🌈💚

theres been a lot of back and forth about ao3 in the past year or so but this is genuinely so fucking inexcusable and i’m absolutely disgusted

i was browsing ao3 and stumbled across a sexually explicit fic involving tubbo, a minecraft youtuber who is 16 fucking years old, and immediately went to ao3′s tos. i read through all of the rules about content and tagging and didn’t find anything about rpf involving real life minors, but i thought i must just be missing something or it must be an oversight because SURELY this is against the rules right???

this is the email i received after i reported it:

some key points for those not wanting to read it and/or those using a screen reader:

sexually explicit rpf involving real life minors is not against the tos, because the tos is only concerned with US law, i.e. child pornography. then they write that there is a distinction between cp and “written fiction depicting characters under the age of 18.” keyword CHARACTERS. even though they literally then go on to talk about their policy on rpf, which is that it’s never harrassment or against tos unless it specifically calls for or advocates harrassment against someone. then they give their shpeal about how your experience is your own responsibility, use tags, don’t like don’t read, etc etc

so i emailed them back like, hey, this isn’t a character though, this is a living breathing person who is underage, why isn’t this against tos, and i received this in response:

so because fans have said that rpf is important to their fannish experience, and it’s transformative, ao3 allows content involving real life minors.

they do not distinguish between rpf and non-rpf on any grounds. i looked around and there are HUNDREDS of other stories like the one i found with another minecraft youtuber who is also 16, and i dont doubt there are other fics for other minors who have been in the public eye like the it and stranger things casts. and ao3 explicitly allows this.