I Guess I'm a Fic Writer Now?

2. Your creativity matters and so does your ability to share it

3. Serial harassers in fandom spaces are beginning to express discomfort that sites like AO3 completely strip their ability to do anything about fic they don't like, sometimes going as far as leaving entire fandoms due to the influx of "problematic fiction without a chance for consequences to the author". Posting your fanworks to AO3 actively contributes to making harassers feel unsafe and powerless in fandom

4. Militant anti-fanfic content creators also cannot do anything about fic posted to AO3

5. You can post anonymously to AO3, with the ability to de-anonymize at any time

percy has every reason to expect the worst, but he doesn't. he wants to give up, but he can't. i think abt that scene in ttc, where percy says the music sounds "a little sad, but maybe a little hopeful, too," bc i think that's percy's entire character. he's realistic, he knows the odds are grim, he knows that he should be expecting the worst, he sees and responds to the harm others do, but he can't stay cold and bitter. bc no matter what he does, he can't stop finding the world beautiful.

not my tweet or my fic (and there’s a good chance of this comment being a bot) but yeah, don’t do this. sure, some writers wouldn’t mind having fanfics (or direct continuation) of their fanfics written by someone else. some may even be thrilled and happy. but the fandom etiquette is that if you want to write a fanfic or a continuation of someone’s fanfic, YOU POLITELY ASK THE WRITER FOR THEIR PERMISSION. not their readers.

Sometimes, in fandom, we just want to write id-tastic fic that rolls around in tropes that might be viewed as problematic. But we don’t want to address the problematic side of things in this particular fanwork; we just want to roll around and wallow.

It is considered courteous to give readers a heads-up via use of AO3 tags. I propose a tag that signals that a given fanwork is for rolling around, not giving a measured evaluation of anything. The MCU has carved out a space for this sort of fic with the “HYDRA Trash Party” tag, for which I commend them. Trash Party is a bit too specific to cover all of the ground I’m thinking of here, though; I propose “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.”

For those of you not familiar with Arrested Development, Michael Bluth finds a paper bag in the freezer labeled “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat.” He opens the bag, finds a dead dove, and reacts as follows:

[gif of a white man saying “I don’t know what I expected” in a deadpan manner]

The “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag would essentially be a “what it says on the tin” metatag, indicating “you see the tropes and concepts tagged here? they are going to appear in this fic. exactly as said. there will not necessarily be any subversion, authorial commentary condemning problematic aspects, or meditation on potential harm. this fic contains dead dove. if you proceed, you should expect to encounter it.”

it’s not weird to love it and comment and leave kudos because the author will probably still see it someday and it will make them happy.

it’s not weird to like said author’s work so much that you want to go look for other fics from them.

it’s not weird to go through the authors profile and look for other fics from the ships you like (or maybe some that you’ll give a chance because you liked the author) and maybe bookmark them for later.

it’s not weird to read these other fics and like them too and comment on them because you actually like them and you want to let the author know.

it’s not weird to read fanfiction from 5, or 8, or 10 years ago and actually enjoy and engage with it because it’s perfectly normal to relate to something that’s less than a decade old!

let’s stop treating fanfiction like they’re instagram posts that stop being interesting in 24 hours! fanfiction is NOT social media, fanfiction is art!!! and art doesn’t get old in one day, one year, or even a decade!

When you eventually get arrested for playing out your fantasies in real life, I hope you get chemically castrated.

Then, once it has become established that their Target Group has no rights, that there is no cruelty they do not deserve, no sadism too perverse, they will begin trying to lump their real targets in with them.

So you see that it starts with signs that say Throw Your Local Pedophile Into A Woodchipper. You laugh. Pedophiles are monsters. Who is going to defend a monster? Why not throw them into woodchippers? Fuck em'. But then the default accusation of the fascists becomes accusing all their enemies of being pedophiles. They start going, you know, I think those trannies are only making all this fuss about being allowed to use the bathroom because they want to peep on little girls. Maybe those gays that want to talk about LGBT history are just trying to groom little boys. Maybe everyone that I hate is secretly evil and I am allowed to do anything that I want to them. How wonderful. How convenient. And wouldn't you know it, the woodchipper is already warm.

@jesuistropfatiguee712, this is what Miseria is pointing out. That your obsession with finding someone that you're allowed to hate is bypassing your normal moral compass. It is! Look at yourself! When you had a disagreement, you immediately decided that the person you were arguing with was a pervert, then jumped into a fantasy where you, what, hoped she got caught raping someone just so you could have the satisfaction of seeing her castrated? And then, as if you were on some level aware of how repulsive that was, you had to throw in another dig about how gross perverts are. So gross! So gross that it's okay to fantasize about them getting castrated! So gross that it's okay to fantasize about hurting them! You're not deranged! They're just sooooooo grossssssssssss.

My wife is a survivor of CSA. It's hard for her. It's hard for me. I feel like I spent the second and third year of our relationship in a therapy office lobby. I was there when she told her siblings what her dad was. I was there when she told her mom what her husband was. I held her together as best I could in that time. It felt like trying to hold a grenade together by squeezing it with my bare hands. It was awful. I don't know how to write about how awful it was so I mosty just don't write about it. It was more awful for her, but it was awful for me, and I only had one friend I could talk to about it, because everyone else would go on these unhinged rants about how they wanted to throw her dad in a woodchipper and dance in his guts, or how they hoped he went to prison and got beat to death by other inmates, or, better, yet raped. And it made me sick. And the one friend that I had that could talk about it and sit with me in a way that did not make me feel sick to my stomach was a victim of CSA himself. He just wanted to feel safe again, he just wanted to learn how to trust people again, he just wanted his rapist to go to jail, where he wouldn't hurt anyone else ever again, but he didn't have elaborate torture fantasies. He didn't want to hear them from others. He could sit with me, and cry with me, and the gratitude that I feel for him is unspeakable. I owe him so much. He would puke to hear the note of hope in your comment, your hope that your opponent rapes someone just so you could be maximally vindicated in your rage. There is a sickness here that I cannot make words for. Please change.