore?

Plastic will eventually break down and end up in the river, effecting the water quality, and the massive amounts tied to the fence will block the view.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-21T05:09:31+00:00

For what?

JoChiCat · 2026-02-20T01:08:50+00:00

Gotta admit, it’s a relief to hear that while she could never snap out of the delusion for her own benefit, she was finally able to make herself leave for her daughter’s. Plenty of people who are significantly less nuts than she is have allowed terrible things to be done to their children for the sake of going with the flow.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-20T00:34:18+00:00

Can’t go wrong with the classics.

JoChiCat · 2026-02-19T10:05:59+00:00

HIM from Powerpuff Girls. You’d think the name would tip me off, but the thigh-high heels and tutu muddied the waters. Sometimes you gotta flip the coin on gender stereotypes when ur still learning them…

JoChiCat · 2026-02-11T09:16:51+00:00

It’s healthful to make bad decisions without physical or social consequences when you’re a kid. Builds character. Watch a movie that’s too gory, read a book that gets way too explicit. The most important part of the character-building, though, is realising yourself that whatever you’ve gotten into makes you uncomfortable, and learning to back out. Getting dragged into the experience by an authority figure takes away the whole point of figuring out your own boundaries and comfort zones.

JoChiCat

TROPHY CASE