People were terrified during Strikethrough. Ā I was there. Ā Communities were being shut down, individual users were being shut down. Ā People were losing access to their own fics, their feedback, their comments ā a LOT went on in comments on LJ. Ā Think more coherent reblogs, much more personal, very widespread. Ā Comments were also very important, and in terms of networking/communicating, were absolutely critical. Ā
LJ was, for many people, central. Ā
It was a fundamental part of the infrastructure of fandom at the time. Ā
Having it attacked, having parts of your fandomās territory just deletedĀ like that, was very very scary. Ā People didnāt know who was next. Ā Every day, the list of stricken journals grew. Ā And not all of them came back, not all of them recovered their content. Ā Some people even voluntarilyĀ deleted their content as a form of protest. Ā It was a bad time.
You do notĀ have to interact with fic that grosses you out or makes you uncomfortable. Ā Tagging is a thing. Ā And even outside of tags, you are responsible for curating your own fandom experience. Ā It is not rightĀ to expect it to be curated for you. Ā 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 sayĀ āthings that donāt harm anyoneā but I realize you can argue that. Ā If you get triggered, thatās upsetting. Ā That could be considered harm. Ā And I have sympathy for that. Ā I do.
I have run across fic that triggered me. Ā I have pretty specific triggers, and people donāt always think to warn for them because they arenāt that big a deal for a lot of people. Ā Or itās sort of bundled into kink and is presumed, that if youāre okay with certain kinds of kink, youāre okay with this. Ā So Iāve been blindsided by it before. Ā 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 thatās not an ironclad obligation. Ā Itās a tool people provide out of courtesy.
That was not the fault of the site! Ā 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! Ā It was my responsibility to try to curate my experience, and I tried, but it wasnāt my fault because I didnāt 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. Ā 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. Ā I mean, it was exactly the kind of relationship all of us here on Tumblr love to hate. Ā 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?Ā He was a real rapist, a verified grade-A bad fuckinā guy. Ā (She was lucky to escape. Ā I have immense respect for her.) Ā And she wrote some fucked up fic to deal with it, and she shared it, and people were investedĀ in it. Ā And because this was early 2000ā²s, she had to host it on a foreign server and cover her tracks, because at that time no-place was safe to post it.
āYeah, but if sheās writing it for therapy, she doesnāt have to post it where other people might have to see it!ā I hear you say.
But like ā¦ what the hell??? āShut up, donāt talk about it, itās bad to talk about these things, because these things are bad!ā is something used againstĀ folks with trauma.
āThis isnāt good for me, I canāt talk about this, I canāt be your audience for this,ā thatās fine, those are boundaries that people with trauma use to defend themselves. Ā You should learn to say those things! Ā 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. Ā Iāve only really been able to openly sayĀ āI was assaulted, it was traumatic, I am a little fucked up from itā for the past couple of years, tops. Ā I couldnātĀ talk about it before that. Ā Couldnāt! Ā And it was over 20 years ago!
I also believe, very firmly, that you donāt need a history of abuse to find writing really messed-up shit satisfying, or to find reading it cathartic. Ā I believe 100% in the freedom of creative expression, and the freedom to read whatever fucked up shit you want to read.
All yāall fandom youngsters can spit nails all you want over gross rape fic, incest fic, whatever.
Fine, I donāt like it either!
But that fucked up shit? Ā That fucked up shit helped carve out the spaces we have today. Ā You donāt 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 doesnāt keep actual kids or teens or assault/rape victims safe. Ā It wouldnāt have made me feel safe when I was 16 and didāt want what was going on. Ā It doesnāt make me feel safe now. Ā I can say with the perspective of someone 24 years away from that event, it doesnāt make the world safer for people like I was. Ā It actually makes it worse.
Learn to steer clear of the messed-up stuff you donāt like. Ā Itās a skill, you get better with practice. Ā Have someone else vet stuff for you if you need help doing itĀ now.
Everything that is sketchy and gross is not criminal, and writing about a thing is not morally the same as doing it. Ā 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. Ā The former is, at most, in poor taste, and potentially triggering to abuse victims. Ā 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. Ā A g a i n. Ā
The first can be avoided because it is imaginary and you, an adult, have power over your back button so that you donāt have to witness harm to imaginaryĀ people. Ā The second, those very real kids had to rely on real adults and real law enforcement to keep them safe from very real assault. Ā (It worked! Ā The neighborhood rallied! Ā He was arrested for violating parole!)
Pretty sure Sleazebag McDongface didnāt read some gross NC-17 Draco/Lucius fic before deciding to harm an actual human being. Ā Pretty sure not having read it didnāt keep him from doing it. āCause he fuckinā did it. Ā 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 notĀ the way to do it.
An author is not a perpetrator. Ā Stop trying to make those things synonymous in the minds of other fans, and in the minds of other recovering victims.
