:/

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

I read it and am extremely squicked.

And I don't mind people (actually) asking instead of looking it up, they're just being sociable. You'll notice that I didn't screenshot any of the actual definition-seekers, just people being kinda rude and making silly assumptions, like that it's new, or exclusively used on tumblr, or synonymous w/ cringe.

Anyway! For those who actually want to know what "squick" is or how it is used: Something that squicks you, or is a squick of yours, is something that disturbs you, grosses you out, just ruins the whole experience of whatever you're doing. You gotta close the book, leave the room, backspace out of wherever, because you just can't stand it.

It is primarily used in kinky and fannish circles.

For usage, you might see something like "Any good fic recs for [FANDOM NAME]? No pregnancy or cheating plotlines, please - they squick me."

You don't have to clarify how they squick you, if they nauseate you or make your skin crawl or make you too depressed or anxious or angry to enjoy it. They squick you out, and it would be rude and inappropriate to rec you anything with them.

You don't have to justify your aversion by calling it a trigger. (I know there are times when people will call their actual triggers "squicks" because, well, it's not really anyone's business what triggers them and why! No-one needs to know that!)

Like, that’s the straight-up text of the film, and it’s not especially subtle about it.*

I’m not saying gay people can’t be villains, but the whole point of Jareth is that his attraction toward Sarah is sick, and her rejection of him represents a triumph of good over evil – it’s very much a film born of the Stranger Danger narrative that was all over popular media in the 1980s. I’m sure it’s possible to do a same-gender version of that without falling down the slippery slope of Unfortunate Implications, but it doesn’t feel like that concern is even on the radar in a lot of these proposals.

CW: Long meta, rape mention, frank discussion of Problematic Teenage Fantasy Boyfriends

Labyrinth is pretty clearly a Symbolic Coming-Of-Age Story ™ about the Role Of Fantasy in the life of a Young Woman, right? it’s about how you need to have a healthy relationship with fantasy. you can’t let it push away the people you love, you can’t let it control you or blind you to what’s there. but it can help you make lasting friends, and when you need it most- for any reason at all- it’s there.   

it’s pretty much text that everything in Labyrinth is part of Sarah’s imaginary world. Everything in the Labyrinth is either something she sought out and loves- her plushies and statuettes, her music boxes and books- or some part of herself, some want or fear or dream, given form. 

And a lot of girls like Sarah- bookish, daydreamy, intellectually gifted but emotionally immature girls who’ve been steeped in a lot of crap about relationships from the world we live in - have a Fantasy Lover who looks and acts a lot like Jareth. 

He’s Intense and kind of scary– because when you’re at that age, anything to do with romance or sex is intense and scary. He’s passionately, obsessively devoted to you, because it feels good to be needed and a teenager hasn’t got the life experience to realize that IRL that kind of obsessiveness is a red flag. He’s an older man- sometimes much older- so that he knows what he’s doing and can show you what to do, but he’s as pretty and graceful as an age-appropriate crush would be. He’s Flawed and Broody and a bad boy- but it’s blatantly obvious that he has good qualities; he will gladly make a fool of himself dancing just to make a baby smile. 

 And the Fantasy Lover is often… yes… kinda predatory. He’s a vampire, or a werewolf, or a Phantom, or a Goblin King. He comes onto you, not the other way around; he chases you, and you run for a while before falling into his arms and being Ravished. He leads when you dance; he tells you “do everything I say, and I will be your slave”.

But there’s a reason for this. in modern American society- and this was even more true back when Labyrinth was being filmed- women are not supposed to want sex. even having fantasies about having a passionate lover you sought out that you want can get a bit ~taboo~. and if you’re a teenager- especially if you’re a sheltered teenager with no female friends or family, no one to tell you that what you want is okay and normal- it can feel weird and bad and scary to fantasize about, well, initiating consensual sex. you don’t feel like you’re allowed to; Nice Girls don’t. 

so oftentimes, the Fantasy Lover blurs into rape fantasy territory. he knows exactly what you want and he gives it to you, no matter how many times you say no. you deny yourself any agency within the context of your fantasy, but since it’s just a fantasy, you’re having your cake and eating it too– after all, you can stop whenever you like. you still get to be a Nice Girl, a Good Girl- you didn’t do anything wrong, even in your own head- but you get all the poorly-choreographed Imaginary Romance Bodice-Rippin’ you want. 

normally, this is a pretty harmless coping mechanism. the thing is… “denying herself her own agency” is one of Sarah’s big flaws.

 She tends to immediately deny that she made bad decisions, to act like bad things just happen to her because It’s Not Fair, to balk when there’s a problem she can’t immediately solve. heck, selling Toby to the Goblin King in the first place is sort of a backhanded denial-of-agency – she doesn’t want anything bad to happen to Toby even though she resents his existence, oh no no no, it was the Goblin King that stole the baby. 

 And Sarah’s never in any real danger from Jareth. the snake scared her, but it didn’t bite; the poisoned peach would have made her lose her memory and stay in her fantasy world forever, which is something that Sarah knows is bad, but still kinda wants on some level. at their final confrontation, he doesn’t try to kill her, doesn’t try to fight her– because he can’t. 

Jareth is Sarah’s Fantasy Lover. He can’t do anything that Sarah doesn’t want him to. he’s predatory because Sarah wants him to be, because then she doesn’t have to accept that she wants sex and romance; she can pretend it’s just another thing that happens to her. the reason Jareth is so out of control in the text is that Sarah has given away all control. 

the final confrontation in Labyrinth, isn’t Good Versus Evil in the sense that you mean; it isn’t Sarah destroying Jareth forever, or kicking him out of the land. Hell, he shows up at the end in barn owl form, while all the muppets are having a dance party in Sarah’s bedroom– he’s a part of her inner, fantastic world, and has just as much right to be there as Ludo or Hoggle or the little dudes with the ostrich hats. but he’s only a part of that world, and he’s not the part that matters most, or the part that has say.

their final confrontation is Sarah accepting, and taking responsibility for, her inner life. she is the one in charge of her destiny; she wants what she wants, she needs what she needs, and she will take responsibility for both. she doesn’t need Jareth to do things “to” her so she can pretend she doesn’t want them to happen. her will is as strong as Jareth’s, and her kingdom as great.  he has no power over her. 

so like…I get where you’re coming from with recognizing the Unfortunate Implications and all. “Gay people are sexual predators” is still A Thing, and in the real world, yeah, Jareth would be a creepy pedo stalker. assuming our civilization survives and all, I hope that someday people look at Labyrinth the way we look at Baby, It’s Cold Outside and completely miss the point. :V  

…but c’mon. a kid who grows up being told that they don’t really want the things they want– and if they do want those things, they’re Literally Satan– is gonna have so very much more trouble accepting their own sexuality as they get older.  

When the Fantasy Lover is not human – vampire, werewolf, or Goblin King – then it comes with the understanding that the way he behaves is simply in his nature. There’s no need to fuss over wondering why he became this way (or whether he might become worse in the future) or whether you have an obligation to try to Fix Him with your love, or whether there was something you said or did to make him this way. He simply is.

(I mean, I Can Fix Him With My Love is also  a fantasy, but a different one. Sort of how like “I overcome the oppression” and “I don’t have to face the oppression in the first place” are both important fantasies for many minority groups, I Can Fix Him and I Don’t Have To Fix Him are both important fantasies for young girls.)

it never means "examine why."

it means "don't."

it's the exact same shit that radfems and anti-kink ppl pull when they say "you should examine why--".

nothing that starts with "you should examine why" ends positively when you reply "i have, thanks, and my current position reflects that."

--

it can help you pinpoint exactly what resonates and therefore help you to understand the sorts of things that are personally meaningful to you.

it can uncover things about yourself you were not consciously aware of and help you explore them (how many “realising i liked this thing as a kid bc i was super queer but didn’t know it” posts are there on this website alone?).

it can help you to go on to find more media with those particular themes and concepts that you enjoy more effectively because now you know exactly what you’re looking for.

if you are a creator it can be invaluable in helping to understand how stories function and how to recreate impactful material in your own works.

and sometimes it can help you realise a story that you thought was really hitting you emotionally was actually using cheap tricks with no payoff and that’s why parts of it left you feeling meh without knowing quite why.

or that there were elements there that, when you actually step back, where kind of mean-spirited or unpleasant and leave you feeling kind of soured on the whole thing.

Also, I find that a lot of people with “weird” tastes have examined themselves extensively in the past simply because they couldn’t avoid knowing they were different, and it leads one to think about why and how.

And I learned to reply: Do you actually want to know why, or are you looking for an excuse to say "well that's wrong so you have to stop."

Because I'm not going to change. (Or: I'm not going to change because of a single thread in some internet forum.) I'm willing to discuss why I think something, why I do something, why I like what I like (inasmuch as I can figure it out), but... this is not a debate game where, if you decide my reasons are invalid, I'm going to change my mind.

If I've put serious thought into why I like a particular set of kinks in fiction, none of your off-the-cuff reactions are going to result in me saying "why thank you, kind rando on the internet--now that I see that was stupid, I will stop enjoying that kind of fiction!"

It sounds like some people are just outgrowing fandom and are having a hard time admitting that to themselves--its normal! Its normal to grow less interested in this stuff as you mature--fandom is stupid!

That doesnt mean you cant still enjoy the atuff you were in a fandom for, just maybe stay away from other fans! Sly cooper is my favorite videogame series and i *loathe* its fans etc--but i just dont go on the tag and pick fights with the creepier people anymore!

Is insulting and dismissive as hell.

“People should not deeply care about the things that inspire them and bring them joy. They should not have emotions that tie to their opinions. They should not mind if someone attacks them for having interests, and they should be willing to drop those interests - or at least drop any social connections related to those interests - if someone else harasses them about it.”

HOW DARE PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THINGS ENOUGH THAT IT MAKES THEM UPSET WHEN STRANGERS CALL THEM EVIL FOR WHAT THEY LIKE.

“Thats a pretty normal response to toxic media communities, imo? What else can yeh do?”

The normal response to toxic communities is to take action against them - either to change them by social influence, or appeal to an authority to shut them down. It’s not to say “well, haters gonna hate, so you might as well let them own the public side of fandom.” 

“So, uh, actually yeah, get a life.”

More victim-blaming. “Fandom isn’t actually your LIFE just because you love it and pour hours into it and let it be your gateway to learning new skills and a network of social connections. If you’re being hurt, it’s because you keep putting yourself in a dangerous place.”

y’know what? This looks like misogyny.

If boys playing sports mention that their local team is toxic and abusive and might be criminal, people don’t tell them, “just fucking walk away. You’re probably not going to be a pro so it’s just a hobby. Don’t go looking for ways to feel insulted, and if you can’t handle being attacked, you probably should find a different hobby. You can enjoy watching it on TV; you don’t have to actually participate to be part of Sports Fandom.” 

“I just want you to think through the implications!” says the person who flips the fuck out the moment you bring scientific research on what the implications are to the table.

I’m so sick of people going “waaaaaaah we just want to have a conversaaaaaation” when they don’t want to have a conversation, they just want a bigger soapbox to shout their ideas and denounce all others from.

You are free, in short, to keep yourself from consuming anything at all, for any reason, You’re not free to keep other people from consuming their own media. You’re not free to save someone else from consuming media that upsets *them*, much less from media that upsets *you*.

Both the writer and the consumer have to take responsibility.

Consumers need to take responsibility of the media they intake and not interact with things that have warnings for things they don’t like. That much is true.

But the writer also needs to take responsibility in their writing, too. Writing sensitive themes aren’t inherently bad, but how the writer portrays and uses those themes is what’s important, not just the mere existence of those themes in literature.

The entire argument is about whether those themes are romanticised/handled insensitively and how they have very real effects in real life. Writing sensitive themes isn’t inherently the writer condoning those themes, but you’d be surprised how many writers do condone those themes or take an unhealthy amount of joy in depicting those themes. 

Literature isn’t suddenly exempt from all consequence when we hold every other form of media to a moral standard. 

It’s not a call for censorship and no one’s allowed to explore dark themes in their writing, but a call for people who write those themes in an offensive way to take responsibility and deal with the consequences.

What are the appropriate consequences for artists who offensively depict sensitive themes? What appropriate consequences are visited on the creators of popular works that glamorize violence, like Joker, or eroticize sexual violence, like Game of Thrones?

What are the consequences of insensitive depiction? What provable harms come from fiction that insensitively depicts such things?

How do you tell which works are “romanticized” and “glamorized” and which are “sensitive” depictions? What are your criteria? Is it a test many different people could apply to a work of art and all come to the same conclusion on? Is it a test you could program a computer to apply?

If the focus is on how these themes are portrayed–that is, the approach each individual artist takes when portraying them–why are entire swathes of subject matter, like ships, condemned, and not the individual fanworks that take particular approaches to them?

What effect on whether or not a portrayal is viewed as “sensitive” or “acceptable” vs “harmful” and “glamorized” will the identity and experiences of the creator have?

How will you determine this relationship?

How will you account for the harm of coercive disclosure and/or erasure of those unwilling to publicly disclose sensitive areas of their lives and experiences, or unable to do so without significant personal harm? 

Do you think you would be able to determine who does and does not have the “right”, based on personal experience/ownership of events/identity/etc to create a particular portrayal without such disclosure? How will you be determining/testing this ability?

What does this determination do to the concept of “Death of the Author” and how it is applied to authorial intent vs results and outcomes?

How will you keep the concepts of “sensitive/appropriate” vs “romanticized/glamourized” from being used by those in social, cultural and/or political power to silence content that they do not like?

Have you researched how these concepts have been used to do exact that in the past? What cases can you give as examples? What measures will be taken in order to prevent the same thing from happening?

If you are relying on the difference between formal state sponsored censorship and mere social shunning/opprobrium, what research have you done into the effects of these forces on minority groups, particularly sexual and religious minority groups, and their artistic expressions? What measures will be taken to be certain that this case is different? How will those be implemented?

I think just having a disclaimer - “This is all fantasy and I DO NOT think any of this is healthy irl” - is enough in most cases, tbh. Which I see a lot of authors do. But while I’d like them to add disclaimers and such, I don’t know about making people face “consequences” for not doing so.

People who find themselves accused of having handled a subject insensitively (and the bar is low, like, “You wrote ship about children from canon being grown up and experiencing romance as adults, you’re glorifying pedophilia because you interpreted children as sexual”) are subjected to harassment campaigns, suicide baiting, being smeared to everyone who interacts with them as “a pedophile”, and being outed as LGBTQ+ (and “a pedophile”) to families and workplaces.

And look, I fell in the “conversation” trap on this website exactly once. Somebody clamoured to want to know, ‘seriously, because I just can’t see it!’ why anyone would have a different opinion. When stating mine, as thoughtfully and respectfully as I could, I got back: ‘you are a Terrible Person and People Like you are Terrible People and this is why…’ without responding to any of my points while gleefully putting words in my mouth.

People bothering other people about responsibility in storytelling in fandom rarely contact writers of mainstream fiction to do the same. Are they contacting the writers of Joker about ableism? Bryan Singer about killing off his only Black character in X-Men in a completely nonsensical way? Criminal Minds? Are they discussing Golding or Philip Roth? Saw movies and other torture porn? Seldom. Very seldom. It’s usually fic writers, a very marginalised group of storytellers they can harass.

Also, as we can see in JoKe Rowling’s case im Harper’s Bazaar it’s always people who have been criticised for spouting very harmful and scientifically false opinions who call for an 'open debate’. Really, it’s code for 'I want to insult whomever I wish without criticism.’ Because nobody is stopping them, indeed, from voicing their opinions and insulting whomever they wish. What they are doing is either ignoring them or pushing back. Which is exactly what an open debate is for, but OK. People who know they will be criticised, or far more likely, otherwise won’t be listened to, especially on this site, 'only want to have a conversation’. Because that is what they are owed, they think. But they’re not. A conversation requires two willing participants and a willingness to listen on both sides. You can want to have a conversation all you want, but you can only request one. Nobody is owed a conversation, especially when there is a very good chance that the politedness demanded is not granted in turn. If it were only about getting to understand another’s viewpoint, you wouldn’t need a conversation. You could look these things up. But if you want an extra opportunity to talk and be listened to, you need a conversation. Especially if you want to abuse the other person to their face and then shame them for refusing to submit to that.

--

There are instances of weird NB OC tags that the wranglers presumably didn't know how to deal with—for example, "Modern Girl In Thedas" and "Modern Boy In Thedas" are sub tags of "Modern Character In Thedas," but "Modern They In Thedas" and "Modern Nonbinary In Thedas" are synonyms to it instead. So if you try to filter it you will just get all the "modern girl" and "modern boy" stories.

I figure it doesn't matter to most people since "original modern non-binary character in this video game" is a pretty niche thing and you can search within results to specify if you want to anyway. But that's an example of where there's no nb subtag, even though writers have specified. We're just synned to the broader "character" tag.

It really bothered me when I noticed it while trying to search last year, though, even though it's probably just, like, a single tag wrangler who isn't personally interested in thinking about gender going "oh that means a person I guess," and not thinking any further. I almost sent in a report, but then I spoke to a friend and ended up feeling like "yeah, maybe I'm just being oversensitive."

If you're an anti-fujoshi and you KNOW the definition of fujoshi, I'm gonna assume you're homophobic.

fujoshi simply means female fan of BL.

that's all.

it's never meant "mlm fetishist".

yes, fujoshi CAN enjoy the sexual aspects of BL if they want to, but not all of them do, and by assuming so, or asking them if they do to make sure that they're not "fetishizing gay men" (because, like, i've actually had one or two people ask me if that was acceptable after i explained to them the correct definition) then you are, whoa, shocker, sexualizing fujoshi themselves.

and you can't fucking sexualize real people whilst complaining about the sexualization of fictional men. it's hypocritical. and just plain stupid.

also... reading mxm smut isn't "fetishizing gay men". reading BL that includes sex scenes isn't "fetishizing gay men". sex isn't a fetish. a sexual fixation is what is defined as a fetish. sex alone can't be a fetish. neither can porn.

there's nothing wrong with being a fujoshi, there's nothing wrong with liking BL, and there's nothing homophobic about it. your homophobic status(?) depends entirely on how you treat real people.

fictional characters — literal objects — do not matter. at all.

You're right! ^-^

I'm an adult with a job, and confident-ish in my own skin. When you tell me to kill myself, or hurl baseless accusations at me, I laugh it off.

But my 13 y/o self would not have done that. He'd have been really bothered by the way you would have treated him.

Normal people can’t be bothered to read or exclude tags anyway 👌

I don't read tags. Tags on this site, in the last five years or so, have become useless. I mean am I supposed to be wowed by the "no beta we die like [INSERT WITTICISM HERE]/men" tag that effectively tells me the author's a lazy fuck who can't even proofread their own content, let alone score the monumental task of finding a Beta (which is simplicity). Between gems like that and the flagrant abuse you'll see like "lol i dont know what im doing" in the tags, they're less than helpful.

You clearly give a shit. You clearly give all the shits, given your response to me. In fact I'd say you gave so much of a shit that you just had-had-had to respond first thing crying over what a massive jerk you thought I was being (another news flash: although my opinion on the story was negative and i inferred that I doubted the author's creativity/talent, I promise that your response was more the assault than mine was). Me, I was just sharing my opinion of the fic. Given that, as I've read it from first word to last, I earned that right.

No. I'll say whatever I please. I read the fic, I can comment on it: even if I didn't like it. I know people like you love insisting that AO3 should be nothing more than a hugbox where nobody ever says anything bad, but given the fact that the author is allowing comments in the first place I'm doing to do so.

And there it is, the fucking crybaby elitism that almost every member of this site has; insisting that if you respond to a story without an account, you're "hiding" and are a "coward." Let me make this perfectly clear, you insufferable fucking irritant of a cunt-scab: there's no benefit to being a member of this site beyond a shitty avatar, your name being underlined, the ability to post fanfiction and the ability to bookmark your favorites and pad the Kudos for a story. Nothing else. Any reply to me still goes through to my email, is still seen the next time I'm on my computer.

But far be it from me to attempt to rob you of the joy of getting overly offended to a nothing review, keep fucking sobbing over it.