Another case of fancops co-opting progressive language to use as a hammer against anyone who does things they don’t like.
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I keep seeing fic with words censored in the body of the fic like so: c*nt, f*gg*t, q-slur (seriously, come on), r*pe, *nc*st. I even saw a fic where someone was described as “sitting next to his unalived body” which was so absurd it made me laugh.
I’ve seen this trend in tags as well, which would be ACTIVELY FUCKING DANGEROUS if AO3 tag wranglers weren’t literal, actual angels who make sure that “rape” and “r*pe” (and all such transpositions) are treated like the same tag.
AO3 isn’t TikTok. Tag accurately and completely for your fic themes so people can search AND filter. Use the correct words in your fic content so people who use blacklist extensions can actually benefit from the tools that protect them.
If you don’t feel comfortable using a word without censoring it, then don’t use that word at all. Maybe consider why you’re even writing something that contains that theme.
Sincerely,
An actual real life rape and incest survivor who has actual fucking PTSD and really doesn’t want to have to stop reading fic for my ship because people think a god damn asterisk is going to somehow save people like me from being triggered.
I feel like maybe people newer to fandom don’t realize that putting asterisks in words like that is not to avoid triggering someone. Alternate words and alternate spellings are for tricking the algorithm from censoring/blocking your content from distribution (like on tiktok, not showing your video to anyone if you use the word “dead”, so you use the word “unalive”).
Tumblr and AO3 both don’t have that issue – your posts will still be seen if you use the full version of those words. And, as OP stated above, people rely on you using those words so that their blacklisted words/phrases work and they can actually avoid the things that trigger them.
The internet is vast and ever-changing and rules vary from site to site – this is good information for newer AO3/tumblr users!
If antis were being honest when they said “but we’re okay with depictions as long as you make it clear that it’s bad”, then the one thing that would determine if a writer or artist received hate would be how the Problematic™️ subject matter was depicted.
The reason I don’t believe them when they say that is because, from what I’ve observed, this is not the case. It doesn’t matter how you portray the subject. If you go out of your way to write the ship as something horrifying, you get hate just like the people who write the ship as fluffy and cute do.
From what I’ve observed, the only determining factor in whether a ship gets hate is whether or not antis have heard of it and how disgusted they are by it when they do. That’s it. Doesn’t matter if your shock and disgust is the point. Doesn’t matter if you’re not supposed to like it. What matters is that an anti found it upsetting. And that gets fanfic authors and fanartists harassed.
It also gets hate towards anyone who likes a series they don’t like. There’s an anime called Happy Sugar Life. It’s a horror series about a yandere lolicon and the child she kidnapped to live with her. You’re not supposed to look at it and go “aw how cute”. You’re supposed to look at it and go “holy shit can someone please rescue this child from the murder bitch?”. And it’s made more disturbing by how the little girl is too young to understand how bad her situation is, only that this nice lady is taking her to live with her and promising a happy life together and looking after her. It’s all fucked up and that’s the point. But how did I hear about this anime? From fucking antis complaining about it. Saying that it’s wrong and that nobody should watch it and it’s promoting child abuse. Which completely contradicts their claim that it’s okay if you portray it as a bad thing! Here’s a perfectly good example of the exact kind of darkfic that antis say is fine and there’s still antis shitting on it. Which tells me that it genuinely doesn’t matter at all what anyone does when writing, or when picking which fictional couple to draw, it doesn’t matter because it’s all disgusting to them.
So why do they even bother claiming there’s an option? Two reasons if you ask me. 1) antis can’t agree on what’s “proship” and what isn’t. One anti will ship something and another anti will call that ship “a proship”. Another anti will say it’s fine as long as you do x, y, and z, while another anti will say actually you need to do a, b, and c, and then a third will come along and say “just don’t write it at all”. They can’t agree but everything that even one anti thinks is bad will be used to justify harassment against the creator. They can’t wrap their head around that tho, so they just assume every proshipper is doing exactly what they personally condemn. 2) they know they’re lying, they just want a justification to harass people who write fics and draw art they don’t like. It’s entrapment. They make rules for you to play by and then punish you whether you play by them or not because what they really want is to frame themselves as morally superior to everyone who tries at all. It’s a holier than thou shtick.
The only solution is to ignore them trying to claim anything will keep you safe from their bullshit and just write/draw what you want and use whatever resources are at your disposal to make them piss off if they start shit.
(Blue text because tumblr is bugged and I cannot read what I’m typing if I don’t change the color)
If antis were being honest when they said “but we’re okay with depictions as long as you make it clear that it’s bad”, then the one thing that would determine if a writer or artist received hate would be how the Problematic™️ subject matter was depicted.
The reason I don’t believe them when they say that is because, from what I’ve observed, this is not the case. It doesn’t matter how you portray the subject. If you go out of your way to write the ship as something horrifying, you get hate just like the people who write the ship as fluffy and cute do.
From what I’ve observed, the only determining factor in whether a ship gets hate is whether or not antis have heard of it and how disgusted they are by it when they do. That’s it. Doesn’t matter if your shock and disgust is the point. Doesn’t matter if you’re not supposed to like it. What matters is that an anti found it upsetting. And that gets fanfic authors and fanartists harassed.
It also gets hate towards anyone who likes a series they don’t like. There’s an anime called Happy Sugar Life. It’s a horror series about a yandere lolicon and the child she kidnapped to live with her. You’re not supposed to look at it and go “aw how cute”. You’re supposed to look at it and go “holy shit can someone please rescue this child from the murder bitch?”. And it’s made more disturbing by how the little girl is too young to understand how bad her situation is, only that this nice lady is taking her to live with her and promising a happy life together and looking after her. It’s all fucked up and that’s the point. But how did I hear about this anime? From fucking antis complaining about it. Saying that it’s wrong and that nobody should watch it and it’s promoting child abuse. Which completely contradicts their claim that it’s okay if you portray it as a bad thing! Here’s a perfectly good example of the exact kind of darkfic that antis say is fine and there’s still antis shitting on it. Which tells me that it genuinely doesn’t matter at all what anyone does when writing, or when picking which fictional couple to draw, it doesn’t matter because it’s all disgusting to them.
So why do they even bother claiming there’s an option? Two reasons if you ask me. 1) antis can’t agree on what’s “proship” and what isn’t. One anti will ship something and another anti will call that ship “a proship”. Another anti will say it’s fine as long as you do x, y, and z, while another anti will say actually you need to do a, b, and c, and then a third will come along and say “just don’t write it at all”. They can’t agree but everything that even one anti thinks is bad will be used to justify harassment against the creator. They can’t wrap their head around that tho, so they just assume every proshipper is doing exactly what they personally condemn. 2) they know they’re lying, they just want a justification to harass people who write fics and draw art they don’t like. It’s entrapment. They make rules for you to play by and then punish you whether you play by them or not because what they really want is to frame themselves as morally superior to everyone who tries at all. It’s a holier than thou shtick.
The only solution is to ignore them trying to claim anything will keep you safe from their bullshit and just write/draw what you want and use whatever resources are at your disposal to make them piss off if they start shit.
(Blue text because tumblr is bugged and I cannot read what I’m typing if I don’t change the color)
copypasted for you in black!
tbh in my experiences antis’ only real consistent determining factor for approving of a whump fic that doesn’t romanticize the whump is pure aesthetics.a ll they care about is how much it personally aesthetically pleases the. i know this due to how antis treated my fnaf au.
meanwhile were perfectly okay with much darker fnaf au’s from their mutuals by comparison. that’s why i think it’s solely based on aesthetic choices and preferences.
i also think about antis who romanticize junko from danganronpa who is everything antis accused my au william afton of being. but shes a girl so now antis treat her as a hashtag Girlboss. it’s all based on aesthetic. a d also plartforming the right exclus blogs, that’s another thing i noticed. fi you don’t they will assume that you’re a pedophile for not wanting to platform any exclus at al.
which is all the more reason i don’t bother appeasing these assholes. people shouldn’t have to follow the right exclus and appease antis’ constantly goalposting aesthetic preferences in order to write whump fics. no author needs an anti or exclus’ approval to write anything.
I don’t know anything about the user that the person in the screenshot is talking about, but–
– the use of “cumbrained” as an insult is extremely suspicious and alt right adjacent.
Like, that is terminology you don’t want to use unless you’re a conservative.
It is directly from conservative spaces.
