BlackHeart Biohazards

Seeing all the reblogs on your post about comments being dead, I wanted to throw in my 2 cents. (Mutal here on anon because I don’t want to deal with idiots replying to my reblog, but I salute your resoluteness for dealing with those idiots)I think a lot of the reason that people aren’t commenting is due to the purity culture and pro vs anti war going on in fandom, and a lot of people get crazy cyber stalkerish too, checking art people have reblogged, the tags, the OP’s stance, and a lot of other factors.In a small fandom that’s my hyperfixation and special interest, I have some good friends who were dm’d by at least one person who was trying to police them on art they reblogged due to the opinions on pro vs anti stance of the OP. That person went on to spread rumors of them in the fandom, and my friend found themselves blocked by four other artists, all of which they had extremely positive interactions with and had never discussed or brought up any kind of fandom wank. It’s a small-ish fandom and so people can keep track of others fairly well. And this dynamic used to just be on tumblr, but now I’m seeing it migrate to A03 as well, DNI’s being listed in the tags of fics, people are being blocked by some authors since bookmarks are public and other people can look through them. There’s so much policing and toxicity in the small fandom I’m in that I can only imagine how bad things get in much larger fandoms. I think there’s something to be said for how people in fandom view art and fic as content, but I do think there’s also a discussion to be had on how people don’t comment or interact with fanworks due to fear of harassment and exclusion in the event that they reblog from the wrong artist or writer. I personally am not as inclined to reblog or comment/interact in the event that the poster themselves turns out to be someone who’s very into fandom politics but does it very quietly while bad mouthing others or making call our posts or someone else who’s big in the fandom noticing what I comment on, going through likes/bookmarks and shit talking to other people in fandom. On my personal blog I am very vocal about being anti censorship but I only interact with fandom posts on a very carefully curated separate blog. Maybe what I’m talking about seems unreasonable but I do think that now in fandom there’s a lot of fear and anxiety about interaction. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen in multiple fandoms, and seen things range from call out posts, harassment, bullying and cyber stalking. I’ve known about some of my favorite people in fandom quitting art and fic altogether due to liking or posting the ‘wrong’ kind of content. I myself have been blocked on a03 and tumblr due to username alone. (one is nsfw and the other is completely sfw and I do not have any posts or links crossing from my tumblr to A03 to give away who I am on both platforms.) I think pro vs anti has created a toxic place not only in terms of what people ship and how they ship it, but also fear of interacting with the wrong creator as well, and that brings in a whole ‘nother layer of fuckery and drama with it. One other thing that might shed some light is that due to there being a literacy crisis, I have seen fics with some truly incredible set up and complex characterization at the beginning, get all it’s potential flushed down the toilet because the author doesn’t want to explore and engage with any kind of complexity or nuance within their own story. While I can’t speak for every author’s vision for fic/art, it seems there’s far less fanworks that are wiling to be complex, raise stakes, or be willing to take a firm stance on things through the text that they are writing. I hesitate now to leave comments on fics, because while I do want to encourage people to write more, I don’t want to give my approval to people who genuinely support censorship and anti ship content and find out after the fact that I’ve left a nice comment that they are someone who’d be ok with that sort of thing. (And even among the anti shippers and ‘oowoo i hate problematic shit’ I have seen some truly horrible things in fic portrayed as ‘this would be a good and an ok thing IRL’ such as one memorable fic where a stalker threatens the life of the MC, and the MC’s uncle (they live in the same house) who is a therapist has said stalker come into their home for therapy. And this was portrayed as a good and normal thing that would be acceptable in real life! And I know that seems absolutely fucking wild, but it was something the author was speaking about to another user in the fucking comments! Like what the absolute fuck? I’m still so relieved I never left a comment on that fic to this DAY.)Sorry this got long, but I didn’t see any other reblogs or comments on your post that went into this sort of thing and I just wanted to throw in another perspective. Now, I personally don’t leave comments or tags or bookmarks (tho I do leave comments as anonymous on A03) until I’m able to make a good guess that the creator isn’t someone with a severe form of brain rot. Maybe I’m not in the right about being picky about leaving comments, but I do think a lot of people probably have some level of fear and anxiety when it comes to interaction.