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redgoldsparks · 1 year ago

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I wrote a 12 page epilogue to my 2019 comic "Harry Potter and The Problematic Author" because I found, in 2023, that I had more to say. You can also find this comic on my website, and I have PDF copies available on etsy. I may sell print copies at some point in the future.

instagram / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my book / redbubble

Full transcript below the cut.

PAGE 1

Part one: Ruddy Owls!

I was in fourth grade when the first Harry Potter Book was released in the US.

Panel 1: Sometimes our teacher would read it aloud in class. “Mr and Mrs Dursley of number 4 Privat Drive were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much…”

Panel 2: I was 11 years old when Harry Potter finally broke through my dyslexia and turned me into a reader.

Panel 3: Every night in the summer before sixth grade I waited for the owl carrying my Hogwarts Letter. I cried when it didn’t come. “I have to go to Muggle school!”

PAGE 2

Part Two: Hats

I dedicated myself to being a fan.

Panel 1: I began collecting Harry Potter News article.

Panel 2: I asked my relatives to mail me ones from their local papers. I filled a thick binder with clippings.

Panel 3: I wrote my own trivia quiz

Panel 4: and participated in the one held annually at the county fair. “Next contestant!”

Panel 5: I usually got into one of. the top five spots. I won boxes of candy, posters, stationary, and once a baseball cap. (Hat reads: I survived the battle of Hogwarts).

Panel 6: In high school I sewed a black velvet cape and knitted many stripped scarves.

PAGE 3

Part Three: Double Trouble

Watching the last film in 2011 felt like the final note of my childhood.

Panel 1: I remember driving home from the midnight showing thinking about the end of 13 years of waiting; wondering what would define the next chapter of my life.

Panel 2: That same month I heard of something called Pottermore. “Okay, so there’s a sorting quiz… I already know my house! Patronus assignment? Mine’s a barn owl. Duh!"

Panel 3: You can read the books again but with GIFs? Why?

Panel 4: I lived in a place with very slow and limited internet at the time. Pottermore sounded inaccessible, but also boring. I never joined.

Panel 5: "I’ll just read the actual books again, thanks."

PAGE 4

Part Four: Sweets

In 2016, a series of short stories titled "History of Magic in North America” were released on Pottermore to pave the way for the first Fantastic Beasts Film. These stories display an extreme ignorance of American history, culture, and geography, but the worst parts are the casual misuse of indigenous beliefs and stories. Fans and critics immediately spoke up against this appropriation. Some of the most quoted voices included Nambe Pueblo scholar Dr. Debbie Reese who runs the site “American Indians In Children’s Literature”; Navajo writer Brian Young; Johnnie Jae (Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw), founder of A Tribe Called Geek; Dr Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation), a Professor at Brown University who runs the blog “Native Appropriations”, and writers N.K. Jemison and Paula Young Lee.

PAGE 5

Rowling is famous for responding to fans directly on twitter, yet she did not respond to anyone calling out the damaging aspects of “Magic in North America.” Her representatives refused to comment for March 9 2016 article in the Guardian. She has never apologized. All of this, plus the casting of Johnny Depp and the specific declarations of support by JKR, Warner Brothers, and director David Yates left a sour taste in my mouth.

For further thoughts on the new films read The Crimes of Grindelwald is a Mess by Alanna Bennett for Buzzfeed News, November 16, 2018.

PAGE 6

Excerpt from Colonialism in Wizarding American: JK Rowling’s History of Magic in North America Through an Indigenous Lens by Allison Mills, MFA, MAS/MLIS (Cree and Settler French Canadian)

Although Rowling is certainly not the first white author to misstep in her treatment of Indigenous cultures, she has an unprecedented level of visibility and fame, […] One of the most glaring problems with Rowling’s story is her treatment of the many Indigenous nations in North America as one monolithic group. […It] flattens out the diversity of languages, belief systems, and cultures that exist in Indigenous communities, allowing stereotyping to persist. […] It continues a long history of colonial texts which ignore that Indigenous peoples still exist. […] In the Wizarding world, as in the real world, Indigenous histories have been over-written and our cultures erased.

from The Looking Glass: New Perspectives in Children’s Literature Volumn 19, Issue 1

PAGE 7

Part 5: Music

Panel 1: Also in 2016 I discovered two podcasts which radically altered my experience of being an HP fan. The first was Witch Please created by two Canadian feminist literary scholars Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman.

Panel 2: “If it’s not in the text it doesn’t count!” “Close reading ONLY!”

Panel 3: They talk about Harry Potter at the level you’d expect in a college class with particular focus on gender, race, class, and the troubling fatphobia, fear of othered and queer coded bodies, violence against women, white feminism, gaslighting and failed pedagogy in the books. They bring up these issues not because they hate the series, but because they LOVE it.

PAGE 8

These passionate, joyful conversations went off like fireworks in my mind. I had never taken a feminist class before. I gained a whole new vocabulary to talk about the books- and the world.

PAGE 9

Panel 1: The second podcast I started that year was Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, created by two graduates of the Harvard Divinity School, Vanessa Zoltan and Casper Ter Kuile.

Panel 2: They read one chapter per episode through a theme such as love, control, curiosity, shame, responsibility, hospitality, destruction, or mystery. Like Witch Please, they are interested only in the information on the page, not thoughts from the author. The delights and failures of the text are examined in the context of the present day, and new meanings constantly arise.

PAGE 10

What does it mean to treat a text as sacred?

Trusting that the more time we give to it, the more blessings it has to give us.

Reading the text repeatedly with concentrated attention. Our effort is part of what makes it sacred. The text is not in and of itself sacred, but is made so by rigorously engaging in the ritual of reading.

Experiencing it in community.

“To me, the goal of treating the text as sacred is that we learn to treat each other as sacred.” -Vanessa Zoltan

PAGE 11

Part 6: Tooth and Claw

In October 2017, Rowling liked a tweet linking to an article arguing that trans women should be kept out of women’s bathrooms because of cisgender women’s fears. In March 2018, she liked a tweet about the problem of misogyny in the UK Labour Party which included the line “Men in dresses get brosocialist solidarity I never had.” The author of the tweet had previously posted many blatantly anti-trans statements.

Rowlings publicist claimed she had liked the posted by accident in a “clumsy and middle-aged moment.” Yet, in September 2018 she liked a link posted by Janice Turner to her column in the Times UK titled “Trans Rapists Are A Danger In Women’s Jails.”

Screencaps of these tweets can be found in the article “The Mysterious Case of JK Rowling and her Transphobic Twitter History”, January 10 2019 by Gwendolyn Smith (a trans journalist), LGBTQNation.com

PAGE 12

Excerpt from: Is JK Rowling Transphobic? A Trans Woman Investigates by Katelyn Burns

Ultimately, the answer is yes, she is transphobic […] I think it’s fair that she receives criticism from trans people, especially given her advocacy on behalf of queer people in general, but also because she has a huge platform. Many people look up to her for creating a singular piece of popular culture that holds deep meaning for fans from different walks of life, and she has a responsibility to handle that platform wisely. (Published on them.us March 28, 2018)

PAGE 13

Part 7: Home

At age 30, I’m still not over Harry Potter.

Panel 1: I’ve recently found a local bar that does HP trivia nights. “Poppy or Pomona?” “Poppy!”

Panel 2: I currently own an annual pass to Universal Studios so I can visit Hogsmeade.

Panel 3: I love talking to kids who are reading the books for the first time. “Who’s your favorite character?” “Ginny!”

Panel 4: And I’m planning a relisten to the audio books to next year to help me get through the election cycle. “Jim Dale, I’m going to need you more than ever…”

Spoiler from 2023: I did not do this. By mid-2020 JKR had posted her transphobic essay; we were in covid; I never visited Universal Studios again.

PAGE 14

But I do want to learn from her mistakes. I never want to repeat “Magic in North America.” As I write, I will do my research. I will consult experts and compensate them. If a reader from a different culture/background than me speaks up about my work, I will listen and apologize. I KNOW I WILL MAKE MISTAKES. But I will own up to them and I will do better.

PAGE 15

Excerpt from Diversity Is Not Enough: Race, Power and Publishing by Daniel José Older

We can love a thing and still critique it. In fact, that’s the only way to really love a thing. Let’s be critical lovers and loving critics and open ourselves to the truth about where we are and where we’ve been. Instead of holding tight to the same old, failed patriarchies, let’s walk a new road, speak new languages. Today, let’s imagine a literature, a literary world, that carries this struggle for equity in its very essence, so that tomorrow it can cease to be necessary, and disappear. (Buzzfeed, April 14, 2017)

PAGE 16

Harry Potter is flawed, & JK Rowling is problematic. But the books helped me learn a lot:

*One of the greatest dangers facing the modern world is the rise of fascism

*The government cannot be trusted

*Read and think critically

*Question the news: who paid the journalist? Who owns the paper?

*Trust and support your friends through good times and bad

*Organize for resistance

*Educate and share resources with peers

*The revolution must be diverse and intersectional

* We are only as strong as we are united

*The weapon we have is love

MK 2019

PAGE 17

PART 8: EPILOGUE

In 2021 I removed a Harry Potter patch I sewed to my book bag over a decade ago. I took 15 pieces of Harry Potter fanart off my walls. I got rid of my paperback book set, 2 board games, and 8 t-shirt. [images: a Hogwarts a patch with loose threads, a pair of scissors and a seam ripper]

Panel 1: Maia holding up a shirt with the Deathly Hallows logo on it. Maia thinks: “Damn, this really used to be my entire personality.”

Panel 2: The t-shirt gets thrown into the Goodwill box.

PAGE 18

I wrote my zine wrestling with JKR’s legacy in 2019, after her dismissive and racist reaction to indigenous fans and critics of “Magic in North America” and after she had liked a couple transphobic tweets. Since then, she has gotten so much worse.

A Brief Timeline (mostly from this Vox article)

June 2020- JKR posts a 3600 word essay making her anti-trans position clear

August 2020- The Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Org issues a statement about her transphobia, JKR doubles down on her position and returns an award they gave her

December 2020- JKR claims 90% of HP fans secretly agree with her anti-trans views

December 2021- JKR mocks Scottish Police for recognizing transgender identities

March 2022- JKR criticizes gender-inclusive language and legislation

December 2022- JKR retweets trans youtuber Jessie Earl’s critical review of Hogwarts Legacy, starting an onslaught of transphobic harassment towards Earl

December 2022- JKR removes her support from an Edinburgh center for survivors of sexual violence with a trans-inclusive policy and funds her own center which explicitly excludes trans sexual assault survivors

January 2023- JKR tweets “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists.” It got nearly 300K likes

March 2023- One the podcast “The Witch Trials of JK Rowling”, hosted by a former Westboro Baptist Church Member, JKR compares the trans rights movement to Death Eaters.

PAGE 19

What are The Witch Trials of JK Rowling?

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “It’s a 7 episode documentary style podcast hosted by Megan Phelps-Roper. Nearly every episode contains interviews with JKR as well as critics, journalists, historians, protestors and fans.

Panel 2: Maia speaking. “In episode 1, JKR speaks more candidly than she has previously about being in an abusive marriage. Her ex-husband hit her, stalked her, broke into her house overlapping with the time she was writing the first three HP books.”

Panel 3: Maia speaking. “What she went through genuinely sounds horrific. I have a lot of sympathy for the kind of life-long traumas those experiences leave.”

PAGE 20

HOWEVER.

It is clear from reading the June 2020 essay on her blog and listening to the podcast, that JKR still to this day feels unsafe. Despite her wealth and privilege she moves through the world with the mindset of a victim. And the group of people she finds most threatening are trans women.

Or rather, she is afraid that allowing trans women in women’s spaces invites the possibility of male predators entering those spaces.

Here’s a direct quote: The problem is male violence. All a predator wants is access and to open the doors of changing rooms, rape centers, domestic violence centers [...] to any male who says “I’m a woman and I have a right to be here” will constitute a risk to women and girls. - from The Witch Trials episode 4 as transcribed by therowlinglibrary.com, March 2023

Image: A stem of Belladonna with flowers and berries.

PAGE 21

Let me introduce here the term: TRANSMISOGYNY. The intersection of transphobia and misogyny, this term was coined by Julia Serano in 2007. Scout Tran, on tiktok as Queersneverdie said: “Transmisogyny occurs in people who have been previously hurt by traditional misogyny. Who have been driven to hate men or at the very least to be scared of men. They will sometimes take out that rage on trans women. (March 2023)

JKR claims to care for trans women and understand they are extremely vulnerable to assault and violence. In her 2020 Essay she wrote: “I want trans women to be safe. At the same time, I do not want to make natal girls and women less safe.”

So she cares about trans women… just less than cis women, and she’s willing to throw all trans women under the bus because of her unfounded, prejudice fears.

PAGE 22

Panel 1: Maia speaking. “JKR claims to have seen data that proves trans women have presented physical threats to other women in intimate spaces, but never cites sources. She also uses “producer of the large gametes” as a definition of “woman”.

What about transmen and nonbinary folks?

Panel 2: Maia leaning on a stack of all seven HP books, the first four Cormorant Strike books and The Casual Vacancy, gesturing to a series of quotes with a tired and disgusted expression.

I’m concerned about the huge explosion of young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning. * [...] If I’d been born 30 years later, I too might have tried to transition. The allure of escaping womanhood would have been huge. -June 10 2020 essay

I don’t believe a 14 year old can truly understand what the loss of their fertility is.

-Witch Trials episode 4

I haven’t yet found a study that hasn’t found that the majority of young people experiencing gender dysphoria grow out of it*. -Witch Trials episode 7

*No sources cited

PAGE 23

It’s hard to over emphasize how fixated JKR has become on these topics. As of the date I’m writing this, 14 out of her 20 most recent tweets (70%) are in some way anti-trans. She tweets against Mermaids (a UK based trans youth charity), against trans athletes, against gender neutral bathrooms, and in support of LBG Alliance- a UK org that denies trans rights while upholding gay rights. Here are some gems from her archive:

“People who menstruate.” I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud? -June 2020

War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. The Penised Individual Who Raped You Is a Woman. - December 2021

And in response to someone asking “How do you sleep at night knowing you lost a whole audience?”

I read my most recent royalty cheques and find the pain goes away pretty quickly. -October 2022

PAGE 24

Hashtag Ruthless Productions a queer nerd podcast company created a great guide on ethical engagement with HP. Image: the two hosts of Hashtag Ruthless productions, Jessie (They/she) and Lark (he/him).

Stop buying all official HP Products: books, movies, games, toys, etc, Universal Studios tickets, food, merch.* Boycott any new TV series or movies. Instead: buy the books and DVDs used. If you still want to wear HP merch, buy fan-made. Engage only with fan content: fic, podcasts, fanart, wizard rock, etc. Show transphobia is bad for business. None of this will change JKR’s mind. But the Fantastic Beast series was canceled and after record Pottermore sales in 2020, they fell in 2022 by 40%.

*She gets a portion of ALL tickets. In 2019, this was her largest income source. Read the full guide: hashtagruthless.com/resourceguide

PAGE 25

As late as 2019, I was still reading JKR’s murder mystery series. But by the fourth book my experience began to sour.

Panel 1: Maia holding a copy of Lethal White. “The only gay character in this book is a government official who gropes his staff?”

Panel 2: “The only genderqueer character is misgendered and portrayed as a whiny faker?”

Panel 3: “The only Muslim character is disowned by his family over gay rumors?”

Panel 4: “Even the women aren’t portrayed very well…”

Panel 5: “Why is the main female character defined by the rape in her past?”

Panel 6: “Wait, what happens in the rest of this series…?” Maia scrolls on eir phone.

Panel 7: “Is the series heading towards an employee/boss relationship?”

Panel 8: “And has a man wearing women’s clothes to commit assault?”

Panel 9: “Yeah, I’m done. I’m never reading a new JKR book ever again.”

PAGE 26

And as for JKR herself?

As tempting as it might be to tweet your frustrations at her, I don’t recommend it. In 2021, she tweeted, “Hundreds of trans activists have threatened to beat, rape, assassinate and bomb me.” Getting hate online feeds her sense of victimhood and she waves it as proof of her moral high ground. Instead I suggest you block her on twitter, then delete twitter, go to the library and try to find a new book that feels magical.

Stack of books: In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Gifts by Ursula K Le Guin, Deep Wizardry by Diane Duane, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsin Muir.

PAGE 27

In “Emergent Strategy” adrienne maree brown writes: You do not have the right to traumatize abusive people, to attack them, personally or publicly, or to sabotage anyone else’s health. The behaviors of abuse are also survival-based, learned behaviors rooted in pain. If you can look through the lens of compassion, you will find hurt and trauma there. If you are the abused party, healing that hurt is not your responsibility and exacerbating that pain is not your justified right.

PAGE 28

Seeing anyone over age 12 wearing HP merch now makes me uncomfortable. Are they ignorant or actively a TERF? I hate wondering how much money JKR has probably poured into anti-trans legislation… This zine is a culmination of my slow breakup with a story that once brought me joy. Now it just makes me angry, tired and sad.

Image: Candle in a fancy holder burned down to less than an inch.

Maia Kobabe, 2023

#harry potter #harry potter and the problematic author #jk rowling #transphobia #jk rowling transphobic

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batboyblog · 5 months ago

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #21

May 31-June 7 2024

As part of President Biden's goal to bring the number of traffic deaths to zero, the Department of Transportation has sent $480 million in safety grants to all 50 states, DC, and all the US territories. The grants will focus on trucks, buses and other large vehicles. Thanks to DoT safety actions deaths involving heavy vehicles dropped by 8% from 2022 to 2023 and the department wants to keep pushing till the number is 0.

The Departments of Interior and Agriculture announced $2.8 billion plan to protect public land and support local government Conservation Efforts. $1.9 billion will be used to repair and restore national parks and public land, restoring historic sites, as well as Bureau of Indian Education-funded schools. $900 million will go to conservation funding, allowing the government to buy land to protect it. Half the funds will go to the federal government half to state and local governments and for the first time ever a tribal Conservation Land Acquisition program has been set up to allow tribal governments to buy land to protect nature.

The Department of Transportation announced that it had managed to get customers nearly $1 Billion dollars worth of flight reimbursements. The DoT reached an agreement with 3 airlines, Lufthansa, KLM, and South African Airways to pay between them $900 million to passengers effected by Covid related cancellations and delays. This adds to the $4 billion dollars of refunds and reimbursements to airline passengers under the Biden Administration.

The Department of Interior announced $725 million to clean up legacy coal pollution. This is the 3rd pay out from the $11.3 billion dollars President Biden signed into law in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to clean up coal pollution and invest in communities that used to rely on the coal industry. The money will be spent across 22 states and the Navajo Nation. Closing dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

HUD launches the first of its kind investment program in manufactured homes. Manufactured homes represent a major market for affordable housing and the Biden Administration is the first to offer support to people trying to buy. HUD hopes the program will help 5,000 families and individuals buy their own home over the next 5 years.

The Department of the Interior announced $700 million for long-term water conservation projects across the Lower Colorado River Basin. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people, electric power to 7 US States and is a critical crucial resource for 30 Tribal nations and two Mexican states. The project hopes to save more than 700,000 acre-feet of water in Lake Mead. In the face of climate change causing a historic 23-year drought, there is record low water levels at Lake Powell and Lake Mead. The Biden Administration has moved aggressively to try to protect the Colorado River and make sure there's enough water in the West.

HUD makes $123 million for fighting Youth Homelessness available. This represents the 8th round of investment in Youth Homelessness since 2021 for a total of $440 million so far. The Biden Administration is focusing on innovative answers, like host homes, and kinship care models, with emphasis on creating equitable strategies to assist youth who are most vulnerable, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and youth with disabilities. This is part of the Biden Administration goal of cutting homelessness by 25% by the end of 2025

The Department of Agriculture announced a series of actions to strength Tribal food sovereignty. The USDA will grant tribes in Maine, Alaska, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington $42 million through the Indigenous Animals Harvesting and Meat Processing Grants to support native animal harvesting. $18 million for projects under the Tribal Forest Protection Act. As well as $2.3 million to support the service of Indigenous foods in school meal programs. The USDA also plans its first ever class of interns specifically focused on Tribal agriculture and food sovereignty. The USDA also plans to host a first ever international trade mission focused on Tribal Nation and Native Hawaiian Community businesses.

Bonus: President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and Secretaries of Defense Lloyd Austin and State Antony Blinken traveled to Normandy France to mark the 80th Anniversary of D-Day. They were joined by a handful of surviving veterans of the landings many over 100 years old.

youtube

#Thanks Biden #Joe Biden #us politics #american politics #D-Day #housing #air lines #climate change #conservation #water #colorado river

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sonicenvy · 1 year ago

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Let's have a chat about AO3

Hiya friends and loyal followers! My last post about AO3 blew up yesterday so I figured now would be a good time to continue the conversation about AO3.

As I mentioned in my previous post (and probably in multiple other previous posts):

AO3 is NOT a social media site. AO3 is an ARCHIVE.

So let's delve into that a bit more since people don't seem to be getting that. Fanfiction predates the internet, and was transmitted via the internet way before sites like AO3 and FF dot net. Relatively speaking, I am a fanfiction newcomer, as I first started reading fanfiction in ... 2011? or thereabouts. I say this to say that I obviously don't have as personal of a memory of a time before fanfiction archive sites (my bitty fan experiences were on teaspoon and lcfanfic), but I certainly know plenty of people via fandom online that absolutely do.

For the newest children to fanfiction please check out the following pieces of reading to get started on your fandom history education:

“Fanfiction.” Fanlore Wiki. Accessed June 15, 2023. https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanfiction. Archived [https://archive.is/yJpOq].

“So I’m on AO3 and I See a Lot of People Who Put ‘I Do Not Own [Insert Fandom Here]’ before Their Story.” sonicenvy.tumblr.com, July 2, 2016. https://sonicenvy.tumblr.com/post/146818589611/mikkeneko-thepioden. Archived [https://archive.is/FRNCy]

ofhouseadama, Emily. “A Brief History of Fandom, for Those on Here Who Somehow Think Tumblr Invented Fandom.” sonicenvy.tumblr.com, May 21, 2014. https://sonicenvy.tumblr.com/post/131935827010/ofhouseadama-a-brief-history-of-fandom-for. Archived [http://archive.today/j2Rfq]

mizstorge, fantastic-nonsense, and fanculturesfancreativity. “The Places Fandom Dwells: A Cautionary Tale.” fantastic-nonsense.tumblr.com, June 29, 2017. https://fantastic-nonsense.tumblr.com/post/162395547190/the-places-fandom-dwells-a-cautionary-tale. Archived [https://archive.ph/QK2wI]

As you read through this stuff, three things should become apparent to you:

Fanworks have always existed in tenuous space -- that is, they have always been under threat of removal, or threat of loss, whether this loss was through events like the livejournal strikethrough, the loss of a fandom specific website, destruction of physical copies of the work, or C&D/legal action from original creators of the work.

Fandom has a long and colored history with many of the most defining events of early fandom history being related to threats to the community.

A need was ripe for a place to save and ARCHIVE fanworks and protect them from deletion, legal action, corporate sanitization efforts, site deaths due to the deaths of admins, etc etc.

Out of all of this, comes The Organization For Transformative Works (2007), and their brand new site Archive of Our Own (2008). The stated intention of Archive of Our Own (AO3) (bolding mine):

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization, established by fans in 2007, to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. We believe that fanworks are transformative and that transformative works are legitimate. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. We preserve our fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing our fellow fans, our work, our commentary, our history, and our identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans. The Archive of Our Own offers a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanworks using open-source archiving software.

Source: Works, Organization for Transformative. “Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own. Accessed June 15, 2023. https://archiveofourown.org/about. Archived [http://archive.today/QYtbM]

You may also want to check out the original LiveJournal Brainstorming sessions for AO3 by astolat as archived here [https://web.archive.org/web/20220627134339/https://astolat.livejournal.com/150556.html] if you need further clarity on this point.

Some neat stuff from astolat's original posts that I find are relevant:

making it easy for people to download stories or even the entire archive for offline reading (thus widely preserving the work in case some disaster does take it down)

code-wise able to support a huge archive of possibly millions of stories.

allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult ...

As we can see both from the mission statement of OTW/AO3 and from astolat herself in the brainstorming sessions, AO3 is an ARCHIVE. It is a project that is meant to preserve and provide access to fanworks. Run for fans, by fans and meant to host any and all kind of content with none of the commercialization or censorship that fans found elsewhere. Before AO3 there were certainly numerous, disconnected, fandom specific archives for fanfiction or other fanworks. Many of these old sites have been archived (see we're getting that word again) via the opendoors project. Some, like teaspoon or lcfanfic still exists and are semi-active.

A common thread is that writers and readers weren't just using the archive site to connect. They were doing more connection through other sites like dreamwidth, livejournal, facebook, their emails and later tumblr or twitter. Archive sites were meant as a supplement to other fan spaces like message boards, blogs and journals.

So, dear friends, you might ask, what is an archive?

An archive is a place where documents, artifacts and records are kept and preserved for future reference, use and access. Archives help us maintain a better understanding of the past and protect objects, writings, documents, records and more in longevity. In the context of fanwork archiving, this means preserving fanworks in longevity/perpetuity so that fans can continue to access them for enjoyment and for historical purposes. Archiving fanwork is vital to preserving and, indeed creating fan culture and identity.

To read more about archives in general, check out this article from the American History Museum of the Smithsonian (https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/about/what-are-archives) or this one from the US National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/about/info/whats-an-archives.html).

So AO3 is an archive. Why does this matter?

Oh, boy, I am about to get LIS nerdy on y'all. At this point in the post we can all agree that AO3 is and always has been an archive (it's in the name...). When we view and understand the site starting from this premise, a lot of, frankly stupid as fuck arguments that people have about AO3 look even dumber. Understanding AO3 primarily as an archive helps us understand:

The tagging system. Given AO3 is an archive, the tags for content on the site function exactly the same as headings in a library archive. They are designed to store information about the fic (that is, they are intended as metadata) which is then used to find the record of the fic in the archive. This is why it is important to tag what is in your fic, and to use tags properly, using the agreed meanings of particular tags.

The kinds of content that are permitted and excluded under TOS IV. The archive permits fanworks, which include: fanfiction, fanart, podfic, and fan videos. The archive thus excludes things that are not fanwork (records with no content (aka "placeholder fics"), posts asking for writing prompts or submissions, posts looking for fic, commerical promotions of ANY kind, original fiction with no relation to fan content, spam etc). Every library and archive has their own collections policies, and AO3 is not an exception. Collections Policies are generally guided by the mission statement(s) of the archiving party/library. As we saw above in both the official about page and the original brainstorming posts from astolat, AO3 is a library for fanworks, meant to preserve fanworks and is in opposition to advertising and commercialization. Therefore, if the thing you want to add to the library of AO3 is not a fanwork or contains commercialization, it does not qualify to be an object of the archive. Re: the "placeholder fic" post that I didn't know was going to blow up so much: imagine you go to the library to get a book and open it to find that it is empty or you get a DVD and play it only to find that it is the movie theater trailer for the movie. Doesn't that make no sense?

Why there is NO censoring of "adult" or other quote on quote "objectionable content". The archive does not chose to preserve works based on subjective quality or "moral purity" type standards. This is true in libraries and museums as well. We keep and save materials that people find objectionable as archiving and librarianship are and have always been diametrically opposed to censorship. As an archive AO3 follows this. Moreover, you can see in astolat's original post "allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult" as a founding idea.

Why there is no advertising, and why this includes you adding your Ko-fi or paypal or whatever the fuck. Outside of the fact that doing this violates TOS and invalidates OTW lawyer arguments for the legal existence of fanworks under US Fair Use, AO3 as an archive is meant to be a keeper of fan records, not a space for promotions. Archives do keep records (and indeed some archives keep records of advertising) but they, themselves are not using their platform to advertise for anything else.

Why there is no "AO3 algorithm". The kinds of algorithmic feed generators that sites like the t*kt*ok or whatever use are antithetical to the mission of archiving stuff and providing access to it. In an archive you search for content based on terms and headings and self-select. I'm not on the t*kt*k or whatever and I actively block and disable all "suggestion" type things so I don't entirely understand what y'all are looking with this.

Ok, that's great, why are you telling us all of this?

There is a concerning trend of newcomers both young and older to fandom and fanfiction that have not taken off the social media brain filter before coming on board. Some excellent tags I've seen on The Post™ that spawned this one include:

#guys quit bringing the worst elements of capitalism to AO3 (via @watchtowersystem)

#algorithms have rotted people's brains i swear (via @pearly--rose)

#omg stop trying to social mediaify ao3 (via @greyduckgreygoose)

There were also some bangers on my reddit post on this topic as well, but the reddit I posted it on is (rightfully) on blackout at the moment.

I think the sociamediafying of fanfiction that a lot of these people are bringing has a few major negatives:

social mediafied fandom views fanwork soley as consumable content, creating more passive, entitled participants in fandom. For fanwork=content social media brain folks, the fact that fanwork is meant to be an active and engaging thing is lost. Fanwork is a gift from one fan to other fans, it is a point for discussion, a result of people's passion and creativity. It is transformative, out of the box and part of building a niche community. When you start to see it as "content" like a random object on a feed you stop valuing it, analyzing it, and interacting with it in the same way, and are more likely to passively consume what you see as content. Social media has made "content" out of everything, and everything becomes something to scroll past in a few seconds, always looking for more stuff, the newest stuff, etc etc. It's obviously very tied to the experience of social media being used to sell you shit, but that's another conversation I think.

fanwork=content social media brain also allows some of these people to post incredibly demanding comments for "more content" on fancreators works or makes them think it's ok (and indeed creates the same result as what the writer is creating) to feed someone's incomplete fic into an ai to get a "completion".

fanwork=content social media brain also means that when these folks start creating content they feel entitled to views, hits, kudos, etc etc, and feel like it is ok to do things that they see as "gaming" the system to get their fics to be at the top of the pack. They begin to care too much about posting to get their "content" the most views because that's how things work on social media.

fanwork=content social media brain also makes some of these people think that "fic" that is "written" by an ai is acceptable fanwork, because they do not view fanwork as artwork/writing with merit, as much as an entertainment property to be consumed. How the meat gets made becomes irrelevant, because the end result is the only thing that is important.

social mediafying of fandom is something that has helped a lot of advertising and commercialization sneak its way into our spaces, which actively hurts our chances of building good communities.

social mediafying of fandom turns fanwork creation and fandom into popularity contests, which is bad for all fan spaces. The point is that we're being weird together. I've seen new, young authors post on reddit about how they feel so bad about their fic because it doesn't have 1000s of hits or because they feel incapable of writing things (even things they might want to explore) because "no one will read it, and it will not become popular". This makes me very sad.

social mediafying of fanwork also turns right around into .... wait ... you guessed it .... censorship! people are now practising self-censorship that is utterly unnecessary and completely sad to me because they are afraid of getting deleted from anywhere for "objectionable content". This carries over into new users on AO3 doing things like using leet speech for curse words, sexual content and more in the TAGS or the body of their AO3 fics. Stop Don't. You can say fuck, dead, kill, murder, cunt, cock, and whatever the fucking hell you want on AO3. That was the whole goddamn point.

These people are trying to bring fanwork=content social media brain to places like AO3. I'm not entirely sure why.

tldr; AO3 isn't a social media site for talking with your following or posting about ideas that you've had. It isn't a popularity contest. It isn't a place where there will be no inappropriate content. It isn't a place for advertising or commerical promotion. It is an ARCHIVE OF FANWORKS meant to be "allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult."

Anyone of you fans older, wiser, more well versed in fan history, and more articulate than me, please feel free to add to this. Ditto on any of you other funky LIS friends out here on tumblr dot hell.

#AO3 #archive of our own #fanfiction #fandom #fandumb #fan history #fandom history #long post for ts

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