Marvel's AU Kids

Because there are a LOT Gecko has multiplied! I am now kiragecko AND marvelsaukids! (I couldn’t handle the multiple bodies and now I’m just kiragecko again!)

[moipale]

tarik's "Uh, why is there a drone in my face?" on page 55 of system collapse made me laugh SO hard because. there was nothing in murderbot's narration to suggest it had been getting any closer than usual; it was just focusing on tarik as it might on any other person in the shuttle. does this mean that when murderbot is focusing on somebody it's been shoving drones in their faces this whole time? were the presaux crew just too polite to tell mdb to give em some space???? murderbot.

[marvelsaukids]

The PresAux crew is focused on Murderbot's Sense of Safety and Mental Comfort. Murderbot Being House Trained is very low on the list of priorities!

Also, they GAVE it those drones! Those are their Thank You and You Are Valuable Drones!

There is a very low chance that they are enforcing proper personal space boundaries with Murderbot. This is why it needs other friends. Unconditional acceptance is super important!

But so is 'These Are Called Manners, and they make things much easier for everyone.'

[joestrummen]

i didnt realise ao3 was started in response to lj deleting account relating to p//edophi|ia and they explicitly support the posting of such works yikes

[tomato-greens]

it wasn’t, like, ~~~we luv pedophilia, it was way more complicated than that!

although it’s true AO3 does allow all fannish content provided it’s properly warned for, there’s a long history there - of spaces being used by fans until the host decided whatever we were doing was too weird and distasteful and either kicking us off, banning certain content, or changing the nature of the site until it was no longer viable as a host.

you’re referring to the LJ Strikethrough of 2007, which, being an ancient crone, I lived through, and since I was hanging out in the last vestiges of SGA and in bandom, I saw some of the fallout. this was before LJ was sold to the Russians (which is a whole ‘nother story), when it was still owned by Six Apart; in an effort to clean up LJ’s act, Six Apart decided to delete all accounts using tags like underage, incest, rape, etc.

this was supposed to get rid of actual child porn on the site, and I hope it did, but it also targeted fan communities. this was a problem for a couple reasons; for one thing, not every story tagged with these words is in favor of them; for another, these things happen to real people and these personal posts were also potentially in danger of being attacked; for the last one, look, I ain’t into this kind of fic but people write about what people write about, and if it’s fictional and not explicitly banned in the TOS (correct me if I’m wrong; I don’t think written content about this stuff was banned?) then it’s not cool for a content host to just start deleting communities without warning.

but that’s what happened! these deletions were also primarily targeting slash communities, which smacked of some serious homophobia since things were deleted that had nothing to do with any of this kind of content.

eventually someone found out it was this super conservative religious group who’d sent a list of journal names to Six Apart, and who if I remember correctly targeted slash fic on purpose, even after it became clear that the fic was, well, totally fictional. after a while, Six Apart admitted they’d made a mistake and started to reinstate journals, but all of fandom was pretty shaken up.

THEN Boldthrough happened, which was essentially the same debacle several months later, at which point fandom began its long slow migration from LJ to GJ, IJ, and eventually AO3, Twitter, and tumblr.

AO3 was opened in 2008 in response to several incidents, of which Strikethrough was a really intense one. remember, also, that back in 2008 the stigma surrounding fandom was significantly greater and more shameful than it is today, so finding hosts willing to archive fic was difficult unless someone had the dough to pay for server space - often not an option. this was also back when fanfic.net’s HTML restrictions were so great that users couldn’t use any special characters or bold or italicize anything, and it didn’t allow R-rated content, so it was clearly not ideal. in addition, although cease & desist letters were much less common than they were in the early 2000s and before, DMCA takedowns were still a phantom on the horizon.

LONG STORY SHORT, even though pedophilia is reprehensible and I personally cannot stomach fanfic that involves that kind of content, AO3 was founded specially as a safe space for fandom communities that could not find homes elsewhere. it requires warnings precisely for that reason, and if you find a story that is not properly warned, you can alert the admins and get the story labeled appropriately.

IDK, maybe it’s just because I am, again, ancient, but I was in and around fandom before homosexuality was legal in all 50 states. so were most of the people who started AO3. for most of my formative life, being gay was associated with pedophilia, and so was writing about gay characters. just - it’s a lot more complicated than you might expect, and there’s a reason many older fans who have been involved in several generations of fandom were so grateful to have AO3 as an option.

[beatrice-otter]

I don’t read, for example, Hydra Trash Party fics.  They squick me, and I generally feel they are pretty gross.  But writing noncon body-horror is not the same as saying “yeah, I totally want to go out and rape and torture people for years while brainwashing them!” or even “yeah, I wouldn’t do it myself, but it would be totally okay if someone did!”  Nobody is hurt by it, and nobody is going to be hurt by it.  So should I have the right to go, that is gross, you don’t get to write or read that?  No.

In the same way, writing about underage teens getting it on–sometimes with each other, sometimes with adults, sometimes consensually, sometimes not–is not the same as child pornography, nor does reading a fic about Hermione and Snape getting it on while she was his student mean someone thinks that would be a good and/or healthy thing in real life.

Fiction affects reality, but fiction is not reality.  And writing about something does not mean you want to do it in real life, or believe that anyone should.

Let’s take a closer look at that “Ao3 supports pedophilia!” shall we?

1) The only fics I have ever come across that had actual pedophilia (i.e. someone having sex with a child), it was clearly and explicitly abuse.  It was not meant to titillate or arouse.  It was meant to horrify.  It was seldom explicit.

2) There’s a lot more incest, but it is usually portrayed either as explicitly mutually consensual (i.e. Sam/Dean) or as abusive.

3) I’ve been in fandom for a decade and a half.  When people start getting upset at “omg pedophilia, think of the children!” the fics they are usually objecting to aren’t actually pedophilia.  Usually, it is teenagers having sex, especially queer sex.  And people don’t like that, and use pedophilia as an excuse to shame people for writing/reading sex they don’t like.

Let’s look closer at Strikethrough, shall we?  I hope that, if there were any communities of actual pedophiles on LJ, they got taken down, too.  But here are some of the communities that got taken down that were not in any way supporting pedophilia and/or rape and/or incest that got taken down:

1) at least one support community for survivors of sexual abuse.

2) a literary book discussion group that was reading Lolita.

3) lots of slash fanfic communities, for things like Draco/Harry fic set in their fourth year (when both boys would have been 15).

Basically, this very conservative “family values” group hated porn, and they hated queer stuff even more, and used “but think of the children, it’s pedophilia!” to pressure LJ to get rid of huge swathes of things they didn’t like.  And one time taking down the worst of it wasn’t good enough for them.  No, this was step one on a moral crusade.  If you acceded to their demands, all that did was whet their appetite, and soon they would be back with a new list of demands.  This is why the 2007 strikethrough was not an isolated event, but rather one of a series of events, nor was LJ the only website thus targeted.  It starts with anything that can get labelled “pedophilia” or “incest” because that’s low-hanging fruit.  But they use that to go after anything relating to queer teen sexuality.  Then anything with teen sexuality.  Then once the community is already divided and diminished, they go after anything with non-con.  Then whatever is next on their list.  It doesn’t stop until they’ve won the point and nothing but suitably “family-friendly” fics that match their purity test are allowed.

Which is why AO3 has no morality content in their terms of service.  You can’t break copyright beyond fair use (and AO3 has an expansive view of “fair use” and a team of lawyers on call).  You can’t use AO3 for commercial advertising.  And you can’t post ACTUAL child pornography, i.e. the things that are legally prohibited, i.e. actual photographs or videos of actual children (not teens) in sexually explicit positions–you know, the stuff that actually hurts kids.  Other than that?  It’s fair game.  You can post anything you want, and the archive will not judge.  There is no handle for the Moral Majority Family-Friendly Thought Police to latch onto, no cracks they can exploit to divide and conquer.

We’ve been down that road.  It doesn’t lead anywhere good.

[wrangletangle]

Reblogging this for the excellent explanation of what exactly the moral crusaders did last time. They had an explicit agenda of anti-queerness, and they specifically targeted slash and femslash communities in particular, such that many ship communities became (or started as) deliberately members-only. You had to apply, and your personal blog had to look like a real person and a fan. You were vetted, a la 1990s private servers.

During this period, Dreamwidth was also targeted by attacking its payment processor. They had to get a new one. These “Warriors” (literally called themselves that!) were totally on board with destroying fandom as a side effect of destroying the parts of fandom they didn’t like.

If you’re carrying out harassment of people right now because they’re posting works with sexual elements you don’t agree with? (And it’s always sex, never non-sexual violence, how strange….) If you’re doing that, you’re also totally on board with destroying fandom as a side effect of destroying the parts of fandom you don’t like. Because your tactics are fandom-destroying, and so is your agenda.

[nwcostumer]

reblogging because this is important: strikethru and boldthru and all the various “purges” that fandom went thru about 10 years ago: this had to do with OUTSIDERS deciding that fandom in general and fanfiction in specific were evil and needed to be destroyed; unless we were writing and shipping good vanilla M/F married people. These were outsiders, going after fictional writing about fictional characters.

AO3 and OTW are HUGE, because now we have an organization, with very smart women and a lot of lawyers, that have our back. Fannish history is important, people! It has not always been this way.

This is so, so important: there’s that other post about AO3 and fanfiction floating around, about our history. People decry violent video games but no one is trying to force companies out of business. But people can and do attack fanfiction: an activity primarily written by women for women, about fictional characters. And often about sex. We have to constantly defend ourselves, protect ourselves, support each other against charges like “paeodophilia”.

[denaceleste]

^^^rebageling again for excellent commentary

[araceil]

Throwing this in because I was also present: This was during the American Government’s attempts to pass censorship laws on the internet. As MOST of those domains had their serves in America, they were beholden to those censorship laws. A great deal of fanfiction.net was removed because they happened to lose a goddamn courtcase. I’ve been on the site since 2002. They may not have ‘officially’ allowed NC-17 rated content (what it used to be listed as in the filters), it never did a damn thing to remove it. Ever. They had it listed as a rating option during ‘New Story’ uploading after all. It was i nthe search filters. After they lost the courtcase however, they legally had to start doing things about the mature content reports they got. The admins and mods were not actively looking for fic to remove, they were just responding to reports they had already received. 

[actuallyclintbarton]

tl;dr - I know tumblr is all about black and white “you’re either all right or all wrong” thinking, but it’s important to understand what actually happened before going “ew ao3 was made to give pedophiles a safe place to post” because that is 110% not what happened.

[shidgephobe]

This is why so, so many of the comparatively older fannish folks on tumblr like me are so vehemently against stuff like the anti movement and “all ships are valid UNLESS”. It smacks of censorship and content policing - and we’ve been there. We got our shit deleted and our accounts banned because someone else thought what we were reading or writing or talking about needed to just… not exist. No warning. Literally overnight. We just woke up and stuff was gone.

And yeah, the group was legit called Warriors for Innocence (or maybe of). I knew several people that were members of survivor/support groups that lost their groups - and their main support network - when Strikethrough happened (ten years ago holy shit).

[sulphur-crested-cocktease]

You antis need to listen when us older fans tell you that the censorship you’re advocating for, when put into practice, is NOT a positive thing; it’s an extremely scary thing!

I can guarantee that you would be very, very upset if another event like LJ Strikethrough were to happen today because *you* are just as vulnerable as the rest of us! If you support the rights of marginalized groups of people, if you’re a slash or fem slash shipper, if you support gender identities that aren’t defined by biological sex, if you care about representation, if you support women, if you have any kind of kink, if you care about fandom in any capacity beyond its eradication, YOU DO NOT ACTUALLY WANT THE SORT OF CENSORSHIP YOU’RE ADVOCATING!!

[naamahdarling]

People were terrified during Strikethrough.  I was there.  Communities were being shut down, individual users were being shut down.  People were losing access to their own fics, their feedback, their comments – a LOT went on in comments on LJ.  Think more coherent reblogs, much more personal, very widespread.  Comments were also very important, and in terms of networking/communicating, were absolutely critical.  

LJ was, for many people, central.  

It was a fundamental part of the infrastructure of fandom at the time.  

Having it attacked, having parts of your fandom’s territory just deleted like that, was very very scary.  People didn’t know who was next.  Every day, the list of stricken journals grew.  And not all of them came back, not all of them recovered their content.  Some people even voluntarily deleted their content as a form of protest.  It was a bad time.

You do not have to interact with fic that grosses you out or makes you uncomfortable.  Tagging is a thing.  And even outside of tags, you are responsible for curating your own fandom experience.  It is not right to expect it to be curated for you.  And it is not right to lash out when someone refuses to do so and expects you to walk away from things that do not concern you.

I was gonna say “things that don’t harm anyone” but I realize you can argue that.  If you get triggered, that’s upsetting.  That could be considered harm.  And I have sympathy for that.  I do.

I have run across fic that triggered me.  I have pretty specific triggers, and people don’t always think to warn for them because they aren’t that big a deal for a lot of people.  Or it’s sort of bundled into kink and is presumed, that if you’re okay with certain kinds of kink, you’re okay with this.  So I’ve been blindsided by it before.  And it sucks for a couple of days while I get over it.

That was not the fault of the authors! You could argue that tagging should have been used, and maybe it should, but ultimately that’s not an ironclad obligation.  It’s a tool people provide out of courtesy.

That was not the fault of the site!  The site is there to give authors a way to make fiction available, not to judge each work and interrogate its validity and make sure everything is tagged so that nobody has to see anything bad, ever.

That was not even my fault!  It was my responsibility to try to curate my experience, and I tried, but it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t deliberately set out to trigger myself.

When I get triggered, unless it is by a deliberate act, it is actually the fault of the people who hurt me in the first place! And I refuse to let them off the hook and blame perfectly innocent people who just wanna write their fanfiction! I may hate that fanfiction, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not people should be allowed to post whatever they want.

Also, some people cope by writing about fucked-up shit.  My best friend in the whole wide world has shared her fic with me, and HOO BOY it is messed up. She wrote it during a time in her life when she was in and just coming out of a horrifically abusive relationship.  I mean, it was exactly the kind of relationship all of us here on Tumblr love to hate.  She was married to a shitty, abusive man who preyed on someone younger than he was and used his influence over her to treat her in a way that would be right at home in that Lundy Bancroft book Why Does He Do That?  He was a real rapist, a verified grade-A bad fuckin’ guy.  (She was lucky to escape.  I have immense respect for her.)  And she wrote some fucked up fic to deal with it, and she shared it, and people were invested in it.  And because this was early 2000′s, she had to host it on a foreign server and cover her tracks, because at that time no-place was safe to post it.

“Yeah, but if she’s writing it for therapy, she doesn’t have to post it where other people might have to see it!” I hear you say.

But like … what the hell??? “Shut up, don’t talk about it, it’s bad to talk about these things, because these things are bad!” is something used against folks with trauma.

“This isn’t good for me, I can’t talk about this, I can’t be your audience for this,” that’s fine, those are boundaries that people with trauma use to defend themselves.  You should learn to say those things!  It will help you!

But expecting other people to never create and share art about trauma is just so thunderously oppressive I lack the ability to fully articulate it.

And nobody should have to disclose their history of trauma to prove their motives are pure or virtuous enough for their speech to be protected.  I’ve only really been able to openly say “I was assaulted, it was traumatic, I am a little fucked up from it” for the past couple of years, tops.  I couldn’t talk about it before that.  Couldn’t!  And it was over 20 years ago!

I also believe, very firmly, that you don’t need a history of abuse to find writing really messed-up shit satisfying, or to find reading it cathartic.  I believe 100% in the freedom of creative expression, and the freedom to read whatever fucked up shit you want to read.

All y’all fandom youngsters can spit nails all you want over gross rape fic, incest fic, whatever.

Fine, I don’t like it either!

But that fucked up shit?  That fucked up shit helped carve out the spaces we have today.  You don’t have to like it, but campaigning to get it deleted, harassing content creators, calling people rapists and pedophiles who have never done and would never ever do such a thing, that is not the way to improve the world, it doesn’t keep actual kids or teens or assault/rape victims safe.  It wouldn’t have made me feel safe when I was 16 and did’t want what was going on.  It doesn’t make me feel safe now.  I can say with the perspective of someone 24 years away from that event, it doesn’t make the world safer for people like I was.  It actually makes it worse.

Learn to steer clear of the messed-up stuff you don’t like.  It’s a skill, you get better with practice.  Have someone else vet stuff for you if you need help doing it now.

Everything that is sketchy and gross is not criminal, and writing about a thing is not morally the same as doing it.  Please stop acting like writing about an adult and a teenager having really questionable, gross sex is as bad as the actual registered sex offender they caught hanging around an actual elementary school two neighborhoods over from mine, just trying to talk to the kids.  The former is, at most, in poor taste, and potentially triggering to abuse victims.  The second makes me want to vomit because even though he was just talking, that guy was gearing up to try something and create another abuse victim.  A g a i n.  

The first can be avoided because it is imaginary and you, an adult, have power over your back button so that you don’t have to witness harm to imaginary people.  The second, those very real kids had to rely on real adults and real law enforcement to keep them safe from very real assault.   (It worked!  The neighborhood rallied!  He was arrested for violating parole!)

Pretty sure Sleazebag McDongface didn’t read some gross NC-17 Draco/Lucius fic before deciding to harm an actual human being.  Pretty sure not having read it didn’t keep him from doing it. ‘Cause he fuckin’ did it.  And he would have done worse. But actual people stopped him.

I get wanting to protect victims when so many of us are victims ourselves, but man, going after fiction is not the way to do it.

An author is not a perpetrator.  Stop trying to make those things synonymous in the minds of other fans, and in the minds of other recovering victims.

[bonibaru]

I’m a crone who also lived through strikethrough, and all y'all young fans need to read this and understand it if you don’t want history to repeat itself someday.

[singingwordwright]

Here’s the thing, also: it doesn’t stop with fic about objectionable stuff.

If you have a website with TOS that includes any kind of “objectionable content” rules, there will be parties who will use those rules to try to silence other people whom they want silenced.

Let’s look at the alt-right and MRA movements today, or GamerGate a few years ago. What is one of their primary weapons? They report black or feminist or really any leftist YouTube channels (or Twitter accounts, or whatever) whose message they don’t like and claim those channels are are violating TOS by posting hate speech or incitations to violence or whatever bullshit they can come up with, in an attempt to silence those channels.

When Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequence came under fire for starting a crowdfunding endeavor to fund the production of her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games series of videos, male gamers tried to get her KickStarter and various social media accounts shut down by reporting her for for hate speech and promoting terrorism.

Luckily, that became a big enough story that the dudes failed and their efforts backfired. But a lot of times, these tactics work.

How do I know this? Because it happened to me. Not over major shit like the examples above, but over something completely petty.

Back in the mid-to-late 90s, before LiveJournal really became the place for fandom, before FF.net was really a thing, you had to create your own personal website on whatever free webhost you could find (GeoCities was popular, but there were others) if you wanted to host your fic somewhere.

And back then, TV studios and book authors were still sending their lawyers after people who wrote fanfic, issuing cease and desist letters to not only the authors, but also to their webhosts.

At the time, I was writing perfectly het Mulder/Scully fanfic. No rape, no pedophilia, no slash. Maybe a little BDSM. But largely it was unobjectionable.

Then the 8th season of X-Files started, David Duchovny decided he only wanted to be involved part-time, and the show decided to bring in another male character. The fandom lost their shit–as fandoms do–over the idea of “replacing” Mulder blah blah blah.

One of the most popular fanfic mailing lists–one that had previously had no restrictions on what characters or pairings could be posted–decided that if you wrote fanfic involving this character, you were no longer welcome. Well, this was the mailing list with all the readers. Sure, authors could go to other mailing lists, but they wouldn’t have exposure to the sort of readership this other list boasted.

I spoke out, saying that this change was unfair to fic authors and that the moderator of this list was behaving in a pretty vile way. The moderator and her friends took aim at me and began a campaign of harassment, and a few days later, suddenly my website with my XF fanfic was TOSed because someone had reported it. So was the next site I tried to create to host my fic, and the one after that.

Thanks to the way AO3s TOS are constructed, that sort of shit doesn’t happen now. I can speak up if I need to, and while I may receive harassment on my various social media accounts, there’s no chance they can have my fic taken down just because they have an agenda and don’t like me for reasons not relating to my fic.

So yeah, AO3′s rules protect fic a lot of us might find objectionable. But they also protect fic that is in no way objectionable from being targeted by unrelated harassment campaigns. And since any of us could find ourselves in the sights of those sort of campaigns at any time, we need to thank our lucky stars for that.

[olderthannetfic]

I like this last addition.

When I helped write the ToS for AO3, I wasn’t primarily thinking about strikethrough. I was primarily thinking of FFN, where so many people post things that are technically against the ToS but that the community tolerates. Any time someone gets pissed off, they can go on a grudge-reporting spree and target their enemy’s work. Often, that means guys targeting slash or Twilight fic because it’s “for girls” and thus sucks. Sometimes, it’s one ship vs. another. I was also thinking of Miss Scribe and all of that other Harry Potter fandom drama. (And if you think fans are above destroying an entire archive just to strike at one enemy, think again!)

We can’t force people to like each other. We can’t force people to be nice to each other. But we could take away fandom bullies’ favorite tools.

So we did.

[centaurianthropology]

Watching young (ostensibly liberal) bloggers and fans take up the deeply conservative rhetoric and moral crusading of the right wing and evangelical groups from the 90s has been both fascinating from an anthropological perspective, and fucking horrifying for someone who lived through this time period and the death of LJ.  

[naamahdarling]

This thread keeps getting better.

It galls me to think that those of us who went through all this shit might have to go through it again because people who were still in primary school at the time don’t see anything wrong with harassing us over

Like, I hate to pull this argument, but we are your fandom elders, we did what we did to preserve fandom for y'all, so y'all would have space to safely explore the sane things we did and still do. And in doing so we rightly realized that if we wanted to protect the comfortable, cuddly parts, we also needed to protect the dark parts.

You can hate non-con fic all you want, and I will always advocate for adequate tagging/warning (especially with franchises that are aimed at younger audiences, e.g. MLP:FIM and SU) so that you don’t have to see it because I sympathize, but I will never support people who want to make sure that it isn’t even there to be seen. I’ve been through that once. It didn’t help anyone. It didn’t fix anything.

Please, learn to curate your own online experience. You are responsible for not clicking, or clicking away. Don’t try to force others to do it for you. That’s not cool. You aren’t protecting children. You are asking fandom to treat everyone like a child. There is a massive difference.

[baratheon]

Also… maybe parents should do their job in monitoring kids’ content? When my parents found out I was looking at age inappropriate things when I was a minor, like they intervened.

[nanshe-of-nina]

Strikethrough 07 was such a well-conducted operation that communities dedicated to survivors of sexual abuse and fans of Lolita fashion were suspended, but the journal of the baby rapist, ohbutyouwillpet, stayed up. And it’s still up to this day, though it hasn’t been updated it over a decade as its owner is still in prison.

[sassbandit3000]

Whooo, I guess it’s my turn to take a shot at this.

I’m a nold. I’m in my 40s. When I came out as queer, in the early 90s, it was in the middle of what were called the “feminist sex wars”.  If you want a really good book to read about that period, which has a LOT of resonance with Strikethrought and with the current Tumblr discourse, I cannot recommend this highly enough:

Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights by Nadine Strossen

A preview is available on Google Books, or it should be readily available secondhand, or in academic libraries (though it’s not a very heavy academic read). I recommend Booko for finding cheap secondhand copies. Support independent bookstores!

I haven’t read “Defending Pornography” for a while – I actually last re-read it about a decade ago because of the impact that Warriors for Innocence were having on Dreamwidth’s payment providers at the time, subsequent to Strikethrough itself – but here’s a quick summary, as I remember it.

1. In the late 80s and early 90s there was a vocal group of radical feminists who believed that pornography inherently harms women, not just in its production but also in its consumption (i.e. watching/reading pornography caused people to develop attitudes that were harmful to women). All explicit content was considered to be harmful, from eg. girlie magazines to hardcore XXX videos to a book like “The Joy of Gay Sex”, no matter who made it, its purpose, its intended audience, or its context. (Yup, even m/m content was considered to be degrading to women for reasons that didn’t make a lot of sense tbh.)

2. These anti-pornography feminists teamed up with the religious right and managed to get anti-porn laws passed. In particular, a law was passed in Canada preventing the importation of “obscene” material. Canada, of course, imports a lot of material from the US. Stuff started getting seized at the border.

3. Guess what was seized first? “The Joy of Gay Sex” and the like. Guess what businesses started finding all their shipments seized or delayed – sexually explicit or not – to the point where they were being put out of business? Gay bookstores.  Guess what wasn’t seized at all? Mainstream porn made for straight men. 

Around this time, Little Sisters bookstore in Vancouver (a gay bookstore) found that huge amounts of merchandise was being seized at the border, regardless of the actual content. They were being discriminatorily targeted on the basis of their sexuality. The queerness of the material they were importing was seen as inherently obscene.

Remember that this is before there was much information available online for LGBTQ+ people, so if you were a young person maybe just coming out and trying to understand things, or wanting to learn about safe sex (and yes it was at the height of the AIDS crisis, too) you’d go to a bookstore like this. Which now had empty shelves. I remember endless fundraising and activism in the LGBTQ+ community to try and keep Little Sisters open. In the end they spent half a million dollars on court cases. Read more about their struggles.

(You know what businesses weren’t impacted and didn’t have to basically ask their friends and community for help to stay open or spend a decade in the courts to defend their right to run their businesses? The powerful companies making porn by and for straight men.)

The book goes into a large number of analogous situations. Time and time again, anti-pornography laws intended to protect women are disproportionately used against women themselves, against LGBTQ+ people, and against basically any marginalised or minority group, rather than against the mainstream male-oriented porn that would seem to be its primary target.

Here’s the key point: Strossen is a legal scholar who’s looked at a lot of attempts at censorship, and you know what she found happened every time? When you try to censor pornography, even in the interests of protecting vulnerable people, that censorship will be applied first, and hardest, against the people who are most vulnerable. They won’t come for actual abusers, they’ll come for the abused, and prevent them from accessing resources, education, talking to each other, creating art to express themselves, or organising against those who are actually causing harm.

Read the book. The stories it tells are from the early 90s but they perfectly mirror what happened a decade ago with Strikethrough and what’s happening now with all this Tumblr discourse.

This is old, old business, we’ve seen it more than once before, and it never goes the way the antis think it will. Censorship is a tool that gives power to abusers and lets them inflict more harm on those who are abused, vulnerable and discriminated against. Don’t fall for it.

[whetstonefires]

History they should have known: The Comstock laws in New York were this one dude (Comstock) who managed to get a mail regulation re-written to categorize anything related to contraceptives as pornography, which was already illegal to mail.

(Which is one reason for the pornographic playing cards etc, because the 19th century was almost as big on mail-order goods as the 21st, because getting to shops in person was hard for a huge subsection of Americans.)

Comstock built a non-profit with the support of the YMCA and oh shoot, some millionaire whose brand is still going strong, to enforce this law because the postal system didn’t have the personnel. They were granted the right to do so.

He and his posse of honorary mail inspectors with police powers (I kid you not) spent years engaging in endless skullduggery to prosecute people for selling contraceptives by mail. Which was how everyone got them in the 19th century, you couldn’t walk into a shop for a pack of condoms but mail-order packages were nicely anonymous. They dragged Margaret Sanger into court repeatedly. There was a huge cottage industry of contraceptives in NYC at the time, most of the manufacturers being female, Jewish, immigrants, or some combination of the above.

There was one woman whose name escapes me they kept trying to prosecute for selling contraceptive devices and the juries kept nullifying it because the average New Yorker in the 1890s were like ‘yeah no condoms are not a crime,’ but not everybody had her stage presence and resources.

You know who they never even tried to touch? The big rubber companies were were getting into mass production of condoms. Their big funder owned the company that produced Vaseline, and was claiming in ads at the time that it worked as a spermicide.

Only the poor and vulnerable felt the impact of the Honorary Postal Inspectors of righteousness.

[moon6shadow-main]

It’s been touched on a little before but really it’s hard to explain just how confusing and scary the crackdowns were. I was only a reader on FanFiction when the crackdown came but it felt like I was standing in a coal mine full of canaries. Canaries that were either silent or /screaming/.

Every where you looked, authors where posting warnings about how x stories were getting deleted. All of the warnings feeling rushing, panicked, most of them including notes about how they didn’t know how long they had before their warnings were taken down or they were deleted. It felt a bit like all the stars going out, everything just dying around you. Like a stampede of people had fled from some oncoming unnamed horror leaving silence in their wake. Finding AO3 later on was like finding a safe haven in a world gone mad.

Also FanFiction doesn’t really encourage socialisation aside from authors notes to readers on their chapters or homepage. Meanwhile all the warnings of the crackdown were really rushed and vague. So, as a not very sociable reader, I really didn’t have a clue what was going on at the time of the crack down and the confusion and uncertainty was almost the scariest part of the whole thing. (Not knowing if the authors should come back and if fanfics were gone for good was scarier.) It’s only years later, reading fanfic history posts that I’ve started to piece together what happened.

Also an interesting point was that during the crack down all I ever heard about was /gay/ stories being deleted. Perhaps this was just because I was reading gay stories but I didn’t even realise it was mature stories in general that was supposedly the aim of the crack down until much later.

[olderthannetfic]

Hot damn, this post just keeps going!

I very much second the rec about the feminist sex wars. Understand those, and you’ll understand why those of us over about 30 are so opposed to tumblr’s purity crusade.

[fierceawakening]

If you haven’t been TOSsed you really don’t get it, imo.

If you haven’t spent your time wondering if the thing that will get your content deleted is the dark stuff or the nipples, you really don’t get it, imo.

Hell, way way back in the day, I had moderator types private message me going “I really like your writing, but you need to be less obvious about it, or I will have no choice but to tos you.”

[prospectkiss]

A long reblog, but a worthy read. So much history and experience recounted here. If we don’t remember our past, remember why AO3 and many fandom spaces work the way they do now, we will be condemned to repeat it.

Please do not let us return to the dark ages of fear, censorship, and oppression in fandom.

[medusaceratops-deactivated20210]

y’all. we have to stop putting explicit content in summaries of fics on AO3, especially if you’re writing explicit incest. no one has clicked the “i agree to read this content” button for a summary, and you’re unintentionally showing people who don’t want to be triggered a massive fucking trigger. maybe don’t tell me about how dick grayson has sexual fantasies about his 13 year old brother if i haven’t agreed to see this content? maybe? and furthermore, can we agree to tag all works including canon incest ships as incest, even if it isn’t “technically” incest within the universe of the fic, so there’s a catch-all tag for batfandom? there’s so many possible combinations of incest ships that it’s hard to remember to exclude all of them. i don’t want to see this content, and i think there are ways to make it easier on everyone to avoid it if they wish, and that would make this fandom a better experience for everyone.

and how about we don’t send people who haven’t mentioned that they’re into [x incest ship] explicit headcanons and content? and how about not going on fics tagged as gen or fics that don’t have that pairing tag and asking, “hey, is this going to be [x pairing]?” because like - i’m not advocating to Cleanse Fandom Of All Darkfic And Impurity. but i am advocating for people who ship content that is, by its nature, no matter how romantic and fluffy and sweet the fancontent itself, disturbing to a lot of people, treat it as such. no matter how many degrees of separation your AU is away from canon, if you are shipping canonical siblings, it’s going to be processed as incest by the fans scrolling through AO3. that content should be treated with the weight of the impact it has on people. it’s not e for everyone, and even among people who are already looking for explicit fanfiction, it’s not rated e for everyone. we have this awesome tagging system provided to us by AO3! can we start, i don’t know, using it?

and i don’t usually ask this, but because this post is useless if people who don’t normally follow me don’t see it, can we reblog this? i’ll tag all the ships i can think of but i probably won’t get to them all.

[star-anise]

Not putting explicit stuff in summaries is a really good point. Being able to filter searches is great and all, but that isn’t the only way people access AO3.

Think of your subscribers, who get emails whenever you post a new story. They may have liked some of your fic before but not want a bit of something new and explicit in their email inboxes.

Think of people who subscribe to Tumblr RSS blogs that automatically update when a new story is added to a fandom or pairing. That’s a very wide net and it’s hard to filter.

Give people the tools to decide if they want to see your explicit content before you show it to them.

[alarajrogers]

Likewise, would people who write Reader pairings please tag Reader as a goddamn character? Why should I have to type ten different possible pairings into the exclusion box when you could just tag one character and then I could exclude it?

You may say, “Oh, but how can you bring up Reader when we’re talking about incest?” And the answer is, I am triggered by anything that claims that I have thoughts and feelings that I don’t. I’m not bothered by second person fics because I just assume “you” is someone else, but Reader specifically states that you, the reader, are the character, and I’ve dealt with people claiming things about me that are not only not true but are absurd for too long to be able to tolerate that shit. Let Reader be for the people who enjoy it, and give those of us who hate it with a fiery passion the means to avoid it completely.

And also, yeah, tag incest. I don’t want to see incest pairings, ever. It’s a squick rather than a trigger, but it’s a seriously gross squick and I just don’t even want to see the description of the fic if it’s gonna have incest in it.

[marvelsaukids]

I know that some people worry about tagging 'incest,' because it might scare readers off or draw in antis¹. Especially when you feel your fic is really far from incest.² It's your choice, always. I always support tagging, but you are doing this for free, for your enjoyment.

But keeping non-gen content out of the summary is a bit more clear cut. Please do that.

[treenahasthaal]

Just had a really hurtful comment posted to Dark Times. How someone could think that this story is porn is beyond me. Is there torture? Absolutely. But it is NOT pornographic, or sexual in anyway. Nor do I “get off,” on it.

The Torture in Dark Times is indicative of that used in wars against captured combatants and by brutal regimes on this planet; Nazi and Japanese during WW2 for example - which is what this story is based on. (The allied pilot shot down, helped by the Resistance, and eventually captured scenario). The torture is not any more graphic than that seen in movies like Midnight Express or The Recruit, to name two it just goes on for longer. Compared to many books and movies out there, it is tame by comparison.

I have to wonder about the reader’s skewed view of the world if she, or he, sees this as pornographic.

And why do those who just want to be mean never log in to post a comment? 🤔

[angel-gidget]

I was gonna say that if the reviewer is that affronted by Dark Times, they should probably avoid some canon novels too… but then I remembered that Traitor by Matthew Stover isn’t canon anymore, and I made myself sad.

On that note tho, I think I appreciate some of the same things about the two. You follow along with the main guy and watch his mind get turned around, and the skew of his viewpoint makes total sense to the reader, even as the reader realizes he’s becoming a faulty narrator of sorts.

Providing I’m remembering correctly. Basically, I’m sorry somebody accused you of this crap, but at least it reminded me that I wanna re-read this story.

[marvelsaukids]

I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but a lot of people use the term 'torture porn' to mean something different than 'pornographic.'

The idea is that the depiction of torture is gratuitous - it isn't necessary to the story, and the amount being included, as well as the amount of detail, are signs that the authour (and audience) just enjoy seeing people's pain.

Still extremely insulting and hurtful, of course. I'm not suggesting that the reviewer had a point, or any right to send that comment.

The phrase is kind of like the term 'fandom wank.' Which is not actually about masturbation. It's about complaining and arguing in a way that's purposeless and makes yourself feel good but other people feel dirty.

[marvelsaukids]

@ao3commentoftheday

Would it be okay for me to make a blog that reblogs the questions you answer with organizational tags?

I really like organizing data. I know there are some readers who haven't been around since the beginning and would like a slightly easier way to check what questions you've answered.

(I would only reblog the original post, people would still need to go through the tags to see the discussions.)

If you don't see this, that's okay. I'll wait until your ask box opens.

[12b6]

judge: counsel

me: yes

judge: what did we say about singing in the courtroom

me: dont do it

judge: right

me: but your honor

judge: no

me: if you SUBPOENA COLADA

[badmadwolf]

Me: AND YOU’VE BEEN CAUGHT AND ARRAIGNED

Judge: I’m holding you in contempt of court

[12b6]

I’m crying tears of joy

[thelawfulchaotic]

Me: AND YOU’RE GETTING ARRESTED, YOU’RE BEING DETAINED

Judge: Bailiff, please

[holdmecloseandfast]

@hellenhighwater

[hellenhighwater]

I can’t just sit here with this graphic design BFA and this juris doctor and do nothing:

[dduane]

Art breaks out so unexpectedly sometimes… :)

[pia-bartolini-deactivated202509]

@hellenhighwater is genius. And now this is stuck in my head.

[marvelsaukids]

[Image says:

If you subpoena Colada

And you’ve been caught and arraigned

And you’re getting arresting

You’re being detained

If you like remaining silent

And my high billing rate

Just call me your lawyer

‘Cause I’ve been retained

End ID.]

[ao3commentoftheday]

I upload my drabbles (100 words) and ficlets (short works) each as individual ao3 posts, no matter how small, but I often see people combining many short works into chapters of a single large post. Do people actually prefer these? I feel like they must get unwieldy at a certain point, and full disclosure, I really enjoy the validation of getting kudos on each work instead of just one for the whole bunch. But so many people do these that they must have a reason; any thoughts?

A few years ago, I did a thing where I posted a ficlet every single day in June. I used The Amazing Story Generator as my prompt  machine, getting people to send me numbers that corresponded to which page I flipped to. 

Before I started, I remember talking to a friend and asking if I should post them as separate fics or as a chaptered story. I was worried it would be “cheating” in some vague, inexplicable way for me to post them separately. Like I was gaming the system or something. I have no idea why I thought that way, but I did. 

My friend pointed out several reasons why I should post them separately and group them together in a series:

People can kudos each separate story instead of just the whole thing one time. This also allows them to not kudos any that they don’t want to. 

People can subscribe to the series if they want to read them all, so I don’t have to put them into a single fic just for that function.

I can tag each fic separately with the relevant characters, tropes, ships etc. which means that people can find the one story that they want and avoid the 5 stories that won’t interest them. 

Each story gets its own title and summary so that people can search for them independently and reread more easily. 

If I ever decide that I want to orphan just one of the stories, the other 29 can still be attached to my account. Ditto if I want to make one of them anonymous or hide it in a private collection. 

I don’t know any reasons beyond my own weird feeling of “I’m not suppose to post a short thing as a story” why people collect them all in one fic. I think it’s a shame that I was putting that restriction on myself. A story can be a one shot or it can be a multichapter. It can be 300K or it can be 3 words. Don’t impose rules on yourself that don’t exist just because you’re worried that some nameless person out there might have an opinion about you. 

That said, perhaps there are good reasons to put ficlets and drabbles into a chaptered story instead of into a series. Let’s see what the blog thinks about this practice. 

[noirsongbird]

As a reader, I…do not click large compilation fics. I’ve tried before and I’ve always ended up disappointed or confused, especially if it’s not clear if things are related or unrelated. Meanwhile I would definitely read a short fic! I would know at a glance that all of the tropes/kinks/other tags go with the pairing the story is tagged for and I can consume it quickly, leave some feedback, and keep going, rather than spending time and getting frustrated as I sort through a giant chunk of tags and hope I get lucky and the stars align.

So yeah, I definitely advocate posting works separately! I think it’s much better for both writers and readers.

[ragingrainbow-deactivated202407]

Also a reader who prefers short fics and drabbles posted separately. That’s how I post mine, too. It makes it easier to find the ones that interest you AND it avoids the tags becoming a wall of tags if you tag content for all the separate fics.

This is especially true for drabble collections which span several different pairings and/or fandoms.

If your short fics or drabbles are related, or you just want all your shorter works in one place, make it a series. Series are great! I wish more people used that function.

Also as someone who loves drabbles, I often search for drabble length fic specifically. That search won’t find drabbles posted as chaptered fic. Likewise, when I search for chapter length fic I don’t want to find drabble collections.

(There is one exception to this rule. When a drabble series is so closely related that they practically are chapters of the same story. Sometimes those will do better as chaptered fic.)

[marvelsaukids]

That’s a good point, @ragingrainbow!

My natural writing style (if I write) is interconnected vignettes. Basically, drabbles set in the same universe, contributing to the same greater plot or building the same world.

I am strongly in favour of posting drabbles separately. If they’re from different fandoms, especially - you’d pretty much have to be @heartslogos or @hauntedlittledoll to get me to read a multi-fandom compilation.

But I actually really love reading related - but not directly connected - scenes, treated as one story. Hopping around in time, having different characters, sometimes being set in different locations - @whetstonefires Cirque du Triomphe does it really well. Even if her instalments are far too long to be considered ‘scenes’ or ‘drabbles’. She uses a series. Other people have used a chaptered fic format. Both work.

[ao3commentoftheday]

Hi! So, I'm writing a fic in which one of the characters tells a bedtime story and I'm having a hard time formatting it, especially the dialogues. The result ends up looking messy and confusing since the narration jumps back and forth between the story and the real world quite often (the character telling the story is regularly interrupted by the other characters). Any tips on how to make it flow more smoothly?

I think this might be a case where you have to be careful with your POV. Choose a character in the broader story as the POV character and maintain that through the bedtime story as well. 

If the POV character is the storyteller, you can have them react to the interruptions. If the POV character is a listener, you can have them react to the story being told. Don’t give the characters in the bedtime story a POV, and that should help keep things separated out a bit more easily. 

You can also take a look at how some other people have done it in the past. The most famous version of this idea that I can think of is The Princess Bride. The grandfather’s narration of the story is the constant and it moves the story from place to place. When he’s interrupted by his grandson, that interruption occasionally gets mixed into the story but it’s still clear what’s happening because the voices of the characters are so distinct. 

Have any of you attempted to write this kind of story before? How did you go about it? Readers: do you have any advice for how you like to see this type of story done (or things you’d prefer authors avoid)?

[lyricwritesprose]

When I have written stories that are framed as someone actually telling a story to someone else, I often leave out the voices of the interruptions and make it clear what they’re saying through the narrator responding to them.  For instance, in one story, I have the narrator respond, “No, not boring.  Important,” to a kid who’s objecting to his digression, and in another one I have the narrator say, “No, my powers can’t just give out,” in response to someone who’s worried about that very scenario.  It’s sort of like writing out one side of a phone conversation and making it understandable from that.

Another way I’ve seen it done is to put the interjections in parentheses.  Sort of like:

Then the brave princess had to face the Murkwater Swamps, where fire floated over the top of a greasy black bog.

(”Can we skip to the dragon?” John said.  “I want to skip to the dragon.)

That sort of thing.

[marvelsaukids]

Yeah, The Princess Bride’s book version is an AMAZING thing to look at to see how this can work.

Threads that it manages to juggle:

the main story

summaries of all the parts that the authour ‘has abridged’ (the conceit of the story is that he isn’t the actual authour, and the original book had huge amounts of boring details that he’s cut. His dad used to skip those parts when reading to him.)

flashbacks to his childhood and how this book changed his life

flashbacks to him trying to find the book as an adult so his son could read it

flashbacks to his adult life and his terrible relationship with his wife and son

descriptions of the abridgement process, and trying to sell a movie script in Hollywood

comments to his editor

interesting facts he learned while researching

If there’s only two threads, (brackets and italics) might be enough to separate out a thread that doesn’t take up too much space. (It’s a bit harder to read large chunks of text in italics, and may be impossible for people with certain learning disabilities.)

I’ve seen people align to the right everything that isn’t the main story. So the blocks of text are physically differentiated. (The image shows this, because I couldn't explain it clearly.) That works great on paper and desktop, but I’m not sure about mobile. Also, screen readers

You can also try marking interruptions by showing the sentence trailing off or being cut off.

"Then the brave princess had to face the Murkwater Swamps, where fire floated over the top of a greasy black bog ...

"Yes, Jake?"

”Can we skip to the dragon?” John said.  “I want to skip to the dragon.

or

"Then the brave princess had to face the Murkwater Swamps, where fire floated over the top of a greasy black- "

”Can we skip to the dragon?” John said.  “I want to skip to the dragon.

I’d suggest you don’t use bold text or different fonts. The first is hard to read if it's more than a few words, and the second has to be really obvious to work, which means that one (or multiple) of the fonts will probably be hard on the eyes. Also, my brain has a hard time switching between fonts in general.

[ittybittytatertot]

Listen, I know it’s canon that everyone knows Zatanna Zatara the stage magician is Zatanna the leaguer but how fucking good would it be if she had some sort of spell that prevented people from making that connection.

And even Bruce didn’t know until one day he’s like “Zatanna why weren’t you at the League meeting yesterday?”

And she turns to him like ? “Bruce, you know I was at the Super Bowl Halftime Show. I gave your kids tickets.”

“Zatanna, I don’t care how big of a fan of Zatanna Zatara you are, you can’t just skip meetin-”

And that’s when Zatanna says, “Oh shit right my wards,” makes a hand gesture and Bruce blinks at her, suddenly able to hear, really hear, what he just said. And then he just leaves and doesn’t talk to her for like a week after that.

[timdrakeothy-deactivated2022031]

Bruce Wayne is in her living room.

Cassandra “Cass” Cain blinks one, two, three times – and, yep. He’s still here.

“I’m not going to offer you water or anything,” she says, because what do you start with when a billionaire – when Bruce Fucking Wayne–breaks into your house? Then, when he doesn’t answer, “Why did you break into my house?”

“…Technically,” he says, “I hear this is Harley Quinn’s house.”

Cass crosses her arms. “I live here. Alone.” No need to get Harley into this. “My house. She doesn’t live here at all.” Definitely not Harley’s pictures on the wall or anything. Or her Hyena snarling in the next room. Not a chance. “So if you’re looking for her, you can just leave.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary, but thank you. You’re actually the one I want to see.”

Cass narrows her eyes at him. Even two years after she’s been running with Harley, it’s not very intimidating. And then, it hits her. She takes a few steps back, because stranger danger has finally sunk in, and she knows exactly what this man is after.

“Dude,” she says. “I’m not up for adoption.”

Bruce Fucking Wayne is quiet for a moment, staring at her. And she thinks she might have broken him. But then he laughs. Loudly. And she crosses her arms a little tighter, because it wasn’t a joke. It was a very legitimate boundary she was drawing. Because she very much wasn’t up for adoption, and if anyone was adopting her, it was going to be Renee Montoya, and ONLY because Harley wasn’t even allowed to legitimately rent apartments, let alone adopt children.

Not that Cass had looked into it.

Not in the last year. Not, like, seriously.

Whatever. Not that seriously.

“Well, that’s also good – I’m not here to adopt you. But, I’ll be honest – it does have something to do with adoption.” Bruce F. Wayne smiles that flashy billionaire smile, then steps forward with a piece of cardstock. He holds it out, and she can just make out a child’s face on it, his thumb obscuring the name underneath. “You see, I’m already in the process of adopting a child.”

Cass glances to the side, like there’s someone else here. Like, maybe they could let her in on a joke. But no joke comes. “Good…for you?” She pauses, looks at the face. “She’s a cute kid.” Another pause. “Very, uh. Clean.” 

“She is.” Bruce smiles again. He slides the card into his breast-pocket–because of course he has a breast-pocket. “But, sadly, she comes from an odd past.” Ah. A lovechild, Cass thinks. “And it’d be so much easier if she was a pickpocket ex-foster child than her actual history. Plus… her name is Cass, too.”

Cass takes a step back, because it’s a hell of a coincidence. And she’s had enough mix-ups in communication where she almost died that she’s not about to take a chance on this one. “I’m still not up for adoption,” she says again. “Just so we’re clear.”

Even though the face on the card was definitely not hers – older, with lighter eyes, and looked a little bit mixed – she wasn’t totally sure that Bruce could tell the difference. Not to stereotype, but he was a rich white guy. He probably couldn’t have told her apart from a boy in a K-Pop band.

Bruce’s smile is a little thinner this time. “I know that,” he says, patiently. “But I need you to be, on paper.” When she doesn’t immediately get it, he passes her what looks like a social security card. And a very, very large check. “I have a proposition for you–and I promise, you won’t be the one being adopted. Just your name. And your life’s paper trail.”

Cass glances at the cards.

And slowly, it dawns on her.

“So, this new identity you’re giving me in exchange,” she says as she picks up a pen to sign the check. “She’s not gonna have an arrest record, is she?”

Bruce looks around the room – at the life she’s built with Harley. And probably all the stolen high-value art and street signs. “Not unless you give her one.”

–

Birds of Prey fix-it fic because Cass Cain in the movie shares effectively nothing with Cass Cain from the comics – but there’s still a way to make it work 

[marvelsaukids]

Hey guys.

I'm thinking I'm maybe agender?

??

I'm not ready to talk to family (other than the Sister That Lets Me Be Oldest), so I'm not changing anything on my kiragecko blog. But I think I'd like to try out 'they/them' pronouns. You can use them for me even if you're talking about the other blog, just don't mention it directly there?

I don't know if I'll go through with this. It terrifies me. But the excitement at the thought of being nongendered is too much. I need to at least try.

[lesbiansupersons]

ANYWHO, i attempted to redesigned chris’s costume and this is what i came up with. im honestly not sure if i like it, i stuck with the color pallet his “nightwing” costume had and changed the symbol to the “s” but eehhehehhhhhhhhhhhhh??????

[the-wandering-whumper]

So, I'm honest-to-christ curious: I know whump fans that say they use sadism as means to boost the consequent 'comfort' factor, but is that all it is? I'm more familiar with fluff for the sake of fluff that convincingly presents characters as emotional and in need of affection/comfort without putting them through rape or torture. So, I do wonder how much of whump is a kink (not necessarily sexual) and how much is truly about making a character vulnerable. Everyone's diff, but what say u?

What it really boils down to for me is: the more serious the whump, the more satisfaction I get out of it and it’s aftermath. Fluffy angst that causes the whumpee emotional turmoil is great and all, but it doesn’t effect me the same way torture or a gunshot wound, or a whumpee beaten within an inch of his life does. Is that sadism? I don’t know. I’m taking pleasure out of seeing someone being hurt, but it’s gotta be a fictional character. If it’s not “real” people, is it the same thing? It’s hard to say either way.

I’m not much good at analyzing these types of things. If anyone else has any thoughts, please chime in.

[whumpthoughts]

I have…quite a few reactions to this.

1. what does a non-sexual kink (in fiction, not IRL) look like? I’ve seen this term around, but I’ve never seen it defined. for me, kink minus sex comes down to “this thing satisfies me but other people find it weird and maybe gross,” which I guess you could say about my interest in whump, but you could also say that about the fact that I sometimes snack my way through half a container of raw mushrooms, and I certainly wouldn’t call that a kink, sexual or otherwise. I’m sure this is a useful term for some people, and I don’t want to dismiss that, but when someone asks “do you REALLY care about vulnerability in fiction or is it a non-sexual kink” I am inherently confused.

2. if we have to use the sadism/masochism metaphor, I personally experience whump much more as masochism. and let me be clear – there is nothing wrong with whumpers whose enjoyment is more on the sadism side of the metaphor, but it’s not me. however common the jokes about torturing characters may be, when I’m actually writing that isn’t how it feels for me at all. instead, it’s an intense and often physical experience of empathy. I get flinchy, shivery, etc, and I’m simultaneously able to have the protagonist’s emotions (guilt, loneliness, terror, etc) and also an overwhelming compassion and protectiveness.

3. catharsis is a real thing. and before anyone goes “but whumpthoughts, when did you last get stabbed?” I want to add that distance is actually a key element of processing our feelings. it gives us perspective. and distance in fiction can be achieved in lots of ways, and some people use different kinds than others. but if I can look at a character having emotions like mine, or a trauma response like mine, and have compassion for them? it helps me have compassion for myself. 

and sometimes I have to write them getting stabbed to get there.

4. and there are times in life when comfort doesn’t feel possible yet. whether that’s because of trauma or just because my day was shit, sometimes writing “character talks it through and gets a bandaid” feels fake – or, conversely, too much like everyday life. I can give it my best shot and it’s still going to ring hollow in my gut. sometimes the character is vulnerable and suspended there because that’s where I’m at. 

5. again, I wanna be clear that nobody needs a clearly-stated, emotionally-sound, therapist-approved reason to write whump. people can like it just because they like it. but for me, it’s also serving a really vital role for my mental health, and when I started to practice letting go of my shame around it, it was able to fulfill that role even better

[maceacedelux]

1. what does a non-sexual kink (in fiction, not IRL) look like? I’ve seen this term around, but I’ve never seen it defined. for me, kink minus sex comes down to “this thing satisfies me but other people find it weird and maybe gross,” which I guess you could say about my interest in whump, but you could also say that about the fact that I sometimes snack my way through half a container of raw mushrooms, and I certainly wouldn’t call that a kink, sexual or otherwise. I’m sure this is a useful term for some people, and I don’t want to dismiss that, but when someone asks “do you REALLY care about vulnerability in fiction or is it a non-sexual kink” I am inherently confused.

A non-sexual kink in fiction if we’re using the kinkmeme definition is “concept/trope (that’s non-sexual) that does it for me (and not in a sex way).” It’s the people who asks for fills and want a balloon party, and their favorite scenes often involve balloon parties, and it’s not because they want a big get together of any kind, only that will do. There’s an axis of desire specific to that thing. The difference between vulnerability and that is that anything will do that makes a character vulnerable, but a non-sexual kink is that there’s something particularly appealing about that thing causing vulnerability. What’s extra confusing is that vulnerability can be a non-sexual kink, too.

I guess I’d define it as the opposite of squick. It’s what makes your heart go “!!!”

[justwhumpythings]

It’s what makes your heart go “!!!”

Yes! That’s it exactly for me.

[chelonianmobile]

If calling it a kink feels weird, say it’s a thing on your Id List!

https://eightladieswriting.com/2018/09/23/jilly-wood-whats-on-your-id-list/

[marvelsaukids]

So, when I was six, imagining I had a broken leg, and walking weird all the way to the store and back, was satisfying. I would be hurt enough that my mama¹ would DEFINITELY consider it valid!

My rebel warrior in the mountain let themself get tortured to protect their friends. Some of their friends blamed them anyways, but my hero endured it stoically. My own feelings of rejection were so much smaller, and it was okay to let them out with the story as an excuse.

These are some of my earlier memories. I understood why I was telling the first type of story, though not why my pain being valid seemed so important. The second type just felt good. I didn't even know I was hurting - I definitely didn't know I was letting it out through play!²

I'm not sure if there's a hard line between kink and filling emotional needs. I do think that it's not always important to figure out what need is being filled. And that there is no way to be SURE of the need based on the kink.³

¹My mama was MUCH healthier than her own mother, but she had to remind herself to be. So she'd scoff at/reject my feelings/illnesses/etc. if nothing reminded her to show love. A really confusing situation for a little kid.

²As you've probably guessed, I'm on the masochism side of this spectrum. Like whumpthoughts, I'm entirely in it to empathize with the victim.

³So no feeling guilty about what you like! Rape hurt/comfort fic allows me to process the fact that my mama told me I wasn't sick so often that now I can't recognize my own symptoms. Also, I'm not a therapist, maybe some things are just appeal to you for no reason.

PS. For me, boosting the 'whump' factor lets things be more black and white. I have ADHD, and when I'm going into sensory overload, I sometimes listen to really loud music to drown out the other stimuli. In the same way, characters in a lot of pain can give me relief from my own black moods.

[yawpyawp]

1930s Bucky being unsure if Steve is having sex with him because Steve likes him or if Steve is having sex with him because its technically illegal and Steve gets off on law breaking.

look friends we all know i’m not really a stucky shipper but this is LEGIT THE FUNNIEST AND MOST IN CHARACTER HEADCANON I’VE SEEN ALL WEEK I’M YELLING

[marvelsaukids]

@vmohlere

[imposterogers]

wade wilson kidnaps hugh jackman in deadpool 3 bc he’s convinced he’s actually wolverine. he spends the whole movie lugging him around but he’s literally just hugh jackman

[creme-meme]

hugh jackman does everything to prove that he’s hugh jackman. he sings, he tap dances, and he has an australian accent.

the reveal at the end of the movie is that hugh jackman isn’t wolverine, but wolverine is hugh jackman. logan went into witness protection in order to retire from being a superhero and having an alternate identity as an australian actor who started his career in musicals was basically fool proof until wade blew his cover story

[hellenhighwater]

Considering that Hugh Jackman exists in the Deadpool cinematic universe, this works in-canon quite well.

This is revealed, of course, when Hugh Jackman gets shot and killed just prior to the final battle, providing Deadpool with the emotional push that carries him to victory. After Deadpool finally defeats the Big Bad (somehow overcoming by himself whatever obstacle he thought he would need Wolverine for) he turns to see Hugh Jackman in the last stage of regenerating from being ‘dead’ and absolutely looses his shit about it.

[linkerbell]

This idea has been churning in my head for weeks now. Timerie using this dirtcarver’s mask for some sIcK pRAnKs. And i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to draw @doodledrawsthings‘ charming oc Friend so into the water, they go. ᕕ(ツ)ᕗ

[whetstonefires]

one of the hard things about reading the New Teen Titans comics, from the 80s, is how routinely Beast Boy/Changeling sexually harasses his female teammates.

like, occasionally it’s almost funny, it fits into his general battle-patter coping mechanism and all.

but it does not let up, and when he’s interjecting himself into the process of ‘greeting a friend we thought we might never see again’ with repeated complaints about how he doesn’t get a hug from the hot babe, what a waste Donna hugging her best friend and neither of these hotties hugging him, i just. please leave.

he’s supposed to be about sixteen, maybe seventeen by now here. Jason Todd’s a few years younger, and when he hits on Kori mid-battle (somewhat more tastefully than Gar usually does, and just once) later in the issue, she gripes about both of them and blames it on puberty.

so it’s a writing choice thing but Gar please lay the fuck off.

[whetstonefires]

kiragecko replied:

Yeah. Titan Up The Defense, the Titans podcast I listen to, have gotten so tired of calling him out that they cheer when he isn’t in an episode. All TV Gars are wonderful, but I can not like comics Gar. It frustrates me a lot.

yah it’s. he’s like, shit i’ve lost his name, the horrible grape headed diaper boy from boku no hero academia. mineta!

only gar’s main purpose in the narrative/team isn’t to advance some metanarrative goals involving 1) an in-story scapegoat for the horny elements who can accept resentment in the writer’s place and make the other male characters look better 2) some kind of twisted self-projection of the straight-male-as-loathsome-loser identity element codified by all that this-loser-is-you media, intended to argue for the validity of this caricature’s existence and capacity to do good in spite of his status as a serial sexual harasser

though one of gar’s purposes is to lampshade the horny, it’s done with a lot less shame and is thus (perversely) somewhat less annoying, and his insecurities, while multitudinous and manifest, don’t define him completely.

mineta isn’t even capable of friendship, because he reduces all interaction (outside life-threatening danger and some within it) to a zero-sum game of access to sex i mean this gremlin

but gar’s self-obsession and sophomoric grossness are still. pretty tiresome. i usually only really like him when he’s interacting with Vic, because they’ve got this bizarre friendship synergy where they make each other better and happier mostly through insults, and i am not okay with the growing trend of separating them

[dottie-wan-kenobi]

Hope it’s okay I respond but like. I seriously love Gar. I love his relationships and his friendships and his depths. I find his stories super interesting and I like that he’s younger than everyone else, that he acts more immature and kind of fills a younger brother role.

But the sexual harassment is SO CONSTANT and no one else on the team seems to care? I haven’t read all the way through but so far I think the only real reactions I’ve seen are like, Kory shutting him down a few times and Tara finding him unbearable and annoying. Obviously no one should have to say “hey Gar shut the hell up!” but by being the youngest, and having friends with Vic and Donna who are not afraid to call people out, it doesn’t really make sense to me that no one did.

[whetstonefires]

#idk how to say that kory is most def the type to nip this behavior in the bud #without sounding victim shaming #or how to say dick being totally indifferent is OOC and fucked up #without sounding like kory needs a protector bc she doesnt #idk what im trying to say other than as much as i love gar #this behavior is so fucking annoying and i hate how no one in verse sees it 

yeah it’s weird.

kori’s always been written really inconsistently when it comes to things like her relationship to sexuality, cuz f’ex they retconned repeated sexual assault onto her without any attempt to integrate that into her overall feelings and reactions, and she’s got that whole messy Space Savage shtick, but the effect they mostly seem to be going for in NTT is that she’s way too tough and confident and sexually liberated to be vulnerable enough to Gar’s sleaziness to seriously mind it. speaking of victim shaming.

and that’s how he’s similar to mineta, tbh–he’s specifically written as young and small and kind of pathetic in connection to his harassment so that he’s ‘clearly not a threat,’ to construct a dynamic wherein having a problem with his behavior stronger than an eye roll is supposed to be seen as inappropriate drama.

it’s just a lot more low-key with Gar, and he has other things going on rather than being a one-note soapbox character like Mineta. so he’s much better! and i do love him. i just don’t usually like him very much.

between how he reacts to the girls and how he reacts to Danny Chase I’ve always been aware that Gar is the sort of person who, if I knew him, I’d either have to submit silently to his constant harassment or be in a running feud with him–like i have known boys like this–and it tends to color how I react to him within the confines of the story. 😅

and then there’s just the discomfort i feel when the narrative clearly intends a character to be read as both ‘relatable’ and ‘an ass.’

[marvelsaukids]

The thing is, he is SUCH a product of the time. Like, the blindness that most 70s/80s writers had to harrassment and assault is TERRIFYING. (Other than in the X-Men, because Claremont had a ... different relationship with women.)

Men harrassing woman and it being funny or romantic is common in The Defenders, Howard the Duck, The Avengers, etc. (I haven’t read much non-Marvel pre90s.)

And did you watch season 1 of the Young Justice TV show? Because Wally is just like this! It hasn’t gone away!