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Everything is fair in fiction. No matter how sensitive or dark a topic is, fictional settings are the only place where anything should be allowed.
This does not mean that attacking/defaming people is ok, just that "I don't like this" or "this is insensitive" should never be brought up against the existence of a work of fiction.
I'm not sure if "most" people would disagree with that, but there are too many that believe that fiction should be ruled by (subjective) morale and laws, while I believe it should be the place where anything goes.
I think there's a huge chasm between "I don't like this" and "This should not exist". The former is perfectly reasonable.
Exactly my point. It's a good thing that we can make stuff that some people dislike freely. The only other option is to never, ever, do anything, as you'll always find people that are against anything;
Should any critiques be levelled at fictional works, then? If a work has a character that's an insensitive racial stereotype, am I allowed to criticize the character, not for being an offensive stereotype, but for being one-dimensional and poorly written? If so, why, exactly?
You're allowed to criticize anything. The point is that some people are actively looking to forbid the existence of this or that on their personal whim.
The same way you're free to ignore a piece of work you don't care about, any author is free to ignore criticism of it. I'm just advocating not forbidding imaginary things, which is unfortunately a thing.
The problem I see is in popular works of fiction, the scenarios seem too specific. Racism, rape, torture, whatever... they all start to come off as weird sorts of validation, wish fulfillment, or cheap shock content. Instead of satisfying a role in the plot, it subtracts from the immersion because you're wondering if the author is into vore or whatever.
I think it's good to have an outlet for these sorts of things. I just think it's less about freedom of expression and more and audience reach, i.e., they didn't get dark because it limits the demographic.
There are people outright advocating that some topic (of their choosing) should not even exist in fiction form. I'm referring to these.
One is free to like or dislike any work of fiction, no matter how (subjectively) good or bad it is. One is also free to ignore it, as it will have exactly zero impact on you in that case. Once one starts to forbid the existence of something that have no bearing on them, on the principle of "they don't like it", that's a problem.