I support every single thing that is wrong and morally messed up in fiction. I support people’s rights and freedom to create and consume whatever they want as long as they’re not harming anyone in real life. I support art that portrays topics that are taboo, shocking, disgusting. I support fanfics that make people feel sick and disgusted.
and if you think me supporting those taboo things in fiction—because I’m mature enough to understand fiction is not reality, thoughtcrimes are not real, censorship is a fascist tool, and people should have the rights and freedom to do whatever they want when they’re not harming anyone in real life—means “I condone those taboo things in real life, because I refuse to harass people for enjoying taboo fiction”, then you’re either dumb or a bully who wants to harass innocent people over fiction in order to support censorship and fascism and feel morally superior. but you’re really just either dumb or a fascist apologist lol
with all that said, I will go write my dark non-con fic now 😌 #torturing a fictional character is self-care to me
my fav under-appreciated moment from episode 3: martyn talking to apo and cleo and literally No One in the convo knows theres two vampires there, not even the two vampires
It's called whump because that's the noise Doc makes when he hits a ledge on the fall into a crypt and gets head trauma and a PTSD flashback that lasts most of the day.
One of the most common reasons given for boundaries (and subsequent boundary policing) is the idea that cc's see themselves as their characters and it makes them uncomfortable in some way. Sometimes this is made explicit (such as luanne + kyleff) and other times it's the clear background implication (pyro). There's a term in broader rp space for this concept called "character bleed" (<- blog post describing it w/ some academic articles) and its usage in the context of boundaries is complete bs
I think graecie (in her discussion on stream and on tumblr) unpacks the idea that managing bleed is on the audience really well! I also think it's a shame that, despite this, she's never used as a "good example" when talking about boundaries. So, I'm talking about her and why other people should too
Here are some quotes from when graecie clarified about her post further on stream:
"When I bring up character bleed or how our brains differentiate- or-or. Our brains are unable to differentiate fake emotions from roleplay to real emotions in real life and how, like, your brain treats those emotions that you feel the same way. I don't ever want that to be misconstrued as I'm putting that responsibility on the community to prevent us from getting character bleed, or prevent us from struggling with those things. That's not it." (22:40)
(Small note that the use of "us" is super notable here! This is something that (should) apply to all creators, not just graecie)
"When I brought [character bleed] up in the past I think it might've been misconstrued as me blaming the community or, not blaming the community but expecting the community to be responsible for preventing that and that's never what I mean. Whenever I bring it up it it just, I think it's something creators in the mcr space— in the mcrp space are unaware of, um, because it is so new. Safety tools, uh, self-care in roleplay, all of that is relatively new to the mcrp space, uh, and I don't think a lot of creators understand the impact that playing a character live non-stop can have on their mental. And like, how they— how they view that character as more of themselves." (23:45)
"It-it can be stressful to navigate but that's also, it's on me to navigate, which is what I've been doing. Um, it's not on anyone who engages with my media to navigate for me." (25:10)
This is already (somehow) leagues above every other creator who thinks it's on their (mostly underage) fanbase to regulate their own emotions! What's most interesting to me in this stream + graecie's subsequent posts is that she's clearly interested in spreading this idea outside herself. In a recent(ish) tumblr post she detailed some of the consent/safety tools she introduced on the flight and on stream she mentioned:
"I've been slowly trying to introduce more dnd safety tools into the mcrp space. I did a character, uh, like safety and consent checklist form for the flight for everyone to fill out... it's absolutely, it's on the other people you play with and the gamemasters but it's not, I-I would say it's not on the community who is consuming the content you create to be aware of and prevent [character bleed]." (25:30)
"And, I'm there for my friends if they're going through it, I've got resources for that." (27:09)
You'll notice that it didn't take some huge controversy for graecie to change her opinion, just some self-reflecting and actually listening to the community. Here's her establishing a dni tag and talking about it on stream
That other people (the ones ppl usually point to as good examples) had such a public turn-around and have done nothing to actually change the culture which encourages boundaries brings their motives into question. It's an issue that "changed" creators get to respond to their co-workers insane boundaries by saying "I do respect other creators boundaries cause its their preference" and get uncritical praise. The only reason we see boundary discourse come up so often is bc ppl who are "okay about boundaries" aren't willing to challenge the overall culture in mcyt that endorses that behavior. An unwillingness to challenge even basic ideas such as "the rules that inspire harassment are good" and "my emotional regulation is the job of the audience" makes me wonder if opinions have actually changed or if creators are just searching for fandom brownie points. If creators who "figured it out" were interested in more than just themselves I don't think this discourse would be happening every other month
I mainly just think there are better examples of "boundaries done right" than the names ppl usually throw around. Especially when graecie's a marginalized creator who (lbr) probably deals w/ a lot more fandom weirdness than the (mostly cis and het) men that ppl talk about :). That she didn't require some explosive discourse also proves this is a topic of discussion because these mindsets are so normalized
tagging is a courtesy. I've said this many times before but it bears repeating because I keep seeing nonsense takes on this while it really is so simple. authors do not have to tag beyond 'creator chose not to use archive warnings'. if someone has triggers and/or squicks, then fics tagged as such are simply not for them. that's fine! not everything has to be for everyone!! authors not tagging clearly do that accepting that fewer people will read their fics! but that's still their prerogative. 'creator chose not to use archive warnings' or only the main ao3 warnings are proper, sufficient tagging.
and like, personally i tend to tag beyond that. personally, i appreciate when other authors do. it's a great practice. i love tags. but they are not something that is owed and we really need to get off this weird take that it is. it's not, and it's reader's responsibility to assess if they want to take the risk of reading something untagged, and to curate their online experience. and yes, this includes simply not reading things if you are unsure about its contents even at the risk of missing out sometimes.
gracieabrams
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
andulkaphoto
