And other fanworks, for that matter, but let’s talk about fic: When AO3 was proposed, it was in response to Strikethrough and other similar events. Livejournal deleted a lot of accounts without bothering to distinguish between actual pedophiles, survivor support groups, and 100% consensual fantasy fandom activities being done by adults with other adults (most of which involved RP accounts for 16-year-old Harry Potter characters anyway).
I helped write the first AO3 Terms of Service and set up the Abuse committee. AO3 was always intended to be welcoming to all kinds of fic, no matter how dirty, sick, socially unacceptable, bizarre, or out of fashion. During those initial TOS talks, we specifically discussed grotesque RPF snuff porn as the test case for something all of us on the committee found distasteful but would nonetheless defend because, by defending it, we created a space where all of our own favorite things were protected too.
Policing fic content is a slippery slope. Even if you only police the “worst” stuff, you create an environment where the more sensitive authors and no few of the ones “shipping to cope” are no longer comfortable posting at all. Attacking people for posting fic about rape/abuse/etc. is demanding that all survivors disclose. No amount of whining and backtracking will change this fact. It is a disgusting behavior that drives people from your fandoms and creates needless misery while adding nothing of value to the community.
If you want to kick certain kinds of content off of AO3, you do not belong on AO3 in the first place.
my goal isn’t to make anyone think exactly the same way I do. i want you to think for yourself.
don’t swallow my posts wholesale w/out thinking. don’t swallow what fandom policers say wholesale w/out thinking. don’t parrot other people without thinking.
ask yourself if people are being honest before believing them
think about the words people use. ‘always’, ‘all’, ‘never’ and ‘nobody’ are absolutes; in reality, there’s almost always exceptions to the rule.
generalizations are not always trustworthy & can’t be applied to individuals. (that might be a generalization about generalizations.)
there are abusers who call themselves shippers. there are abusers who call themselves anti-pedophilia/incest/abuse. there are abusers who ship pairings you consider abusive and abusers who ship only the fluffy, safe pairings. abusers can use anything to abuse, so don’t believe people who say ‘my space is abuser-free.’ (it isn’t.)
it’s easy to get turned around and thrown off by people who argue dishonestly. if they can’t answer simple questions about their position, you should probably ask somebody else who knows more.
shaming and guilting are not arguments. people who try to shame or guilt you into agreeing with them are not treating you kindly. be cautious about listening to them.
talk to people you trust. get blog recs; read different arguments & come to your own conclusions. know where you stand and why you stand there. know that it’s not wrong to change your mind if new evidence persuades you.
and know that you never have to tell anyone what you conclude if you don’t want to. that’s your business. you don’t have anything to prove to me or anyone else.
I just want everyone to have confidence in their ability to think for themselves and do what’s best for themselves – and not just in fandom. in everything. and I think that learning how to draw your own conclusions is the best way to protect yourself from being used or abused by someone trying to force their ideals down your throat.
if you’re going to urge people to think critically about the media they consume, you must accept that they might do that and come to a different conclusion to you.
the phrase ‘think critically…’ all too often comes with an unspoken assumption of ‘…and you’ll adopt my opinion, which is the right one’ which is both arrogant and contrary to the initial suggestion.
let people come to their own conclusions. you don’t have to adopt, support, or even like them but you should respect them.
(also stop assuming that people haven’t already ~thought critically~ about the media they consume before you deigned to show up. condescending intellectual elitism is not a good look.)
Honestly, when it comes to my own personal views? I believe that no one is beyond redemption (though whether or not the people said individual wronged are willing to forgive is wholly up to the people in question). For me, the belief that anyone can claw their way out of iniquity is not only a central tenet of my faith but also the knowledge that keeps me emotionally balanced and stops me from wallowing in bleak cynicism. I have to believe that redemption is possible for all, even if some choose not to take that road.
It always grinds my gears when people talk about redemption as if it’s something to be ‘deserved’, rather than an active choice, a verb, something a person does, with more or less variable degree of success. To redeem oneself is to take the necessary steps toward uplifting one’s soul from moral degradation. In essence, they keep equating redemption with something like forgiveness, when the two are entirely different matters and don’t have a 1:1 correlation at all. Some of my favourite redemption narratives (Anakin Skywalker lives AUs, for example) don’t really contain all that much in the way of forgiveness, because some acts simply can’t be forgiven by their victims. For me, the enjoyment of such stories comes from seeing the central character’s physical and emotional struggles with everything redemption entails, until they can achieve a weary, wizened peace with the world and with themselves. There’s an almost poetic beauty, I’ve always thought, to the words of a person who has walked in both the brightest light and the darkest shadow and it’s a real pleasure to put those sorts of words down on paper.
And yes, as I said before, I suspect that at least some of this nonsense comes from people having a visceral reaction to their own flaws being reflected back at them. For others, it’s your run-of-the-mill purity culture wankery.
I really like this for making a distinction between redemption and forgiveness. I am well on record as hating most forgiveness arcs. A lot of time, it feels like the character hasn’t earned it, but the narrative requires that their victims forgive, and I vomit inside my mouth a little. A redemption arc is just the opposite. By god, the character puts in the work. And at the end of the day, they may not be forgiven, but they do what they have to do, because they have to do it, because it’s the right thing to do. And that? That matters.
Anti: I only go after smaller artists because they’re the only ones that will listen!!
Anti: what do you mean smaller artists are upset when I harass them? they’re adults they should learn not to care
translation: I’m a bully, but like any low-level pathetic bully, I only go after the easiest targets! 🙂
it’s like they’ve never actually learned anything about bullying or how it works or what it looks like because they occasionally describe a near dictionary definition of it but call it “activism” and it blows my fucking mind
We recently received reports about one or more Tumblr accounts posing as “AO3 consultants” and contacting other users about their works on the Archive. In those messages, users are asked to take down their works “due to reports of abuse” or else have their works deleted by AO3 admins.
These messages are in no way sanctioned by the AO3 Policy & Abuse committee, who will never contact users via social media. All messages you receive from our Support and Abuse teams will be signed by the volunteer contacting you, and will reference specific abuse reports, requests for technical support, or other matters pertaining to your account.
So if I may hazard an educated guess: some antis are impersonating Ao3 staff to intimidate authors into deleting content the antis dislike. Stay classy.
I-want-my-IWTV 