27. Astrophysicist, writer, artist. Michigan. Business inquiries: kaijunobiz@gmail.com
Hey so if any of y’all are or have been volunteers for Ao3, PLEASE be careful when checking your emails
And if you know somebody who’s a volunteer I’d check in with them and see if they’re aware of this
to be 100% clear: OTW volunteers are getting CSAM in their emails. as a protest against AO3’s content. I repeat: someone is sending actual literal child pornography to actual literal human people in order to protest fanfic they think is inappropriate.
livejournal, fanfiction.net and ao3
which one were you?
I HAVE LITERALLY LIVED THROUGH ALL OF THEM WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT SAY ABOUT ME
Oh bb there is so much more to it than that.
First there were zines, lovingly mimeographed and stapled by our fandom foreparents, and those who remain to us from the Zine Age are powerful and wise.
Then there was Usenet, where formatting went to die. You know not the strength it takes to read 60k fics entirely in Courier New, or the pleasure of a really artistic looking section break marker composed of ASCII characters.
Then there was the Great Schism, as fandoms spread far and wide across the Web, and basic HTML was the whole of the law. Many of us lied our way into private “18+” listservs, and roamed the webrings, lamps aloft, in search of one virtuous author (or at least somebody else who shipped the thing).
From this dark age rose FF.net, that pit of voles from whose bourn many a hungry reader has returned, starved for citrus and heartsick from the cutesy author notes.
And FF.net begat Livejournal, which allowed easy archiving, threaded comments, flocked posts and invite-only communities. And it was Livejournal, in its death throes, that begat AO3, which once seemed like only a utopian vision and now bestrides the world like a Colossus.
OH MY GOD, REMEMBER WEBRINGS?
story by @bakingstreetsarah aka StarMaple on Ao3
>>read/bookmark on Ao3<<
Please do not repost :)
Anonymous asked:
ao3commentoftheday answered:
Because AO3 is a hosting service. They don’t exist to police the content on their site as long as that content doesn’t breach the Terms of Service.
It’s an author’s responsibility to tag and rate and warn their fics appropriately. It’s a reader’s responsibility to read those tags and ratings and warnings and decide whether or not they want to read the fic. Anyone who isn’t willing to do their part probably shouldn’t be using the service.
If you walk into a haunted house, they are going to try to scare you.
If you get on a roller coaster, you are going to experience g-forces.
If you watch an R-Rated movie, you are going to experience foul language, violence, and/or sexual situations.
If you use a website that caters to all writers of fan-fiction, you are going to encounter every possible thing that comes under that umbrella.
Before you do something that might make you uncomfortable, stop and think.
You have the right and the responsibility to curate your own experiences in these spaces.
I’m an AO3 user (reader & writer), and for a long time all I did was hit the appropriate warnings they had already set up (i.e. Major Character Death), as I had been a long-time user of Fanfiction.net, and was more accustomed to their layout/rules/methods. Then, I started noticing that AO3 authors didn’t just have notes saying, “The following is a work of fanfiction and I do not own the characters Luke Skywalker, Spock, James Bond, etc.”, but had these, “This Fic Contains”, and, “Trigger Warnings/Possible Triggers”.
After reading that, I went to DoesTheDogDie.com and saw where they had expanded what had formerly just been letting you know if the animals in movies/shows died, to having all these ‘trigger warnings’ like if people are shown being violently ill on screen, does the torture scene include damage to the eyes, is someone sexually assaulted on screen, does a child die on screen, etc. After reading many of those, I realized how many things you might want to be aware of and I started trying to be more mindful when I published fanfictions, to say that at the top, “Trigger Warning- mentions of drowning, nightmares related to traumatic events”, and the like to let people know what they are in for. Most of the time, it isn’t something that will ‘spoil’ the story, it is just something to stop people from reading my story if my story is going to upset them.
I don’t write to hurt people, I don’t write to make someone have nightmares. Think of it as something like a Drug Facts/Warning label, and people read it and then either decline the medication or sign the consent form to get the medication. You write up this little thing saying, “The Following Fic Contains x, y, and z”, the reader scans that and goes, “Okay, I can deal with all that- lets get to reading!”, or they go, “Yeah, I can’t deal with Y cause it reminds me of bad things, so I’ll go check something else out. Maybe this author has something else I’d like that doesn’t have Y in it.”
But AO3 allows creators to create and consumers to consume- and all freely, at your own discretion. If a reader wants to read about tentacles doing unspeakable things to stranded explorers, there’s likely a fic (or 1,000) for them on AO3. If a reader wants to read some tooth-rottingly sweet fairy-tale rewrite of Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov’s lovestory, there’s a fic (or a few) for them on AO3. If you’ve got this fanfic you wrote that is Justice League- but with Zombies, there’s a tag waiting for you, so you can post that to AO3. If you want to publish this little fanfiction you wrote 4 years ago, for a dead fandom that probably had 100 members to begin with, there’s a slot for that on AO3.
This is one place where as a reader and as a writer, you have the freedom to choose what you want and not have to worry about 50-11 people butting in on you to tell you how to change what you want in order to use their service. On A03, you can pretty much read what you like (Cause someone will have posted it, surely) and you can write what you please.
Doesthedogdie.com is a good resource on getting the hang of what you might want to use content warnings for!
It’s so fucking infuriatingly frustrating that so many of ao3′s userbase is so adamant that ao3 is nonprofit even though it’s owned by a corporation so that shit is a fucking lie in of itself, like. They invest in stocks and constantly people try and push this stupid as fuck idea that there’s no ads!! :)) it’s free!! when it’s been in beta for literal fucking years with one of the worst filtration and blocking systems I’ve seen to date and rampant disgusting nsfw that’s unregulated and crops up to previews for themes anyways so why do we constantly have to have mile long posts defending such a fundamentally bad website from it’s core instead of actually thinking critically for once I fucking hate all of you.
Normally I ignore this stuff, but the insinuation that AO3 is secretly some manipulative scheme to enrich people is just blatantly false.
so many of ao3′s userbase is so adamant that ao3 is nonprofit
Yeah because it is. Look up the Organization for Transformative Works in the IRS database of tax exempt organizations, or GuideStar’s non-profit report listing. EIN 38-3765024, BRIDGE Number 5584273916.
Let’s check out their Form 990 and see how much they paid their staffers:
And it’s a whooping $0.00.
They invest in stocks
Oh heaven forbid. It’s pretty standard for any moderately-sized nonprofit to make conservative investments, so that their reserves do more than simply accrue interest in a bank account. Nobody is taking a vacation to Comoros on that money.
“Once nonprofits get larger, however, some are able to start thinking for the future. Taking money and putting it toward longer-term goals like capital spending or a permanent endowment requires prudent investment. In order to take initial seed money and grow it into a substantial nest egg for use toward those longer-term charitable purposes, nonprofits are allowed to invest in stocks, bonds, funds, and other typical investments.”
https://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/can-a-nonprofit-organization-invest-in-stock.aspx
it’s owned by a corporation
Yes, AO3 is part of the Organization for Transformative Works, which is indeed incorporated. Again, pretty standard for a charity. Let’s review the OTW’s Certificate of Incorporation:
it’s been in beta for literal fucking years
Finally… who cares? Gmail was in beta for five years, and that was with all the resources of Google behind it and 100 million people already using it.
“the label is just a way for Google to signal users that they’re still tweaking the e-mail service and adding new features”
Same thing for AO3. The reason AO3 is in beta is because it doesn’t have a finalized codebase and it’s too unstable to make an API out of. They could put out a post tomorrow saying ‘we’re out of beta’ and nobody would bat an eye. The website isn’t perfect, but it’s more than functional. And yes, there are a lot of features that can’t be added without overtaxing the existing hardware resources, so why not try a GreasyFork userscript?
tl;dr - I have to write this every year, but AO3 is still not a scam. It is a non-profit. None of the staffers even get paid. It exists solely for a charitable purpose, a purpose which has been acknowledged and validated by the Internal Revenue Service.
I’m sorry but OP’s “one of the worst filtration and blocking systems“ has me in stitches as if the tagging system on Ao3 wasn’t the envy of libraries, school and universities WORLD-WIDE just because OP has to select the tags to exclude THEMSELF oh no, the horror
Also, imagine complaining about the filtering and tagging and blocking system being awful…
While on Tumblr.
They just mean “stuff I hate isn’t banned” and/or “it won’t let me harass people I don’t like,” calling it a failure for not doing the things it was created to avoid.
Ambrose Bierce in The Devil’s Dictionary defined “critic” as “a person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him” and he’s gotta be giggling in his grave over this instance.
Also imagine telling a bunch of outright lies and ridiculous misdirections (like running on the assumption that nonprofits can’t/don’t/shouldn’t use stocks as an investment vehicle for their assets) while whining about people “not thinking critically.”
I’m loving the subtle accusation that it has ads somehow? And being in beta is problematic, despite the site being perfectly functional in terms of everything it’s meant to do?
Fucksake, get a hobby that isn’t “people are enjoying this thing, but I don’t like it, bawwwwww!” Raise some brine shrimp, or something.
Ever wonder what the highest kudo’d work on ao3 is?
wonder no more.
Seriously whatever you are expecting, this isn’t it.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ
i h a v e m a d e a m i s t a k e
strictly platonic therapy rimming
shameless zero-gravity masturbation
subtle velociraptor frottage
…as long as it’s subtle
well-lubed punk-rock fisting
So I’m on AO3 and I see a lot of people who put “I do not own [insert fandom here]” before their story.
Like, I came on this site to read FAN fiction. This is a FAN fiction site. I’m fully aware that you don’t own the fandom or the characters. That’s why it’s called FAN FICTION.
Oh you youngins… How quickly they forget.
Back in the day, before fan fiction was mainstream and even encouraged by creators… This was your “please don’t sue me, I’m poor and just here for a good time” plea.
Cause guess what? That shit used to happen.
how soon they forget ann rice’s lawyers.
What happened with her lawyers.
History became legend. Legend became myth…. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost.
I worked with one of the women that got contacted by Rice’s lawyers. Scared the hell out of her and she never touched fandom again.
The first time I saw a commission post on tumblr for fanart, I was shocked.
One of the reasons I fell out of love with her writing was her treatment of the fans… (that and the opening chapter of Lasher gave me such heebie-jeebies with the whole underage sex thing I felt unclean just reading it.)
I have zero problem with fanart/fic so long as the creators aren’t making money off of it. It is someone else’s intellectual property and people who create fan related works need to respect that (and a solid 98% of them do.)
The remaining 2% are either easily swayed by being gently prompted to not cash in on someone else’s IP. Or they DGAF… and they are the ones who will eventually land themselves in hot water. Either way: this isn’t much of an excuse to persecute your entire fanbase.
But Anne Rice went off the deep end with this stuff by actively attacking people who were expressing their love for her work and were not profiteering from it.
The Vampire Chronicles was a dangerous fandom to be in back in the day. Most of the works I read/saw were hidden away in the dark recesses of the internet and covered by disclaimers (a lot of them reading like thoroughly researched legal documents.)
And woe betide anyone who was into shipping anyone with ANYONE in that fandom. You were most at risk, it seemed, if your vision of the characters deviated from the creators ‘original intentions.’ (Hypocritical of a woman who made most of her living writing erotica.)
Imagine getting sued over a headcanon…
Put simply: we all lived in fear of her team of highly paid lawyers descending from the heavens and taking us to court over a slashfic less than 500 words long.
all
of
this
Reblogging because I can’t believe there are people out there who don’t know the story behind fan fiction disclaimers.
Yep I used to have disclaimers on all my Buffy fic back in the day. The Buffy creators were mostly pretty chill about fandom but it’s not like it is now. You did NOT talk about fandom with anyone except other fandom people and bringing it up at cons was a massive no no because of stuff like this.
I think Supernatural (and Misha Collins specifically) was when that wall between fandom and creators started to break down. It’s a relatively new thing.
I remember going to a Merlin panel down in London and a girl sitting next to me asked the cast about slash and I thought she was going to get kicked out!
Fandom history is important.
Oh, this brings back some not so-awesome ‘90s fandom memories!
Oh man, let me tell you about the X-Files fandom. Lawyers for FOX sued, threatened, and generally terrified the owners of fan websites on a regular basis. God help you if you wrote or created original art set in their (expansive) universe or worse - dared to write about their characters. Even people who weren’t creating fanworks, just hosting Geocities pages about how much people liked the show would be sent C&D orders or actually fined. When I was first discovering the concept, the first rule of fandom was you do not talk about fandom because the consequences could be devastating.
It was such a strange and uncomfortable experience for me when fans in LOTR and Potter fandoms suddenly started shoving their work in people’s faces speaking publicly about fandom and wanting to engage in dialogue with the creators and actors of the Thing they were into. Fan stuff was supposed to stay online, in archives and list-serves and zines we passed around because it just wasn’t cool to talk about it and it could get you in a boatload of trouble. The freedom we have to create and gather together in a shared space, or actually be acknowledged in any way by people outside the fandom was inconceivable to my fannish, teenaged self. I want fans these days to understand how amazing modern fandom really is, cherish the community, and appreciate what it took to get us here.
“if you found this by googling yourself, hit back now. this means you, pete wentz”
Oh hey, even more blasts from the past.
I was one of the ones who got a love letter from Anne Rice’s lawyers. Bear in mind that up until that point her publisher had encouraged fanfic and worked with the archive keeper (one of my roommates at the time) to drum up publicity for upcoming books and so on.
I could tell such tales of how much Anne screwed over her fans back then. The tl;dr version is that she and her peeps would use fan projects as free market research and then bring in the lawyers once it was felt Anne could make money off of it herself. (Talismanic Tours being one of the most offensive examples of this.)
But where fanfic is concerned not only did we get nastygrams but one of my friends had Anne’s lawyer trying to fuck up her own privately owned business which had NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ANNE RELATED. Said friend was a small business owner with health issues who wasn’t exactly rolling in money, so guess how well that went?
On top of that when yours truly tried to speak out about it I discovered that someone in Anne’s camp had been cyber stalking me to the point where they took all the tiny crumbs of personal information I had posted over the course of five years or so and used it to doxx me (before that was even a term and in early enough days of the WWW that this wasn’t an easy task) and post VERY personal information about me on the main fandom message board of the time. Luckily for me the mod was my friend and she took that down post haste, but it was still oodles of fun feeling that violated and why to this day I am very strict about keeping my fandom and personal lives separate online.
Hence why those of us in the fandom at the time who still gave enough of a shit to want to keep writing fic DID keep writing fic, but shoved it so far underground and slapped it with so many disclaimers they could’ve outweighed the word count of War & Peace. It wasn’t just for the purpose of protecting fic but for trying to protect our personal lives as well.
(Also would love to know who @tiger-in-the-flightdeck
knew. Life paths crossing after so many years….)
Lucasfilm also sent cease-and-desist letters to Star Wars fanzines publishing slash.
My favourite bit I read from one included the idea that you weren’t allowed to have any explicit content, of which anything queer, no matter how tame, was included, to “preserve that innocence even Imperial crew members must be imagined to have”.
Yeah. The same Imperial crew members who helped build the Death Star to commit planetary genocide.
(It’s one reason Sinjir Velus, while I still have some issues with him, feels like such a delicious ‘f*** you’.)
Later on, they were apparently persuaded to ‘allow’ fans to write slash, provided in ‘remained within the nebulous bounds of good taste’.
(On a related note, if I wasn’t quite so attached to my URL, I would 100% change it to ‘Nebulous Bounds’, because that’s just downright catchy)
Using AO3 and dreamwidth boards have become a game of “I gotta type different and make up an unrelated username and hide all these tells I have so know one knows tumblr user kaijuno needs to be kinkshamed into oblivion”
IT BEGINS
It began a while ago I’ve just recently began reflecting on how deep into the trash pile I am
