a distractibility high is a thing.

JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE CHAPTER 5. The Devil Wears Dada

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Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Anon ostensibly wants to know: "Do authors realize that they're writing about things that some people might find disturbing, horrific, upsetting, repulsive, or simply just TMI?" (Yes, obviously they know. Authors are not stupid; that's usually a requirement of the job (not always. But usually).)

But what Anon is actually asking is, "Why don't authors stop themselves from doing a Bad Thing? Why doesn't anyone else stop them?" The assumption underlying that question is: "Surely if they realized that they were doing something disgusting, they would stop immediately." Even more covertly implied: "I think writing about certain things automatically taints you with moral degeneracy--that is, it marks you as a possible or potential criminal."

To that I say: My friend, writing is just thoughts copied onto paper, and thinking is not a crime. Only actual actions can be crimes. What does it matter what other people think about? Literally so what? Why do you want people to be stopped from thinking about those things ("did their editors ever gently ask them...")? Why do you care? Do you feel that an author should provide a list of justifications and excuses before it's permissible for them to write about something? Why? And who do you think should be in charge of that? The government???? YOU???????

To any person reading this post: If the above questions are personally upsetting to you, if you find yourself huffily thinking something like, "Well, I care because it could normalize--", NOPE, STOP RIGHT THERE. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 This is a big red flag: You (much like the Anon) are exhibiting some early warning signs of Fascism, and that is not something to take lightly in the current political climate. There are some drugs you shouldn't experiment with even once, and fascism is one of them. Repeat as often as needed: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THOUGHTCRIME. WE DO NOT LIVE IN GEORGE ORWELL'S 1984.

But we already talk about thoughtcrimes now and then, don't we? I can't remember seeing someone talking about crimestop (also from Orwell's 1984):

In the Newspeak vocabulary, the word crimestop denotes the citizen's instinctive desire to rid himself of unwanted, incorrect thoughts (personal and political), the discovery of which, by the Thinkpol [Thought Police], would lead to detection and arrest, transport to and interrogation at Miniluv (Ministry of Love). The protagonist, Winston Smith, describes crimestop as a conscious process of self-imposed cognitive dissonance: The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. . . . He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—'the Party says the Earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'—and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. Moreover, from the perspective of Oceania's principal enemy of the state, in the history book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Emmanuel Goldstein said that: Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

Read that twice, and then reread the Anon's question. Translate it through that lens: "Why," says the Anon, delicately disgusted, "are these authors not practicing better crimestop? I practice it all the time. Why aren't they?"

Great question, Anon. Why AREN'T they? Turn off your crimestop and give it some real thought.

(How many times did I watch Ruthlessness, Thunder Bringer, and Get in the Water animatics today?)

(Not telling.)

It’s 21 chapters in my outline, it’s a crossover (so typical of me), and it might take a while for me to write.

Let me repeat that. Archive Of Our Own is not a safe space, not in the way you mean it.

From the AO3 Terms of Service:

Why does the Archive have a goal of maximum inclusiveness?

There are a number of wonderful specialized archives. Our aim with this Archive is to provide a place to preserve as many fanworks as possible. At the same time, the Archive software can be used by anyone to create their own archives, including archives limited to particular topics, fandoms, or ratings.

What kind of content do you allow?

We will not remove content from the Archive because it contains explicit material, as long as it doesn’t violate any other part of the content policy (e.g., the harassment policy).

One basic consequence is that users are responsible for reading and heeding the warnings provided by the creator. Risk-averse users should keep in mind that not all content will carry full warnings. If you want to know more, you may also wish to consult the bookmarks that people other than the creator have used to categorize the fanwork.

Some creators do not want to put specific ratings or warnings on their works. Our policy aims to enable creators to choose appropriate labels or to opt not to use ratings and warnings, with the understanding that some users will avoid unrated or unwarned content.

The ratings/warnings policy is really minimal. Why is this?

We believe that appropriate ratings and warnings are often in the eye of the beholder. Users who feel that a fanwork lacks an appropriate rating/warning are encouraged to try to resolve the issue with the creator. Users may also add tags of their own to on-site bookmarks of a fanwork, which other users can consult for more information. When those tags are present, you can click on the “Bookmarks” link at the top of the work to see them.

The stated desires/goals when AO3 was conceived and initially developed can be found here, on a livejournal post from @astolat (founder of VidCon, Yuletide, and AO3, and all around fannish legend). In short, the goal was “allowing ANYTHING – het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult.” 

And that, in fact, is precisely what AO3 hosts. You see, AO3 is a safe space for fanfiction. It’s a safe space for people to explore all kinds of fannish content without fear of banning, deletion, or legal reprisal. It was founded, designed, and developed to be a safe space for fandom and fannish works.

There also seems to be some confusion about the nature of safe spaces vs. trigger warnings. A fannish work that merits a trigger warning isn’t something that doesn’t belong in a safe space. The trigger warning is what MAKES something a safe space despite the presence of fannish works that merit warnings.

Something else to consider: there are many other things that include het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, and highly adult material, in addition to incest, pedophilia, infanticide, necrophilia, rape, bestiality, sadism and violence, adultery, and all manner of other things. 

FOR WRITERS TO POST PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING AS LONG AS IT IS ADEQUATELY WARNED FOR AND MEETS THEIR CLEARLY POSTED CRITERIA.

IT LITERALLY EXISTS TO PROTECT FANWORKS FROM BEING CENSORED, THREATENED BY LAWYERS, OR TAKEN DOWN OR ALTERED AGAINST THE WRITER’S WILL. THIS APPLIES TO ALL WORKS THAT MEET ITS TOS. ALL OF THEM. YES, INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY THAT REALLY ICKY ONE.

THAT IS LITERALLY ITS PURPOSE FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. IT WILL NOT CHANGE ITS PURPOSE AND SUDDENLY DECIDE SOME KINDS OF CENSORSHIP ARE OKAY NOW BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE YELL.

I know it’s a good thing that we’re now in a world where indignant young people have no idea how vulnerable they historically have been and still are in this particular context.  The time before: that was worse, for many people.  But it’s still very tiring to see.

It may be that AO3 needs to reconsider its philosophy and possibly change.

NO. Ao3 doesn’t *need* to do a damn thing. If you (and plenty of other people, evidently) think that fandom needs a more mainstream, sanitized space/archive go ahead and make it happen, the source codes are out there (and good luck deciding about how clean is clean enough).

I have seen this exact response given over and over again -make your own space, go on and do it yourselves- and it’s always ignored or treated like a dismissal. It’s NOT a dismissal, this is how everything in fandom gets created. This is how ao3 was created: a bunch of people wanted it enough to make it happen. We donated money, time and workto make it happen. And the folks at ao3 did such a good job that the result is now the biggest and most well known fandom archive. But it was born from a bunch of people who wanted to give fanfics a safe space and were willing to work for it.

We didn’t like how it was done elsewhere, so we built AO3. You don’t like how AO3 does it? WELL GO BUILD YOUR OWN SPACE INSTEAD OF DEMANDIG AO3 TO DO AS YOU PLEASE! DAMN IT!