#Fannish Ethical Concerns

[aeide-thea]

[cw for (non-)discussion of abortion in (fan)fiction]

stories are so interesting bc like. truly there's so much going on there wrt like. what it actually occurs to us to Examine vs what it doesn't

anyway that could be a preface to a million different sorts of posts but i'm just thinking about how the other day an author i'm subscribed to dropped a fic in a Hashtag Problematic fandom with an extensive disclaimer at the beginning abt the terms of their continued engagement with said fandom

and then there was a scene in the fic where like. a married couple find out unexpectedly that the wife is pregnant, and they've already got a few kids and seem quite taken aback at the thought of another, and the medical professional who's revealed this to them is like, 'we can get you hooked up with more reliable birth control after the baby gets here, haha,' and i was like. literally why are you jumping to 'after the baby gets here' before they've actually given you any clear cues abt whether they want it to get there at all! because frankly 'we've got the number of kids we wanted and i'm not up for having any more' is a really excellent reason to get an abortion! that comment put pressure on one side of the scale in a way that frankly i thought was totally inappropriate!

and it's just like. i feel pretty confident the author did not intend this as anti-choice messaging—it seems much likelier to me that in their head it was just like 'these characters are Married and Popping Out Sprogs and of course they'd just tack on another one no problem, let's get back to the real function of this scene, namely character/relationship development for our main pairing!' but. the impact of it is in fact anti-choice, in that it doesn't make explicit or even any room for the idea that there's even a choice to be made here; and in fact, while i get the sense that the scene is intended to establish, among other things, the medical professional's Skill at Diagnosis, it actually made them look less skillful in my eyes, because to me a really critical piece of competence in this context is 'not leaning on the scale when you present options'?

and anyway it just got me thinking like—the author had this whole disclaimer at the beginning abt Engaging With This Fandom in 2023 but like. where's their disclaimer abt having produced what's effectively, if subtly, an anti-choice narrative, at a time in which abortion access in the US is becoming increasingly, horribly restricted? because frankly at least with the fandom i knew what i was getting going in!

#anyway like. have less than zero desire to like. lobby for the author's cancellation over this or whatever #fanfic is not what's driving anti-choice legislation #and in any event i would really not call this a deliberate concerted effort at anti-choice messaging #it's such a throwaway point in the overall arc of the story i think it just. didn't get examined in its own right at all #but it's just like. it's good to try to warn for things #but then so often stuff that would merit a warning is just. absolutely under the author's own radar #and so they're like. warning for obvious stuff while totally *not* warning for really insidious stuff #anyway this is not meant 2 be didactic‚ i have no Conclusion I Think Everyone Should Agree With Me About‚ i'm just contemplating #fannish things #Fannish Ethical Concerns

[olderthannetfic]

I have a bunch of old zines from back in the day, including one I published two issues of myself, with contributions from fannish friends I'm no longer in touch with (for context, this was back in the late 80s), as well as ones I picked up at cons and the like, and another I co-published with a friend back in the early 2000s.

I plan (or hope) to be around for a few more decades (knock on wood!), but I have been giving some thought as to what provisions to make concerning my zines. If possible, I would like to donate the physical copies to some sort of fanzine preservation project, if such a thing exists, but I'm also intrigued by your suggestion of scanning them.

What would you say the ethics are of doing such a thing, in terms of many of the works having been contributed by people whom I may not be able to contact for permission? This question has held me back from scanning or posting the works anywhere, but the alternative is that they will essentially be lost to fannish history. Your thoughts would be much appreciated!

--

My view on this is similar to my view on queer history stuff: you avoid the most obvious direct threats to people's personal security, but you prioritize preservation over hiding.

In the case of zines, you'd probably want to redact full legal names from publicly uploaded scans (though it depends on the content and what you know about the person's wishes). For Jane Smith, you might want to leave Jane or Jane S. so the story is still attributed, but you don't want Jane Smith's full name--or your publisher snail mail address for that matter--plastered all over the internet. (The internet archive is a likely place for your scans to end up.)

You try to contact people if you can, but if you can't, you assume they'd say yes instead of assuming they'd say no. If you can contact them and they do say no... Well, if it's a scan, you could just leave their story out with a placeholder indicating something was deleted, I guess.

In many ways a zine ed is not so different from an archive owner moving their archive to AO3.

[absolutebl]

What apps / platforms / sites do you use for watching BL? I'm happy to pay a subscription fee. Thank you for your help!

Unfortunately there isn’t a one stop shop for BL. Not even just Thai BL. So here’s a big ol’ resource post for you. 

YouTube - Oxygen etc...

Mostly I use YouTube for things like Oxygen, and fannish content like music vids, interviews, and talk shows. I suggest subscribing to the production studio’s and distributor’s channels there (this is a good way to show support as # of subs increases exposure + ad revenue). Even if you don’t intend to watch on YouTube, subscribing helps the studios a lot. 

Globe Studios - Gaya 

GMMTV - 2gether, Gifted, I’m Tee, Chonthon + OffGun, TayNew, BrightWin, and SingtoKrist promo vehicles  

Mauve Series - Oxygen 

Mind Trio - Calculating Love

Oxin Films - My Day 

Star Hunter - The Moment, Gen Y 

Studio Wabi Sabi - Until We Meet Again, Between Us,  Love Mechanics, Seven Project, Love By Chance, The En of Love 

Wayufilm Production - My Bromance  

WHYRU Channel 

Lovely Writer 

I like YouTube’s mobile interface best since I prefer not to watch on a PC. I don’t have a YouTube monthly subscription, but I’ve considered it. I’m not really down with YouTub’s corporate culture or politics. The value for money hasn’t evened any of this out for me yet, especially as YouTube monthly sub is higher than most every other platform - with less value ad content. 

YouTube is unstable for BL. Some shows never get there, and proprietary distributors like GMMTV have a history of pulling all their content arbitrarily (e,g, Our Skyy has been down for months and only just showed up again). Both TharnType and Why R U are currently down. Usually, studios start jacking around with the older shows when newer spin offs are launching or going into promo. 

Where else to get ‘em? 

It really depends on the show. 

Thai Distribution Direct - TharnType 2

TharnType 2 is being made available direct via the originating Thai distributor. I encourage you to watch it there so they can get the ad revenue: https://tv.line.me/tharntypetheseries 

* To be smart, any Thai distributor worth their salt should take this tactic and then move the content, with a relaunch and “extras” over to their YouTube channels say after 6 months or so (if they can’t get a secondary distributor like Viki or Netflx intersted). It would maximize exposure, fan interest, and revenue. 

** From an industry stand point, I wouldn’t expect TT2 to STAY available direct from Line indefinitely. So watch it NOW.  

Netflix - SOTUS & Love Sick 1

SOTUS & Love Sick first seasons are on Netflix, with follow up seasons on YouTube. You need a Netflix account to watch. You can also find them on YouTube but if you have Netflix, watch them there. 

Also these are good ones to push onto possible new BL recruits. The more watchers the better, since maybe it will get Netflix to fund and buy more queer content. I have concerns with Netflix corporate, but they are one of the few actively funding queer romance projects right now, so... yeah?

Viki - Love By Chance 2

LBC2 is on Viki, behind a paywall. But since Viki doesn’t have very many Thai BLs (they have some from Taiwan like the HIStory series), I haven’t subscribed. I’m waiting for them to hold enough IP to make it worth my while. Also, I have reservations about LBC2 and Mame’s writing in general, so just LBC2 isn’t enough for me, personally. 

Viki is a subsidiary of Japanese company Rakutan which also holds Kobo, and I like what they do to go up against US based conglomerates. (All cards on the table, I’ve visited Rakutan corporate.) We will see if they really double down and focus on BL. If they do, I’ll sub. 

Fan Subs & Uploads - Cherry Magic 

Cherry Magic (Doutei dato Mahoutsukai ni narerurashii) out of Japan has an excellent fan subber doing the bulk of the work to make this accessible. I watch it through them, and I tip them $ for their labor. If you watch this one and like it, I encourage you to do the same. https://irozuku.org/fansub/tag/cherry-magic/ 

Less Savory Options - Daily Motion & Drama Cool

You can find ripped and rebranded low grade eng subs if you are desperate from Daily Motion. I tend to use Bento Box’s channel or BL Series HD. You can find hard to reach stuff like He’s Coming to Me (HIGHLY recommended), ITTSAY, MGYG, and LBC2 there. But the content originators aren’t getting any money from it, so it’s a bit of an ethical dilemma.

How do we get more made if these don’t earn money? And yet, how do we watch when they aren’t distributed internationally? 

The other option in this same vein in Drama Cool, it’s the only place I have found Friend Forever. 

How to keep track? 

Frankly the best source for all this kind of information is MyDramaList which does exactly as it says, allows you to organize, kept track of, and discuss Asian dramas. 

There is a thriving BL community there. Commenters will share links with each other. I don’t have an account but my spies do.  

Hope this helps. 

File this under my questionable relationship with international DRM and IP. 

No tags to protect the guilty. 

[torturedpoetemotions]

Some unfortunate truths about online privacy

Recently, a popular HP roleplayer was approached by a Buzzfeed employee about doing an article on their work.

After discussing with, and even polling, the larger HP roleplaying community, they decided not to go ahead with it for the sake of a large segment of the community's discomfort and concern about the potential negatives of such exposure.

Among those concerns were the privacy and safety of those in the roleplaying community. And the discourse around that revealed some deeply disturbing misconceptions about online activity that I can't stop thinking about. So, though they've already been addressed in the discourse somewhat, I'm going to address them in a little more detail.

Now, full disclosure: I am not a member of the HP roleplaying community. But I do follow a lot of them, and I greatly respect and admire their creativity, dedication, and the welcoming and supportive community they've built.

I actually wanted to stay quiet about this until the decision was made precisely because I didn't want to appear to disrespect or derail a conversation in a community of creators that I don't belong to.

But as the decision is now made, and as I AM a fandom creator (fic, meta, very occasional graphics, art, and vids), I felt now was a good time to address some things about privacy on the internet that apply far beyond any one community, site, fandom, or type of fannish activity.

The first thing you need to know about privacy on the internet: There is no privacy on the internet.

I know that sounds extreme, but I'm serious. And I will elaborate. Because it's so worrying to see how many people--younger folks especially--don't realize that any concept of online privacy is tenuous at BEST, and depends greatly on most people just...deciding not to breach the unspoken social contract.

This idea is something I grew up with, because the internet was new when I was a kid and people were more wary. But the weight of that idea seems to be far less now.

It often seems as though--despite jokes about our personal NSA agents and overwhelming real-world evidence to the contrary--the false dichotomy of "online vs. IRL" has created this dangerous idea that online spaces are isolated from meatspace and safe in a way they're really, really not.

So to be clear: Anything publicly posted online can be seen by anyone, copied or saved, modified, and reposted anywhere. Are there laws that limit acceptable uses of others' photos, information, or intellectual property? Sure.

But they're woefully incomplete and under-enforced, so unless you can afford to retain a fantastic lawyer, good luck with that. I'm sure many artists, doxxing and catfish victims, and victims of revenge porn could attest to this.

Furthermore, no site HAS to ask your permission before writing an article about whatever online thing you're involved in. Regarding the recent discourse, it is SO LUCKY that the Buzzfeed employee in question was an ethical person who loves the roleplaying community.

Because they could not have been. God knows plenty of news outlets much bigger, older, and more supposedly more "credible" than Buzzfeed have written at length about fandom before, in less than complimentary ways, without consulting us at all.

Someone could decide tomorrow to write a shallow, derogatory article about HP roleplayers (or any fannish creative community) and ask NO ONE.

They could also link to any publicly available roleplay content they wanted, and there would be precious little anyone could do about it, beyond taking their content down, making it private, and/or asking that the link be removed (which isn't a guarantee).

But here's the second thing about privacy on the internet: The internet really is forever.

Anything can be saved or screenshot, and there are whole sites solely dedicated to trolling popular social media platforms and copying their content. There's a reason it can take up to six months to do an online identity scrub: it takes that long for all the copycat/aggregate sites to remove the content, assuming they ever do.

There is also metadata to consider. Timestamps, geotags, software info, IP addresses, usernames, emails...it's all over your photos and videos. Adobe Photoshop in particular adds a ton of metadata to anything you create with it. Lots of social media sites add their own metadata as well, whenever you upload. And it's impossible to 100% stop this or guarantee you've scrubbed it all.

As if that wasn't enough...everything you put online is being archived. Not might be or could be. IS. If by no one else, by the host sites themselves, as part of their backup/failover processes. How long are those archives saved, where do they go after that period, and who has access to them? You really don't know.

We hope old backups are stored securely and disposed of promptly and carefully. But we have no way of guaranteeing that.

Finally, the third thing to know about privacy and the internet: Privacy settings are not foolproof.

Anything marked private can be hacked. Site programmers can accidentally or intentionally change privacy settings at any time, without notifying their users. They have been doing this since the inception of social media.

Legacy social media sites like Xanga and MySpace had epic privacy snafus. Facebook has fucked up their privacy settings--and thus their users--multiple times over the years. AOL once created a public profile page for its users that was opt-out instead of opt-in...meaning their previously "private" info and statuses became public without the users' consent. And Tumblr recently did this with their attempted group chat feature, which didn't take user block lists properly into account.

Even leaving programmer incompetence/indifference aside, there is no such thing as a perfectly secure system...just one whose weak points haven't been found and exploited yet. Maybe you or your favorite social media site aren't likely targets...but that is far from any kind of guarantee. All it takes is one unscrupulous jerk (or self-righteous moral crusader) with a bug up their ass about you and basic googling skills.

None of this is meant to scare anyone. It's just fact. Privacy is one of the big trade-offs we all make for access to all the good things the internet has to offer. It gives us connectedness. Information. A way to share our creative efforts, new kinds of art, and even tools to increase our ability to create. Those are all great things, but they do come at a price.

To be fair, all forms of connectedness entail some sacrifice of privacy and the inherent risk that goes with it. But on the internet it's exponentially bigger, forever, and far less in your individual control than most people think.

It's important to know that, and make a conscious, informed decision about your online activity based on it. I know in today's world it seems like we don't have a choice sometimes, but we should still know the risks, protect ourselves as much as we can, and try to be prepared for any possible fallout. Trust me, it's far better than thinking you're perfectly safe and then being blindsided.

#privacy #social media #buzzfeed discourse #hp rp community #fandom #the internet #online community

[reconditarmonia]

Dear Rule 63 Author

(It’s finally happening! Thank you so much for signing up!)

I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3 (and have been since LJ days, but my LJ is locked down and I only have a DW to see locked things). I have anon messaging off, but, er, I can answer any questions you might have about my requests in my mod capacity if you contact the exchange email ;)

Fullmetal Alchemist | History Boys | Pride and Prejudice | Robin Hood | Spinning Silver

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one's situational or ethical judgment with someone else's, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships.

A note: I'm generally fine with "/" ships where the fic doesn't contain a kiss, overt declaration of love, etc. I'll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent and don't expect you to force in something that wouldn't fit the story.

About Rule 63 Exchange specifically: I have no strong preference for character names, with a slight preference for sticking with their canon names; it's up to you whether you want to justify any resulting names that would be unusual for women or just gloss over it. As far as characters' personalities and gender expression are concerned, you can tell from my requests that part of what interests me in most of the characters I requested is the question of what they and/or their relationships would be like in a world where they grew up as women, but I tend to want to see them as similar to their canon selves, just female. I'm probably fine with unrequested characters also being swapped to female, but feel free to check if you're not sure; please don't swap any female characters to male.

For this exchange, I've requested only fanfiction and only Always a 63, and with the exception of FMA, have requested non-smut (for FMA both smut and non-smut are good).

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Ship(s): F!Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye, F!Roy Mustang/F!Maes Hughes, F!Roy Mustang & Riza Hawkeye & F!Maes Hughes, F!Roy Mustang & F!Maes Hughes

I only recently started watching FMA:Brotherhood and I love it a lot. My fannish interests run towards military contexts, loyalty kink, idealistic/noble characters, and ambitious/pragmatic characters, so I'd love to read more about any of these combinations of people trusting one another to be the best person to do the job, or to know what to do, and risking a lot on that - whether that's on campaign in the war, when trying to get Roy up the chain of command, during the conflict with the homunculi... (I'm not yet up to the bit where Roy tells Riza he trusts her to shoot him in the back if he steps off the path, but it's been mentioned to me and it is my JAM.)

(My requests are fairly unspecific because as I write this I'm only about a quarter of the way through the anime. DO NOT worry about avoiding spoilers in the fic; I'm getting through the canon and can't wait to read whatever you want to write. Although I should specifically say, feel free to either have Hughes continue to be alive or stick to canon in this regard.)

Smut Likes: clothing, sexual tension, breasts, oral sex, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity

Fandom-Specific DNW: please avoid canon-typical loss of body parts. If writing Roy/Maes in a period when Maes would canonically be married to Gracia, please don’t kill her off or get into either infidelity angst or poly negotiation; an AU where they never married or the assumption of an open relationship are both fine.

—

Fandom: History Boys

Ship(s): F!Stuart Dakin/F!Tom Irwin, F!Entire Class & F!Tom Irwin, F!Entire Class & F!Douglas Hector

I'm dying to know what the cultural touchstones would be if this plot were about lesbians instead of gay men. Auden, for instance, keeps coming up in the play - Hector loves him, Dakin and the other students bring him up to feel out Irwin - Housman, Bette Davis in Now Voyager...so what's acceptable and/or eccentric Culture for lesbians to cling to, or to signal (or flirt, or come-on) with? Who are the writers and the icons? During canon(/pre-, if applicable with Hector) or post-canon Oxbridge-slash-TV-historian life, it's all great. I, like most of the fandom, do like the idea that Dakin and Irwin do make it work at some point, post-canon.

Although I acknowledge that female versions of these characters feeling shut out of the historical and literary Canon is a valid place to go with the concept (I mean, that's Mrs. Lintott's speech), I'm more interested in following through on the way that the canon (little-c) characters relate historical or literary figures and events to their own lives - whether that's using more female figures, or finding things to seize on and relate to in the male figures of the Canon (in a fuck-you women-are-like-this-too way or a gay way rather than a Great-Men-are-universally-relatable way, I suppose).

—

Fandom: Pride and Prejudice

Ship(s): Elizabeth Bennet/F!Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet/F!Charles Bingley

I would love to see how the basic narrative of P&P, or scenes from it, could play out, with period setting and some level of period attitudes, if either (or both) of the two main men are women looking for a "companion" or being pursued as a "companion," rather than as a husband. (Yes, I've been watching Gentleman Jack, but I've wanted this sort of thing for longer than that.)

To be clear, period attitudes can be "meh" rather than wall-to-wall homophobia; I'd just prefer to explore the implications of this change rather than supposing that same-sex marriage is accepted and everything about the plot is the same. If Jane, the eldest daughter to marry off, isn't interested in a heterosexual marriage? If Elizabeth turns down Collins without any expectation that a more suitable man could exist? (Having characters be bi rather than lesbian works too, I'm just throwing out some examples.) The significance of dancing, when in a formal dance context you'd encounter another woman in the dance but wouldn't be able to have her as a partner? Jane and Bingley being adorable, or Elizabeth and Darcy coming to revise their initial ill opinions of each other in this new context? Are the men a hot ticket for the women of Hertfordshire in the same way if they're women instead?

—

Fandom: Robin Hood (Traditional)

Ship(s): F!Robin Hood/F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & F!Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & Merry Men, F!Robin Hood & F!Little John, F!Robin Hood & Little John

Tell me about these people! A female outlaw commanding the loyalty of a mixed or male group -- or an all-female group of outlaws, how they live, what might have led them to choose that life. I'm also here for Robin Hood's relationship with her right-hand man/woman specifically, because I love loyalty kink -- people willing to go into danger for one another, the leader knowing how best to use her right hand's skills and strengths, what elements of formality might appear in, well, a very ad-hoc group. (And f!Little John would probably be hot.) If you're writing the Little John pairings, feel free to make the Merry Men either their canon versions or female versions.

I'd totally be into any of the f!characters crossdressing as men vis-à-vis the world at large, although if you go this route I'd rather have them not be in disguise to each other/to their own allies (so no Merry Men thinking they're being led by another man when it's crossdressing Robin, for instance - preferring masculine clothing/appearance even among friends is fine, though).

—

Fandom: Spinning Silver

Ship(s): F!Staryk Lord/Miryem Mandelstam

I love Miryem, and I'm so interested in the ways that making the Staryk Lord a woman would change Miryem's entry into the Staryk world and the romance that eventually develops between them. Maybe same-sex marriage is common among the Staryk, and that's one of the customs that are new and unfamiliar to Miryem in this new world. Would this be a Miryem who had never imagined being attracted to a woman before but comes to fall for the Staryk Lady, or one who simply couldn't have imagined being able to marry one and have that be a normal life? (For values of "normal" that include ice lands and gold magic!) How does the fact of the marriage being same-sex affect Miryem's initial understanding of it as a business arrangement, or for that matter, affect her understanding of the offer of queenship as a marriage at all? What makes them fall for each other?

Canon Miryem wonders what her role as queen is, thinking that she'd know about managing a household and having children and sewing if she were married to a human lord - is it the same if she has a fairy wife instead of a fairy husband, more so because there's not even the hope of a gendered complementarian aspect to fall back on, less so because the Staryk Lady is there as an example of what a female monarch in the Staryk lands does? Does Miryem try to be more like her, or to find her own accounting-powers-and-personal-bonds niche?

It's so important to canon Miryem to have a Jewish wedding with the Staryk Lord - what would that look like here? What happens when she comes back to the human world not only the queen of a magic country, but married to a woman (and in love with her, depending on when you set it)?

#dear author letters #fma #jane austen #spinning silver #robin hood #the history boys

[helshades]

Far from me to use the crude tumblr speech but, here I have to say, I believe you're "reaching" quite a bit. As much as i agree that a lot of people involved in fandom(s) have… unusual… taste… I'm skeptical about the idea that sexual fantasies have much to do with political or belief systems. One fantasy can be more or less encouraged, sure, but overall, the big ol' classics stay in fashion. Usually a variant of "what if something that's supposed to be horrible happened… and I liked it???"

Human beings are bizarro primates, after all, and if left to their own devices in the company of most inanimate objects, will probably try to either eat it or have sex with it, it’s true. Add to this the fact that bodice-ripping novels have been a thing for way too long for many of fandom’s twistier fantasies to look that new (although you can bet your sceptic arse that the whole Alpha-Beta-Omega item is a strictly postmodern horror) and you’re quite right in assuming that in spite of numerous variants, overall fannish forays into Sigmund Freud’s censored nightmares aren’t that original. On the other hand…

Nevertheless, I’ll contradict you on a few points:

When I was sardonically linking fandom’s most hive-minded tendencies to a certain state of contemporary society, and I used the term ‘liberalism’, I wasn’t either announcing my conversion to Trumpism or alluding to a system of beliefs, rather to a structural phenomenon pervasive in our Western societies—and one must never forget that politics is by essence a res publica: civic life, what is common to all in the public space, and on which all can operate equally provided that they concert… Fiction doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it reflects a great part of our current preoccupations, personal ones indeed, but also ones we’ve absorbed from social osmosis, you might say.

Liberalism in Occident isn’t a mere set of political beliefs so much as the default structure of our respective and common economies, dictating the way States interact with one another in regards to a common market. This is capitalism triumphant, where in the initial idea resisting absolutism has long dissolved into pretty antisocial individualism as social constraint has come to be perceived as the worst kind of oppression possible. This has to be conjugated with the rise of consumer society—which, symptomatically enough, doesn’t have a Wikipedia page—in the 1960s, whose core issue is that the desire for consumption eventually overrides most ethical principles.

Economy completely informs social interactions, and that includes the way we educate children, actually. Did you know that an entire social phenomenon and bona fide psychological condition happens to be a direct consequence of mass consumption? In French we know this as the ‘kid king’ issue, what happens when a whole society is encouraging parents to spoil and coddle children so much that they grow into adults incapable of handling frustration, or indeed any type of adversity. Bear with me, because this is actually fascinating:

▬ Human beings are in a way programmed to seek pleasure and flee discomfort; they instinctively seek to fulfil basic needs, and once these are satiated, try to find as much comfort as possible. Any human infant and young child is ruled by this principle of pleasure, and the role of education is to basically teach children the reality principle, that they aren’t alone in life, that others exist and have to be taken into account, that impulses have to be controlled; this is done essentially by setting limits for the little child not to cross. Balance between the two principles is paramount to the construction of the self.

▬ Psychological resilience pioneer Boris Cyrulnik commented on the fact that if animals regularly abused in their infancy tend to find themselves as adults at the bottom of the social scale since they’ve acquired a certain aptitude for subjection, those never exposed to aggression tend to stand outside the group because of their inaptitude to participate in socialising rituals. Yet, adversity is absolutely needed to set sane limits to one’s behaviour: deprived of any real frustration, a child will grow up still believing himself omnipotent, becoming hedonistic, selfish, egotistical; throwing tantrums at any opposition. Typically, these children end up suffering from attention disorders—with or without hyperactivity—anxiety issues, oppositional disorders…

▬ This is also an unplanned consequence of widespread contraception, as most children nowadays are born of the

desire

of their parents to have them meaning that family no longer makes the children as much as a child makes a family; the main problem being that as the immutable centre of his parents’ attention, a child tends to become a perpetual consumer of everything that a society of mass consumption is ready to provide to keep him sated in his own desires. French psychologist (specialist of cognitive immaturity) Didier Pleux listed the ‘five Os’ of the overattentive parents: overconsumption, overstimulation, overestimation, overprotection and overcommunication; the parents will spoil their child with toys and sometimes food, seek to keep him busy at all times because boredom is perceived as yet another form of violence (but it is crucial in the development of creativeness), laud every single of his realisations, prevent him from making any real effort and prioritise his expression (letting him interrupt others when they speak, for instance) at all times.

▬The thing is, contemporary society harasses all of us with the injunction to consume, perpetually, at every opportunity, and in the case of good-willed parents it furnishes with the means to spoil their children just as advertisement convinces them that if they don’t cater to their every supposed need, they’ll be bad parents.

▬The phenomenon, because that type of behaviour, essentially consumerist, was being so encouraged by the rise of neoliberalism (a more aggressive form of that rapidly-globalising capitalism), quickly snowballed into public education, and I can tell you, most especially because I used to teach for a living, that in France a whole educative system got based on the notion that collective education would be better off if it was made to cater to the personal needs of pupils—but this is a can of worms to be opened on another day, preferably one when my cold has abated and I’ve stopped sneezing my brain away all over my keyboard.

Believe it or not, I’m not digressing that much. We are the grandchildren of the first mass consumers and the kid-king phenomenon is a Generation Y thing. My generation is having children of its own. Most importantly, this is the generation that got to grow up with the Internet first, meaning that we were born in a very, very different world. You noted that fandom fantasies aren’t really unheard of and I concur, but I’d argue that the Internet allowed for fantasies to be shared on a massive scale and amplified into becoming cultural phenomena that have much to do with group emulation. Psychologically and sociologically, it’s pretty fascinating, too: there is this uncanny collection of intensely personal feelings, really intimate stuff, stuff that used to be considered private (for some good reasons and a couple bad ones as well, I suppose), now exposed very publicly on the ground basis that the Internet preserves a certain anonymity—which isn’t untrue, mind you, unless you carelessly sign into one of those many websites and applications that syphon your data and manipulate your online browsing, but I digress again (if only a bit).

Sexuality has become incredibly public, as of late. Let me remind you that there are political movements asking governments to give an official status to their sexual habits (or lack thereof, in the case of ‘asexuality’) or, more aggressively, their feelings. Sorry, folks, but that’s the whole basis for the ‘transgender’ movement, and as far as I’m concerned people may live as they choose but I’m not entirely certain that the State has a rightful place in this? Anyway, the frontier between ‘private’ and ‘public’ has been melting, unfortunately so, and most of this must have to do that Western societies have been considerably depoliticised over the last few years, inasmuch as we’ve been rapidly losing our means of popular representation, decent public information, or generally civil services, due to an overabundance of capitalism, precisely.

Sex in fanfiction… it’s not quite sex in fiction, either. Oh, granted, there’s quite enough raunchy literature out there to make you doubt, but the particularity of fanfiction is that most works are an ongoing affair between an author and her readers, who often swap places, very much informed by public demand, meant to cater to very specific desires. In that, it’s not too different from many a published novel, albeit not the best ones probably, only fanfiction is… unbridled. But that’s not actually the point.

The point is, simply, that fanfiction is a cultural product issued from a certain period in time and it reflects part of the expectations of a society; because its producers are mostly young women, it has a lot to tell on the mechanisms of a modern young woman’s psyche—I can tell you it contains a lot of misogyny, for one, if not even gynecophobia…—but it also proposed a certain picture of the modern world that acts a little too much as a two-way mirror for my intellectual comfort. It’s not that every single writer of a Baby-Daddy kinkfic is going to develop paedophilic tendencies growing up, but one, although one mustn’t indulge in full-blown paranoia either, one absolutely has to consider the fact that sexual pleasure is the most powerful incentive out there. For realsies, I mean, it’s actually one of the most prominent arguments to be made against pornography, because we know its devastating neurological effects for regular consumers, who rapidly become incapable of dissociating the unrealistic portrayal, notably, of women, to the detriment of all real-life relations and rapports male consumers of porn could have with women. Sex rewires the brain with exceptional efficiency, because it’s linked directly to our reward system and programs us to want more of the pleasurable thing.

I assure you there’s no pearl clutching in remarking that pornographic fiction written by fans can have enormous influence on the budding sexuality of young people in a day and age where we have this paradoxical relationship to sexuality as a social concept: on the one hand, it’s absolutely everywhere and even children can’t escape it, since magazines and clothings brands do their worst to groom them into mini-pimps, sexy baby Barbie dolls and overall future (antisocial) disasters; on the other hand, we seem to have somehow revolved into the most shameful anti-intellectualism possible, and nobody needs to bother being rational anymore, and adults make desperate attempts to look like kids for fear of growing old, and they act like it, too.

I’m ending this long-arse comment on an anonymous post just sent to me, which is bound to ignite some… conversation as well:

I’m reluctant to make this point publicly for a myriad of reasons (mostly my own cowardice), but I think the then-concurrent rise of the Brony fandom, more specifically futa porn and its prevalence in adult male MLP “fans” has had a larger impact on current transwoman narratives.

I’ll be waiting patiently on the sides with a hot drink to see my followers count drop again, I reckon.

#answers #nonnies #fanning the fandom #long post #this is a readmore-cut hate blog #i don't believe in half measures #go big or go home #and go take some ibuprofen while you're at it #ouchie

[mild-lunacy]

The Fan Rebellion and the Status Quo

I've talked about people's problems with endings before in a more general sense, but I think the issue is twofold. One, people are often frustrated that the narrative ends too abruptly, and every single t isn't crossed, and the i not dotted. Usually this is about a lack of emotional 'resolution' or emotional pay-off for the audience, though essentially this is about a lack of fluff. Two, people complain that the resolution they *did* get was OOC or stylistically and genre dissonant. That is, something about the series changed too drastically for them to allow or enjoy.

I guess as a bonus, there's three: disapproving of the story's final ethical judgment or the social stance inherent in the narrative (mostly to do with issues of minority and female representation and the lack thereof). Sometimes people suspend judgment until the end, and then some magical diversity quota fails to be reached. Fandom's answer at that point is either to canonize a transformative reading that's not actually factual (as I ranted about recently), pretending the series is actually better/different than what is actually canon (see: POC!Ronan Lynch or gay!Sherlock), or to decide it's always been pure trash. To be clear, my issue isn't disagreement with the underlying readings or their ethics, necessarily, but distaste for moralistic immaturity and the absolutist, black and white thinking involved.

In general, fandom seems to think it's a great idea to have the characters talk about their feelings a lot, especially after big plot things happen. I'm not really surprised, 'cause this is a natural emotional need in people, especially many women, and it's related to the discussion about the typical 'warm fuzzy' type of reader, as opposed to the more understated 'cold-prickly' aesthetic. I just can't help but note that many of these fans are writers themselves. Surely it's still clear to more analytical readers or viewers that some things are good to leave for the reader to figure out or imagine by themselves, given there's all the necessary tools and hints that were previously established? Surely it's an accepted fact that the audience should be able to think for themselves, even if emotionally we'd prefer 'warm paste'? Well, apparently not.

At the same time, I don't want to completely discount people's manifold concerns as the desire for 'warm paste', as Gatiss had at one point. As I said, with HP and Captive Prince, the overly definitive fluffiness of the epilogue was a problem for some (even though the story didn't overly process any feelings nor over-explain any plot developments). Naturally, it's not that you're ever somehow obliged to enjoy the epilogue and/or the resolution of any story, whether or not it's definitive (and either way, people will complain). I guess fandom is the space where complaints naturally go to be processed, so I just see more of it than there would be in the overall reading public.

I'm just interested in how people process fiction, and I enjoy seeing patterns in it. Fans (even experienced and analytical fans) seem very invested in stylistic consistency to a degree that seems a bit over-the-top to me, though, considering that change and development is part of the nature of fiction. However, not liking the fluffiness or definitiveness (or alternatively, abruptness) of the ending is one thing. Being so disappointed that in one's judgment, the story *failed* somehow rather than not being to one's taste is a different thing entirely. Basically, even sophisticated and analytically-minded fans are frequently of the mindset that ignores a story's own goals or direction in favor of their own needs and personal headcanons when making judgments. Surely the idea of what's 'in-character' in the first place becomes hard to hold on to when one can't trust oneself to be making even a somewhat impartial analysis.

Aside from my own subjective frustration as a fellow fan and meta writer here, I really am interested in the underlying competing ideas of what kind of resolution is necessary and 'right'. Clearly, there's a lot more of an established idea that there should be a lot more talking after the big plot denouement, or fans tend to think the worst of a beloved character (which definitely happened with John in Series 4). We read a lot of fanfic, where such warm-fuzzy style talking is the point, and I think we *prefer* it to the point where 'normal' or professional writing seems inadequate rather than just different to many fans. That's probably why people are so quick to say they know the characters better than the creator(s), and fic in general is better than the show. The preference for open endings that some fans have for fanfic purposes, and the reason the HP epilogue was so unpopular, is actually related even if it's contrary to the desire for more overtly verbalized emotional resolution on the surface. Either way, it follows from the idea that the fanfic aesthetic is superior. It's easy to mistake one's preferences for some kind of natural rule of writing, especially because writing and acting isn't a sport or science, and has no obvious objective measure.

The preference for consistency is definitely a typical fannish thing even outside Tumblr fandom. Fans always rebel when the creators reboot or adapt anything differently, kill off any characters or change their roles, etc. Fans tend to prefer the status quo (unless the improvement is social justice and diversity related: then the response will usually, though not always depend on one's political orientation). Creators tend to live to mess with it. And never the twain shall meet, I suppose.

#fandom meta #narrative #writing #me myself and i #pointless rambles #captive prince #raven cycle #raven ❤️ #reader response #sherlock feels

[trisscar368]

11:11

@chiisana-sukima and @to-my-beloved-fandoms both tagged me to do ye olde answer 11/ ask 11/ tag 11 game, so... 22 whole questions, wheee.  This got painfully long, so it’s under the cut.

1. Would you rather live in space or under the ocean?
  There’s so many options here I can’t even... I’m throwing other planets and the ability to return to the surface out of the window.

If I get to breathe underwater via some odd technological advance, I’m taking the ocean.  If it’s an underwater habitat, I require windows, tropical waters, and lots of life forms.

Modern space ships or stations I’m opting out of, just for general health concerns and space issues.  Now, if we throw large space stations, potentially with low g rotating reference frames and the ability to indulge in a little parkata urbatsu, well...

2. If you could do any occupation, without having to worry about practical concerns, what would it be?  
I’m going to be completely random and say designing and planting hedge mazes.

3. What are your five favorite fic tropes? (I would’ve said “one favorite”, but I can never pick, so I figure its likely no one else can either) Mutual pining, hurt/comfort, slow burn, I’m rather fond of witch!AUs, and I’m going to put crack in as the last one.


4. What’s something that annoys you terribly that other people you know don’t seem to mind? 
 I have issues with sound; I’ve never been to a doctor, so I still frequently debate what the proper diagnosis would be (misophonia?  hyperacusis?  i’m just plain weird?), but I am perpetually annoyed with the radios when I go shopping.

5. Is there something you’re too afraid to try?
  *stares blankly for a minute* I’m going to go with bungee jumping, because I could probably be talked into parachuting.

6. What’s your favorite swear word? How often do you say it? I don’t know that I have one favorite; I have a very bad habit of absorbing whatever fictional work I’m currently engaged in, so I end up wandering around muttering rather ridiculous things: “Oh Shards,” “Frith up a tree,” “vhaid,” “Iau take it.”  Or I get stuck in Russian, or French.  I have been particularly fond of “fuck you and the horse you came in on” this week for some reason.

7. What was the first thing you got intensely fannish over? 
Probably Star Wars, my parents started us very young.

8. What’s your favorite disposition for bad guys in stories? (i.e. dead, in prison, reformed, etc)
  Depends on the villain, depends on what they’ve done.  If it’s a properly intelligent bad guy, I’m always happy to see them in prison or reformed, because it’s a pity to waste a clever character.  If they’re dumb or if they’ve crossed certain lines, then dead is good too.

9. Rock, paper or scissors?
  ... as part of the game or as real world weapons, because I tend to throw paper but rock would probably be the most lethal option.

10. What’s your favorite joke?
  I don’t really have one so I’m just going to leave this here

11. What’s your favorite pokemon? (If you only know pikachu, pick pikachu, lol)  I’m rather fond of my Vaporeon

1.) Would you rather Hogwarts or Wonderland be real?  Wonderland has less terrifying implications for the real world, but Hogwarts has dragons, so...

2.) What age did you have your first crush?  11ish?

3.) What type of style do you have? ( fashion wise)  Comfortable, doesn’t stain, not delicate, mostly muted or dark colors.

4.) Fave book to read? If not, then movie? I don’t reread a lot anymore.  Tolkien comes off of the shelf a lot if I can’t sleep.

5.) If you had two pills in front of you, one that is blue and can make you be able to forget a painful event, and another pill, a yellow one, that could make you bring anyone back from the dead, which would you choose and why?  I... I don’t have a good answer for this one.  The only event I would choose to forget involves a death, and working through that is a knotwork of ethics that I don’t want to think through right now.

6.) If you have to choose, are you a snake person or a shark person?  I have a corn snake, he’s presently trying to get out of his tank.  I like sharks plenty, but snakes are Friends.

7.) Are you are full face makeup person or a no face makeup person?  I rarely do makeup, it’s just too much fuss.

8.) What character would you want to marry, be best friends with, and bring back from the dead?  Uhm.  *stares blankly*  Well I want Ten back as the Doctor, I’d like to befriend all of TFW, and I’ve not got a single notion for a character to marry...

9.) Are you a Doctor Who fan? That’s... complicated.  I was raised with stories about Doctor Who, because my Dad was a fan of the old show.  I heard stories about the Doctor facing off against all these monsters when I was a little girl, and then the show came back in 2005... I was sitting on the edge of the couch bouncing, because it was the Doctor.  I fell in love with Eccleston’s Doctor, and then with Tennant’s... and then I slowly fell out of love with the show when Moffat took over.  I stopped watching after they reintroduced Missy as a character.  I’ll still dip into classic Who if it’s showing late at night, and I know waaaay too much for the years I did watch, but I’m not a fan of the current show.  I generally refer to myself as a lapsed Whovian.

10.) What is your sexuality and when did you figure out you were that? ( if not out yet/ not comfy replying) Then do you support the LGBT+ community? I’m demi, which was a rather recent (it’s not a discovery, but labeling isn’t exactly the right word... nor is decision... English why dost thou fail me).  Demi-what is still a question.  *makes vaguely frustrated noises at the logistics of trying to define something that’s rarely there*

11.)  Are you a Fall weather, hot cider, and haunted houses person? Ehh... I like fall colors, I adore spiced cider, I’ve never done a haunted house, but cold weather means miserable Triss.

@jimminovak, @chiisana-sukima, @hazeldomain, @totidem-verbis, @spnyoucantkeepmedown, @k6034, @godbriel, @formidablepassion @treefrogie84 @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell, @madamelibrarian have at ye!

1.  If you had to choose a city to move to, where would you go?

2.  What is the weirdest/crackiest fic you’ve ever read?

3.  What was the story you always wanted to hear/watch as a child?

4.  If you had to learn a martial art, which one would you study?

5.  Have you ever traveled somewhere just for the food?  If so, what was it, and was it worth the trip?

6.  Given the choice between hovercars or everyone owning self-driving vehicles, which future would you prefer?

7.  What is your favorite kind of cookie?

8.  What would you teach a friend’s parrot to say?

9.  What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever researched for a fic or project (school included)?

10.  Do you have any pets (children don’t count)?

11.  What is your favorite historical period?

#tag game #long post #not spn #probably more about me than you wanted to know

[rtffanculture]

Tumblr Reading Response: Option #1 (Busse)

In the article “The Ethics of Studying Online Fandom”, Kristina Busse discusses many issues of being an acafan in the online community, such as those of consent, forms of potential harm, and problems with permission and personal bias. She uses her own experiences to raise questions of how to determine what are the best practices in the online community so that one may be morally conscious while also being academically sufficient. As said in her words, “all of these theoretical concerns are ever present to fan researchers as they balance responsibility both to the fans and to the scholarship, to the community and some arbitrary sense of truth” (Busse 1).

Busse explains that she actively uses a “fans first” guideline in her studies, but that often interferes with her academic intentions (Busse 1). Although it may interfere, I agree with the “fans first” idea. In order to maintain respect as a fan, academic and human being, I believe it is important to treat online texts as people first and get consent. Ignoring the personal nature of online texts and treating it as only a piece of information feels almost inhuman and ignorant; the potential harm that could come to a person (such as interrupting their personal life in any negative way) should outweigh the benefit of the information in their specific text. If consent is not possible and the information in the text is crucial to the research, I believe anonymity is the best option. In conclusion, treating online texts with generosity and care should be the initial concern. If you are not regarded as a courteous human, it will be difficult for people to respect you as a scholar. In the matter of personal bias, I believe the safest option is the avoid texts that you have a heavy hand in, if possible. Also, in order to attempt to separate the academic from the fan, one must begin their research by acknowledging the parts of the fandom they are studying that are controversial. Ignoring these aspects is a sure way to let the personal bias overtake the academic research. It is difficult to recognize bias, but in order to an academic, you must be mindful of the amount of questionable aspects you are avoiding in a fandom.

Overall, I believe that consent and respect are crucial best practices in an acafan work. Being a fan, you should respect others boundaries due to having insight into their online world and recognizing the difference between an online identity and real world identity. Along with that, the academic aspect of an acafan should learn to recognize their fannish bias; the dissonance in a fandom is an important aspect to talk about, so that meaningful issues in the fandom world are no longer ignored. 

Busse, Kristina. The Ethics of Studying Online Fandom. The Routledge Companion to Media Fandom. Edited by Melissa A. Click and Suzanne Scott. Routledge, 1 November 2017.

#hazelwoodhufflepuff

[aeide-thea]

[a gripe abt a thing in a fic, you’ve been warned]

ohhhhhh my god how do you write a/b/o fic ft a cafe with scantily-clad omega waitstaff and then include a bit in it where one of them gets his back up because he’s gotten the impression that the customer is a K-12 teacher and is creeped out by the idea of someone who ~works with kids~ visiting an establishment like his (which, to be clear, is staffed entirely by adults) in their off-time????

like the author is literally as per the endnote working on a graduate degree. do they think it’s only appropriate for adults to work with children if said adults are literally asexual. i’m so baffled and annoyed by this framing!!

#and like. obviously characters’ views aren’t necessarily the author’s #but like. come on. the way the romance genre *works* is that yr leads don’t actually do things you think people will find unforgivable #like if they’re rude it gets *framed* as rude à la pride and prejudice #anyway. ugh. #anyway obviously people get to write whatever they want and i get to backbutton #which i did #but i also get to come complain about it in my own space :) #Fannish Ethical Concerns

[aeide-thea]

[consent in fiction, content warnings]

i started to make a post abt this earlier and then scrapped it, but like, long and boring details aside, i guess really what i'm still thinking about is the way in which content warnings are, probably inevitably, sometimes so insufficient as to be actively worse than nothing—

like, okay, the specific thing i encountered this morning was a fuck-or-die sex pollen fic tagged as 'no archive warnings apply,' which is obviously, uh, debatable, given that the trope is kind of inherently dub-con at best, but the author had tagged for 'sex pollen' and 'fuck or die,' so i guess those individual tags do give readers a sufficient-if-not-generous heads-up that, like, here be dragons or whatever… but then i actually read the fic in question, bc while i feel neutral abt the trope i've often liked this author's work in the past, and like, the actual consent issue that fucked me up a little was that the sex pollen wasn't just an organic phenomenon or lab accident or whatever, as often, but rather deliberately inflicted on the leads, and not by yr run-of-the-mill Evil Experimenters/Torturers/what-have-you, but rather by… the narrator's ex's sisters, as payback for… his ex's having broken up with him???

which, fine, whatever, people sometimes do fucked up shit and you can certainly include that in a story; but the love interest's reaction to discovering this is just to be 'amused,' while the narrator is like, i'm just relieved my ex is still willing to talk to me! which again, fine, whatever, people do shrug off serious violations of their autonomy out of a desire to maintain social bonds, that also isn't unrealistic or unreasonable to portray in a fic; but that entire aspect of the situation got literally less than 2% of the fic's whole word count devoted to it, i guess because we're in Romance Land where the only thing allowed to have actual emotional weight is intra-relationship developments, and anything outside that context is just meaningless scaffolding, even if in real life it would be a pretty fucking big deal, and probably pretty traumatizing, to find out your ex's family had literally poisoned you???

anyway, sorry, i guess i couldn't restrain myself from going into excruciating detail after all, but tl;dr it's just like. it frankly made me feel much weirder to encounter that plot point in a context where other, more familiar dubcon tropes had been warned for, because it made me feel much more uncertain that the author actually recognized it was an issue! i'd have preferred it if they'd just slapped an 'author chose not to use archive warnings' on the whole thing!

[cw for discussion of a fictional depiction of deliberately painful sex]

reminds me of a fic that fucked me up much more a while back, where a character had consented to sex and consented, too, to poorly-defined punishment, but the form the punishment ended up taking was deliberately-careless penetration that caused the character pain on purpose, and neither the character nor i were braced for that, and while i guess you maybe couldn't say it needed a noncon label, because technically both sex and punishment had been agreed to, it definitely was like. while you-the-author may technically have your bases covered here in a legalistic way, this was definitely a pretty deliberate bait-and-switch that was triggering both for the character it happened to and for me! and like. was it effective as a reading experience? honestly, yeah! i got an emotional journey out of it that really mirrored the character's—method reading, if you will. but do i still resent that author for it, literal years later? also yeah.

anyway i guess basically the thing is like. i'd much rather know i'm venturing into unknown territory and be on my metaphorical toes, than have situations like the above where like, everything is supposedly safely tagged, but the author's standards for that aren't the same as yours, and then something slides between the cracks to sting you?? like, i'm (hopefully obviously) not opposed to content warnings, and do typically provide them on this blog, but there's an extent to which it's like. a guardrail that gets dislodged when you put any actual weight on it is more dangerous, actually, than a wholly unfenced drop…

#(me: nah it's okay‚ i should just set that reading experience aside and move on‚ no need to bore ppl) #(also me‚ later the same day: actually it turns out i have to write like 700 words about it or i'll die) #(sigh. thx for bearing with me!) #Fannish Ethical Concerns

[aeide-thea]

there's a thing i've noticed with some w*tcher dead dove fics i've seen, where authors aren't content to add specific warnings (maybe topped with some variation of DD:DNE for 'no really, this gets dark, don't say you weren't warned' emphasis), but will further tack on an editorializing comment along the lines of '[perpetrator character] is not a good person in this'; and like, fair enough, i guess, if pressed i probably wouldn't disagree, but it also just seems—awfully reductive? like—if someone's story can be adequately summed up as 'this person is Bad,' why do you need to tell the whole story? why should i bother to read it? isn't a lot of the point of fiction for adults about, you know, exploring complexity and grey areas and slippery slopes and how people and situations develop, even—maybe especially—in fucked up ways, and about considering difficult themes at greater length and in more depth than just, like, fast-forwarding to a kids'-fable-style Moral of the Story?

[eta: a couple of people have suggested in comments that editorializing of the sort described above may be intended as a preemptive defense against accusations of character bashing (like, ‘heads up that X isn’t a good person in this story, so if you only want to read stories where they’re portrayed positively, this won’t be for you’); i obviously hadn’t initially made that connection, but it seems pretty plausible to me, and puts something of a different complexion on the phenomenon.]

#honestly i think also it annoys me in the same way DNIs annoy me #in that like #if you don't trust me to have the Right Reactions to what you're putting out there #why do you trust that i'm going to have the Right Reaction just because you tell me to #either i'm capable of reading words and drawing reasonable conclusions from them‚ or i'm not #anyway. in some ways a minor pt but like. why are you putting training wheels on shit that's clearly not for ppl who need training wheels #'make sure you fap critically!!' #ahem. #having said all that‚ as ever i'm open 2 reasoned pushback on this if anyone has any #Fannish Ethical Concerns #bookblogging #waiting for the edition of tolkien that comes labeled 'warning: sauron is not a good person in this' #or like. history books abt irl fascist regimes with analogous labels #at a certain point you have to be able to draw yr own conclusions and analyze things in more nuanced ways! #okay i'm done for real now lol

[aeide-thea]

just saw a fic tagged ‘don't read unless you're 18+ thanks’ and i gotta say i’m extremely not a fan of that sort of attempt at controlling who even looks at yr stuff???

like. say it’s got explicit sex in it. fine. say you’re not comfortable hearing from any minors who might read yr story, and if any commenters mention being underage you’ll block them. fine. but like. you posted a thing on the public internet?? it’s not even archive-locked?? idk. i get that fic is more of a social peer group thing than tradpub but like. idk. tag your shit. let minors lurk and partake as they so choose. set boundaries around how they interact with you.

idk. this isn’t an especially well-articulated protest, i realize—i guess it’s just, basically i think that DNIs are an offputting, naive attempt at exerting more control over other people than is reasonable, and that the sort of thing they try to preemptively address is better handled by keeping a finger ready on the block button; and that’s as true on AO3 as it is here on tumblr.

#like (a) when i was a minor i would’ve silently read yr fic anyway #(b) thanks for the heads up that you’re like this so i know to give you a wide berth‚ i guess! #Fannish Ethical Concerns

[aeide-thea]

[cw for fictional age of consent discussion]

literally just ran across a fic tagged both ‘underage’ and ‘[younger character] is 18 in this fic’ which just has me like. bzuh. how old do characters have to get at this point before ppl stop classifying them as ~minors~????

#having said that apparently there ARE places (bahrain for one) where the age of consent IS actually 21 #which i gotta say is wild to me #thumb typing all this so not gonna get into a whole extended discussion #but like. i feel like by the time yr in college the potential for harm isn’t so much abt age per se #as it is abt whether someone treats you decently—which like. at that point that’s the same risk we all take #anyway i guess i just do think that the urge to frame age as a minor-adult binary rather than a continuum of maturation #is not actually great in that it means ppl get framed as coddled babies one day and expected to function as Full Adults the next #without any kind of onramp to practice getting up to speed on #anyway if you have Concerns abt my position here you can always ask for clarification #but like. i hope we all understand what i mean and what i don’t mean by the above. #Fannish Ethical Concerns #i guess #if ‘actually i think this is harmfully overzealous’ counts as an Ethical Concern!

[aeide-thea]

[cw for description/discussion of a story ft. dubcon painful sex that fucked me up a couple of years ago, lol]

re-stumbled upon the one geraskier fic that’s, uh, decidedly up there as far as fics that have ever made me feel Significantly Fucked Up for a bit, and noticed it had gotten an additional tag after someone else wrote in to (v. gently) complain, but imo is still undertagged—

like, basically the situation in the fic as i remember it is that they’re engaging in a spot of undernegotiated fantasy medieval bdsm as a way for G to make amends to J, whom he’s hurt and humiliated—and like, it’s a complex, well-written fic, it wouldn’t have fucked me up if it weren’t, but personally, i don’t look at this set of tags

and feel prepared for ‘J deliberately and unexpectedly causes G pain via penetration, as a combination of revenge and trust exercise’???[which is, imo, fucked up—imo when yr seeking revenge in the context of an intimate relationship it’s yr cue to step back, take a deep breath, and find a different approach to resolution—but like, it’s fine (in fact probably actively good!) to write a story where ppl behave in fucked up ways; that part feels like a real sort of thing people do to one another and isn’t anything i take issue with.] idk, i started this post prepared to be more deprecating abt how unjustified my reaction had probably been, but actually looking at this set of tags i really do still think it’s undertagged! nowhere in ‘light bondage’ and ‘brief dubcon’ is ‘deliberate infliction of pain’ implied.

like, honestly maybe this fic should’ve been CNTW! it’s got that energy and i think the element of surprise is in fact part of the point and i think it’s effective, and honestly if it’d been CNTW i would probs have read it anyway! but i’d feel more like it was my own damn fault for poking my nose in, and less righteously indignant.

(also like… i explicitly didn’t say ‘triggering’ at the beginning of this post bc i never feel like i get to say that abt sex stuff Really and certainly this didn’t map tidily onto the exact bad sexperiences i have had, but if we’re being very honest i kind of do think this story was in fact triggering in some not-totally-obvious ways and that’s part of, maybe all of, why i felt so fucked up about it… anyway i realize this is probably a ‘duh’ sort of thing to add and everyone else was ahead of me there but like. for the record.)

anyway in non-conclusion one last thing in play for me here was definitely that there are varieties of pain that feel obviously potentially sexy and fun to me, and others that don’t, and this is definitely the latter! and like, that’s also true to the POV experience of it, it’s not fun or sexy pain, it’s an exercise in accepting rough, careless treatment and so is reading the fic! and that’s valid but i don’t want to be treated that way! being treated that way is frankly meta-triggering!

in actual conclusion it’s a pretty powerful, effective story but i really do think it’s undertagged. but also—of the two existing comments to that effect, only the obsequiously apologetic one got any response: the other one went totally unacknowledged. and i’m pretty uninterested in having to pad a protest that much—feels bad, scoob! hence just processing it here.

#literally i read this like. years ago. left an impression though! #i mean clearly bc this sure got long‚ oops #anyway i guess this gets filed under #Fannish Ethical Concerns #not about the existence of the fic even a little bit‚ i hope that goes without saying! just abt the tagging.

[aeide-thea]

not sure i have enough fannish ppl following me to really strike up a conversation abt this, and in any case i don't typically add reviews to my AO3 bookmarks so i don't have a dog in this fight, but—bookmarks aren't, like, bonus comments for authors? they're reader-to-reader communication, and honestly as such it seems... not unreasonable to me that people might note on a given bookmark 'liked X about this, didn't love Y'?

[eta: given the ways in which i have since learned that bookmark text is in fact dangled in front of authors—opt-in(?) email notifs, but also a prominent link on the metrics page—i largely retract the above thought, and will just say: i wish there were good public online space(s) for non-author-centered critical discussion of fanworks by readers for an audience of fellow readers. i've always valued that sort of discussion as part of a non-fannish reading practice, and wish it were more available within fandom.]

#like i know the norm is increasingly 'don't say anything in public that isn't overtly positive' and in practice i more or less follow that #but—idk. kind of feels like‚ as an author‚ the feedback that's meant for you is in your comments #and discussion that happens outside yr comments is for other people? #idk. presumably the folks complaining abt this would still agree that it's reasonable to include a note abt -isms in a given fic #(i hope anyway) #which would presumably similarly piss off an author whose work was thus labeled! #and i mean. i can understand saying 'politeness is paramount—until it's a question of bigotry‚ at which pt politeness goes out the window' #but i do kind of think that talking abt stories is harder if you can't ever talk abt things that don't work for you #anyway idk. valid maybe to say 'you can talk in generalities‚ just not specifics!' #i don't have a defined stance on this one but it does kind of feel like. authors are going and looking at spaces not meant for them #and then getting their feelings hurt in ways that arguably they brought on themselves? #but like. i definitely resemble that remark so i do have sympathy! just contemplating. #Fannish Ethical Concerns #(i guess is the relevant tag although 'ethical' seems maybe a hair strong in this case)