#if you have come here to accuse me of endorsing paedophilia or what the fuck ever

[kira-sucks-lawlipops]

@drowning-in-dn-hell has asked for more info on the 2012 purge of ff.net. I'm always glad to talk fandom history :)

It actually started in 2002, when ff.net enacted a new policy prohibiting all NC-17 material. There was a mass deletion of all stories with any kind of violent or sexual content, darker themes, swear words, or fics that were inspired by songs (miss me with this arbitrary bullshit.) There were huge protests at the time and a lot of fans left and moved to other sites with less restrictive policies, such as adult-fanfiction.org

Fast forward to 2012, and I actually know what is going on because I am now 18 and participating in fandom. The same shit happens again. The site moderators did a massive purge and deleted all of the stories they could find with mature content (more than 60,000 fics.)

This time, the purge was started because a group of fans called 'Critics United' were harrassing the staff. They would read fic looking for content/themes they didn't like, and when they found something they would post wave after wave of bad reviews/comments, send the author messages telling them to remove their stories, report the stories, message the mods and demand the story/author be removed.

SOUND FAMILIAR? This is the kind of crap that purity politics grew out of. It's just censorship and a desire to control marginalised voices dressed up as moral superiority and the claim of being all about 'protecting the children'.

Anyway, eventually I guess ff.net got sick of dealing with it and granted their wish. Mass deletions. Years of work lost. Authors shutting down their accounts. Fandom spaces destroyed. Congratulations, you did it. You saved us from ourselves.

So basically everyone who wanted to write fic with mature or explicit themes moved their work to Ao3 - the ONLY website which offers a safe space for writers of ALL kinds of fics, not just whatever adheres to the changing moral alignements of the moderators.

It's right there in the title: 'Archive of Our Own'. This place belongs to US, the writers, the fans, and the work there is protected from sudden deletion because of personal taste or individual moral standards. It's up to readers to curate their own consumption of content, because as long as what you are writing is legally allowed to exist (and tagged appropriately) it will not be removed from Ao3.

So why is this important right now? Well, gather round boys and girls, because I fucking shit you not, the EXACT SAME SHIT is happening AGAIN. For the THIRD TIME. And this time I have absolutely zero tolerance left.

Fanfiction (and fandom spaces in general) have always been about creativity, expression, and the exploration of themes and content that the mainstream media will not touch. This has allowed for a culture that validates female, queer and poc voices and stories. Which is fucking awesome.

But sometimes that exact same culture spawns stories where the themes are dark and the content is stuff that you personally find repulsive. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be allowed to exist, or that no one should be allowed to access it.

Here's a really hard lesson that everyone should learn: even the worst fanfic has cultural value and (most importantly) it does NO MEASURABLE HARM.

If you want to tear all that down and destroy the very things you claim to love then frankly, you can get fucked.

Ya’ll really gonna try and get Ao3 taken down?????

really? that’s really happening? in 2018, ya’ll are taking your fucking purity politics bullshit and making it the FBI’s business? trying to get the godamn government to attack the organisation of transformative works? that’s great. what a great idea. attack the very fandom spaces that allow you to connect and express your idiotic opinions. did you learn nothing from the purge of ff.net in 2012? know your fucking fandom history before you try to tear down everything we have built. i am so done with all of you fucking petulant children.