sqbr:
Perhaps it’s my age speaking, but I’m starting to miss the way fandom used to be fifteen years ago. Mostly since back then the concepts of ‘darkfic’ and ‘don’t like, don’t read’ were properly understood and adhered to (usually). The situation with darkfics was interesting in particular, because the entire premise was that the author could write incredibly fucked-up things, with the understanding on their part that shit was indeed very messed-up and with no pretense to the contrary (what usually gets termed ‘romanticization’ these days).
Now? You’ve got to run an entire rigmarole of explaining the difference between romanticization and just straight-up exploring a horrible dynamic in writing as, you know, a writer. And even after that, you’ll probably have to deal with the whole invasive ‘explain every trauma you might’ve gone through, so strangers who otherwise don’t care if you exist can decide if they give you Permission to use writing as a coping mechanism’ mess. Fucking hell.
I’ve said it before. Learn to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Learn to tell the difference between what someone explores on the page as a writer and what that same person believes and advocates in their day-to-day life.
Truth.
Hey guys, remember squickfics? I remember squickfics.
all too well
Remember them? I still specialize in them. :D
And I love you for it.
So, full disclaimer: I only got into fanfic about 10 years ago, and have usually (though not always) avoided anything too squicky/dark during the decade since then.
But from what I saw 10 years ago, at least, it wasn’t the utopia people are describing. I dislike the current environment of moral panic/bullying with a social justice excuse as much as anyone, but I also disliked the environment where the idea of having triggers, let alone wanting warnings, was mocked. The push back against warnings involved some vicious attacks on trauma survivors. People were also MUCH more resistant to even the most polite and mild of social justice criticism (even just on your own blog not bothering anyone), and many people thought the idea of ableism existing was ridiculous. I was always worried some defensive BNF would send their minions against me for being too “whiny” about social justice.
Plus a lot of the crappy things happening now are the same old fandom crap in a different hat: finding excuses to attack people who make or ship things you don’t like or who you dislike for some other reason. People used to attack each other for being “OOC”/”not canon”/”Mary Sues” etc, and coming up with reasons why your NOTP is abusive/unhealthy is nothing new.
And when “it’s OOC” was the worst thing you could say, it was much less acceptable to do racebends/lgbt headcanons etc, and you could definitely be attacked for doing them. Or for even pushing back against whitewashing of canon POC, ATLA fandom got pretty nasty around the time of the film casting (which was around Racefail, another example of how nasty fandom could be).
Also! Parts of fandom were more open to a variety of fic, but other parts were more conservative, it was much more acceptable to flat out ban slash for example. And society outside of fandom was very unaccepting indeed.
I feel like I’m not describing this very well, sorry /o\ But I think if we want to make fandom better we have to look at the way things have changed honestly and not oversimplify the way they have both improved and gotten worse.
Seriously, all that is idealistic rose tinted glasses talking. There was no “moral panic”, you say? Yeah, unless you count people being HORRIFIED at anyone writing slash fic for things even tangentially related to a child audience!
It was so great when people were open about being “squicked” by gay people. That was soooo fun for me as a queer kid. Sooo… fun……..
“Morality” tests for reading/writing/enjoying art can be a two edged sword. One that usually cuts both ways. Deeply.