ladybusiness | (Reply)

From:

I recommend also looking at fanfiction for comfort reading. Fanfiction on AO3 is very well tagged for content, tropes, genre, etc. in play, and once you are familiar with the meanings of the various tropes, it's easy to filter for the kind of fiction you want to read.

Frankly, that's one of the reasons I don't bother with much commercial short fiction--I don't know what I'm getting into, and surprise!"rocks fall, everyone dies" is not my cuppa breakfast tea. (I still dislike Joanna Russ's "We Who Are About To..." for clobbering me with that. I learned to avoid classic Russian fiction for the same reason.)

Why on earth would you feel guilty for avoiding fiction that's bad for your mental health? That's like feeling guilty for not lifting weights while you have a torn tendon. If I want to "engage with the dark side of humanity", I just have to read the news. If I want to "engage with the dark side of 'humanity'" and have fun with it, I read fanfiction about sociopathic giant robots that turn into jet planes.