Tripping and rolling down this mound

Patronus was invented by a transphobe.

Theoretical goal of banning things you find uncomfortable as a CC:

Bad things you don't like will stop being made and existing about you/your character.

Actual outcomes of banning things you find uncomfortable as a CC:

Bad things you don't like will Still Exist.

Subsets of your community will harass & abuse other fans. Trolls will make upsetting bait content that devoted fans feel a duty to engage with & fight against. Well-intentioned fans who don't know the rules exist will break them and get yelled at. People will arbitrarily interpret rules to bludgeon other fans' headcanons & send hate campaigns after each other. This WILL happen, no matter how many times you caveat with 'but don't harass anyone': You have issued an edict whose only enforcement mechanism is harassment.

Some of the fans who are most viciously defensive of your rules will still create stuff you find uncomfortable. Life finds a way. If you ban peanut butter, the fandom will create a series of intricate excuses as to why ground peanuts with sugar added is totally a different thing, and moreover how dare you imply they would break boundaries. The stuff you dislike won't stop being made, it will just be mislabeled and harder to avoid.

Artists will inevitably make cool shit that technically breaks your boundaries but Is Cool. Engaging with it will get that artist harassed for ignoring your boundaries (even if you say this one is fine).

Less people will engage with your work. You will have a smaller audience and much more limited free advertisement.

Everyone following the rules will create a constant need for judgment about things at the edge of your comfort zone. 'Ask for permission' means you have given yourself a part-time job arbitrating to strangers on whether it's okay to draw you mad at another minecraft guy.

More earnestly: By and large the people who are most online, who take boundaries seriously and actually care about seeking permission, are teens and very young adults. That's who you're setting rules for and telling that they can't depict certain things. The kinksters and smut writers and grown-ass adults are generally going to be unaffected, because their self-esteem doesn't hinge on the approval of a Twitch streamer.

Genuine question: Do you want to have to stare at an ask on Tumblr and consider whether to give permission for some 14-year-old to write a fic about your character self-harming or having cancer or being sexually assaulted? To say yes or no, while knowing that this person is probably asking not out of prurient interest, but because it makes them feel a little less alone to imagine an older, stronger character going through what they are?

That is the actual effect of setting those rules.

(The better boundary, btw, is 'I don't want to see things that make me uncomfortable': it's still not perfectly enforceable unless you entirely abstain from the internet, but it is much more actionable than 'make that stuff stop existing'. Having a dedicated 'don't look' tag blocked solves a lot of problems. Another strategy would be letting friends/trusted fan-acquaintances vet the best work and send it to you to gush about, rather than scrolling your tags at random.)

sometimes I’m reminded that there are still people who don’t know ao3 was literally created by incest shippers — and the site’s sole purpose is to 1. be completely against censorship and 2. host all kinds of dark, taboo fics that are banned on other platforms — and the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

you are in the house that was created by freaks. for freaks (affectionate). every disgusting thing you can think of is rightfully allowed and welcomed on ao3, because they are exactly the reasons why ao3 was created in the first place.

ao3 was created because its creators got tired of censorship, they got tired of dark and taboo fics getting banned on pro-censorship platforms, and they wanted a place that was safe for ALL FICS THAT WERE DARK AND TABOO.

ao3’s main principle is being against censorship and being proship / profic.

there are some things in fiction that make me uncomfortable, but instead of shaming people who are just minding their own business and not harming anyone in real life, I choose to curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting what I don’t want to see. ao3 has excellent tagging system, so instead of being a bitch, use their tagging system properly and you won’t see the things you don’t want to see.

it’s your job to curate what you see. it’s not other people’s jobs or responsibilities to censor themselves for your personal comfort. the world does not revolve around you.

also you cannot censor “only the things you personally hate” without expecting everything else, that isn’t of conservative beliefs, to be censored too. because censorship is a slippery slope and a fascist tool. I promise you there are people who think “why do tags for queer love even exist on ao3? they’re grooming children”.

if you allow the things that you hate to be censored — because someone with enough power gets to control what other people can and cannot create/consume, it will not stop at the things that you hate.