Okay. So I’m currently reading a story in which the main character was sexually assaulted by one of her love interests when she was drunk, then he lied about it, and he’s still currently a potential love interest and honestly, I’m so confused! The story is poorly written, has many spelling errors and mistakes, yet it has over 500k reads and I’m guessing, has never been reported.
I guess I just need to vent about this! I’m really disturbed.
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Just read a story where the author makes the MC get drunk and make out with all the love intrests(or do the deed if u want) when u try to say no the author ignores the choice(every single time) cuz “ur too drunk” and u wake up next to a naked guy -_-
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OMG Hahaha. That’s just… a lot.
there’s a lot happening in some of these stories, oh my god.
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Yeah waaay a lot x3 but…call me a prude im not a fan of sexual stuff in stories >-< way less when they just give the illusion of choice…hard to find a decent story with wat im lookin for
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I’m perfectly fine with sexual content. We’re human beings.
But I’m not on board with all these r*pe stories written by young girls. It’s messed up.
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[I’m posting here just so I remember writing on this topic tomorrow when my brain is not drained]
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It takes so much effort to get a story like this taken down, it’s ridiculous. I sincerely worry about the future of Episode when the community doesn’t have a problem with sexual assault in a story.
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I don’t understand the desire of putting sexual assault to stories, why are there so many stories revolve around the same crap? Unless it is directly linked to character development or plot, why do people insist on putting it in stories???
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Why do so many people buy the same crap when there are loads of amazing stories out there that don’t include toxic relationships? I worry about society
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I am honestly so disgusted by that. Why would people want to actually read that?
I am so sick of these offensive, rule breaking and inappropriate stories and it’s so heartbreaking how difficult it is to get these stories taken down.
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Agree
Now I know you lying!! Bitch a whole 500k reads?? Hell nahhh
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Over 500k
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Everybody reading that shit tripping TRIPPING
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I think a lot of the reason we see a lot of content involving sexual assault is because of its prolific use in media these days. After all, it’s used frequently in popular TV shows (Game of Thrones, anyone?) and pops up in movies these days, and while it’s something worth talking about and exploring, it… tends to just be used for shock and horror factor, and is rarely approached or handled properly or with respect to actual survivors.
It’s so commonly used as a quick backstory to get sympathy for a female character especially without fully developing her, written in to shock the audience and give them something to be upset about, or to instantly color the aggressor in a certain way to the audience. After all, how many times in shows has even the suggestion that a (typically older and creepily portrayed male) character that hints at such things an antagonist?
But then, as the OP brought up, there’s the issue with somehow trying to romanticize it, or to try and play up an aggressor’s sympathy – especially, I’ve noticed, when the aggressor is a young, attractive person. Lots of tragic backstories or “he didn’t know better” and BS excuses like that tend to crop up – and while it may be possible, the writers often forget that a reason is not an excuse, and that doesn’t mean he deserves forgiveness or sympathy, least of all from his victim. In the words of Brooklyn 99: “Cool motive, still murder.”
And, of course, people write what they see. Whether we realize it or not, we internalize the media we consume – good, bad, and ugly – and the use and portrayal of sexual assault is one of those things. Especially younger writers, which it sounds like the story OP is reading may have been written by.
There are ways authors – on Episode and in Hollywood – can portray sexual assault and the characters around it in realistic, appropriate ways while still maintaining character depth on all sides. But unfortunately, it’s hard to find, and even well-meaning attempts can easily go off the rails. And that’s all without even considering audience interpretation of the matter, which can skew perceptions as well, at least from a consumer standpoint.
tldr; sexual assault has been popularized as a quick sympathetic “backstory” or shock value and handled all the wrong ways from most every angle, and it’s sadly not uncommon for people (esp young writers) to mimic parts of their favorite shows in their own works without considering or researching the issue and effect it can have. It’s not a new problem, but definitely a concerning one.
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I think a lot of tweens simply don’t realise they’re writing sexual assault because of rape culture and their own damned ignorance combined.
I have to give details now: In this story, the mc goes out and gets completely wasted, is taken back to he dorm room with a male character who she had a past relationship with, who proceeds to take off her clothes, go down on her and have sex with her. In the morning she has no memory of anything and asks if they had sex, and he lies to her and says no. And she goes on with her life. Then finds out he lied about having sex with her while she was drunk, inarticulate and gave no consent!
It’s obvious the author has no clue how absolutely WRONG this is and that’s what disturbs me most of all.
Young girls think this kind of foolishness is how adults behave. IT’s NOT.
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BIG YIKES.
Yeah, that definitely sounds like ignorance regarding consent, which is really alarming. 
It’s been a while since I was in school, but god knows they didn’t go over consent back then, and it wouldn’t surprise me if schools still didn’t. Especially in this case. As much as I appreciate colleges and universities these days typically going over consent to students, it needs to be taught much younger – especially with such a young community, seeing this kind of thing normalized in stories certainly isn’t going to help.
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We had no real talk about consent when I was in school either. Hopefully it has gotten better now, especially after #metoo but I doubt it. It should be mandatory to watch Blue Seat Studios - Tea consent video. It’s simple and everyone should understand consent after that.
There are a lot of troubling stories on episode, both official and user ones, some of them with millions and millions of reads. It really makes me sad. It’s ok to write about troubling subjects but I very rarely come across a story that actually problematizes behavior like that.
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When i read a story and it has sexual assault in it, i stop reading the story. Maybe i’m sensitive, but i can’t handle seeing it, even if it’s just Episode. The earlier mentioned scene in Game of Thrones made me cry 
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At the start of this year, I joined EPISODE wanting to write a quick story and getting to be lazy and just having moving characters do stuff on screen while still having a compelling storyline and whatever.
What I got was basically edgy preteen trash. So eventually, I fed up and sort of semi-left EPISODE for a break, wanting to wait and see if all this trash gets sorted out or gets better in any way.
Spoiler: It didn’t.
So I’ve decided to do the millennial thing and write a post about it.
EPISODE - STOP ROMANTICIZING THINGS THAT AREN’T MEANT TO BE ROMANTICIZED.
Both literally and figuratively!
For those who don’t know what ‘romanticizing’ is, its basically writer’s term for ‘making light of a situation that isn’t supposed to be made light of’, a great example is murder.
“Oh damn! He just was murdered in front of me! Oh well, now I’ll start a murderous rampage for no reason whatsoever except for the plot!” - Is a lot of writing nowadays.
“But Res!” You say, “I would NEVER do something like that!”
Listen, everyone does at some point (don’t lie fellow authors, don’t worry I’m a victim of this horrible story writing too), but you fricken learn NOT TO DO IT. Not only does it make for horrible story writing and impacts the reader’s view of an author, it is INCREDIBLY disrespectful towards deceased ones and those who have had a lost one die.
Anyway, back on track.
I’m always seeing stupid ‘bad boy’ stories and ‘step-sibling’ relationships where, even though it is VERY wrong, the main character gets no repercussions whatsoever!
Let me tell you what a real ‘bad boy’ is.
They’re people who do drugs, illegal or not, most likely break the law on a frequent basis, and are generally people you can’t just ‘turn around’ with a nice girl who had ‘just moved into town’ with no friends. Believe me, I’ve been in a relationship with a ‘bad boy/girl’, and, not surprisingly, it was abusive.
But apparently, in the world of perfect Mary Sues and obligatory love triangles, these problems don’t exist.
And the whole step-sibling thing? For one: gross! This is literally someone who is entering into your family and basically becomes blood! These stories are mostly written by people who don’t have a step-sibling, well, coming from a person who has MULTIPLE step-siblings and half-siblings, I can tell you, just gross.
If you can imagine making out with your existing brother/uncle, then DON’T ASSUME YOUR CHARACTER WOULD WANT TO EITHER.
ESPECIALLY if they’re made in your image, which they mostly are.
I might make another post about ‘character abuse’ later on.
Now hold on, the whole point of this isn’t to actually shame people who DO choose to put this stuff into their stories, (even though I’ve only read one story about relation between siblings and that was fricken Ouran Host Highschool Club) it is, in the end, the author’s choice what to do with their creation.
BUT STOP FRICKEN ROMANTICIZING IT!
DO NOT put Mary Sues and the whole ‘life is perfect no matter what’!
DO NOT make light of heavy situations (ei. abusive relationships, drugs, murder, ANY illegal activity)
ALWAYS have repercussions of actions, ESPECIALLY illegal ones!
AND NEVER I MEAN NEVER romanticize dare to say that just because your main character is the main character, they’re perfect, NO ONE IS FRICKEN PERFECT, and that WHATEVER action they have is therefore perfect.
We as writers have a job not only to tell stories, but to pass on a message.
Make sure it is the right message.
I’m going to bed now, night.
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