Thankyou. This Post Is The Reality Check Every Fandom Needs Right Now.

Thankyou. This post is the reality check every fandom needs right now.

We’ve all seen the rather… Explosive and often hateful dialogue regarding content on Ao3. Obviously from my previous post it should be clear I am fully against the labeling and censorship demanded by some people on Tumblr. Since my mad has nicely resolved I figured I would explain just why I feel the whole discord is ludicrous. Beyond the fact that censorship is most always abused, narrow-minded and wrong-headed, I think the idea that Ao3 shouldn’t host fiction involving rape, underage content etc because it is upsetting or triggering to some people misses a very important point. The point that it misses is that it is one each of us to protect ourselves. This idea that anyone is entitled to have their metaphorical hand held when interacting with fandom deeply disturbs me.

As someone with very real, and very debilitating mental illness, I loathe the idea that anyone but the person with the issue or illness or experience be responsible for safeguarding their comfort and health. There have been people in my life that have excluded me for my sake, instead of allowing me to decide if I was capable of attending or managing the situation. While the intent in each case was good, the result is infantilizing. Over the course of my recovery from a very dark and helpless place, the power of my choices became very important to me, and I fully believe it is our choices, especially when we are struggling with mental health, that place the most significant wrong in our recovery.

We all make bad choices, we all make choices that harm ourselves and others. But in Ao3, and fandom at large there are many tools with which to protect ourselves. There are absolutely genres of fiction, both professionally published and fan created that I will not read because they disturb me. This does not mean that those that enjoy these works, or create these works are wrong. All this means is that I need to not read this for my own comfort and health, and really that’s an easy thing to do. Tags are so common now that in most cases we can avoid those things that hurt us. We can create search settings on Ao3 that block the content we don’t want to see, and generally we can all enjoy our fandoms, safe.

Sometimes an author will not use the correct tags, likely just out of forgetfulness, inexperience, not malice. In these cases, which have been my experience outside the norm, the best thing to do is to send a polite message to the author, mentioning a concern regarding tags, and then move on. This does not discount the discomfort that comes from having your illness or memories triggered, but life is not sanitized, we are going to get triggered. It’s how we respond to being harmed that matters. We don’t recover for our wounds by banning fiction, by hurling abuse at someone, or any of that garbage. We recover with time, and we recover with will, and that is on us.

Random Ass Non sensical SU thoughts/theories

Do y'all think maybe Rose Cracked pink but didn't shatter her. That would account for people saying they witnessed Pinks "shattering" by Rose. Maybe Rose didn't even intend to shatter pink, but crack her just enough to be able to heal her later. Also, everyone has this fabtabulous story that Rose COULDN'T have shattered pink because Roses Sword can't shatter gems. But what if rose didn't use her sword? What if she did use the breaking point like Steven guessed in "The Trial" but she missed on purpose to damage instead of destroy.Or perhaps the only reason she used the breaking point is because it was guaranteed strong enough to shatter a diamond,at least bismuth seemed sure of this. Or perhaps it was just strong enough to crack a diamond and bring them to their knees. (Which might be another reason Rose wouldn't allow bismuth to go off on a suicide mission to shatter the Diamonds with a weapon they weren't even sure would finish the job.) Anywho, the BP suddenly reappearing would explain why Blue Diamond is so upset, because though the diamonds knew the breaking point existed, they'd recieved Intel that Rose was not using such a horrible weapon, at least, not until she did use it.On Pink. Maybe Pink is still alive but damaged and that's why when we see her in Stevens dream and she punches the mirror, instead of it cracking and it's pieces falling out its frame. It's just cracked but not shattered and falling apart.

Tags

rambling steven universe pink diamond rose quartz Steven Universe theories

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theohiangirl

9 years ago

Tf (non)shippers,Opinions and Proper Internet Etiquette,(RANT pt.1)

So what people like transformers slash? If they wanna do that that's their thing and you can't stop them.Jeeze, I just read a chapter of a perfectly good tf fic but then I was completely turned away from it because the person stated, in a rude way, that they didn't like tf slash. We get it, you don't like tf slash.But please keep great stories and your butthurt rant (because that was no respectful opinion) separate.Leave the rage ranting on tumblr,that's where everyone else does it.I wouldn't even mind if they'd simply said they didn't like tf slash but it was the way it was written that bothers me.It was like saying "fuck the color pink, it's stupid!", instead of politely saying "I don't like pink". Do you see the problem!?I will be posting a second half of this, addressing the type of tf shippers who only help create messes like this-_-.

Tags

on tumblr wtf tf fandom we have no chill im not saying your opinion is wrong its just that your internet etiquette could use some work my rant where it belongs

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theohiangirl

9 years ago