I’m curious what the moderators of the eskel Big B

[dragonlady7]

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I mean. The canon itself is already an absolute mire of things that would not fly. We are obviously not just drawing on Netflix, since Eskel does not appear yet in Netflix.

I’m getting a lot of people making a point of telling me that the content isn’t banned, only the graphic depiction thereof, which a) is not what the guidelines actually say, and b) is suspiciously subjective. (Someone has been trying earnestly to tell me and anyone in the notes who agrees with me that the novels are not graphic, which uh. I know I’ve only read excerpts thereof but said excerpts would disagree with you.)

But, for the record. Eskel so far has not appeared in Netflix; he is a book- and game-verse character. The books are arguably not graphic in their depictions of violence (? Not sure how one argues this, but people are arguing, so I’ll grant them this point), but absolutely contain dubcon, noncon, incest, and the author’s eggregious nipple kink, among other things. The games feature dead sex workers and all kinds of graphically-depicted shit including coercion and mind control and dubcon and actually you’re expected to actively participate in some pretty ill stuff. In the game, Eskel only appears a few times and spends much of the one appearance making fun of himself / being mocked by others for his potential proclivities for bestiality (depending how you define succubi but uh they’re definitely making a joke about Lil Bleater there).

It’s completely wacko by all objective measures for there to be such broad content restrictions on such a dark canon, is what it boils down to.

The other thing I’m getting a ton of in reblogs is the specific phrase “shitting on” or “shitting all over” the mods, for having dared explain that I feel excluded, so like. Firstly it’s really odd that everyone’s using that specific phrase, and I am starting to suspect a bizarre fixation?

and secondly, I could not possibly have been more polite in my disagreement, so it’s crystal fucking clear that any dissent at all is beyond the bounds of politeness. Which also is a pretty good red flag, for me.

I couldn’t be happier with my decision to nope out before I even signed up for that.

But I remain disappointed in the entire thing, because I love the Witcher fandom as a whole and the way it’s treated me, and while I’m happy to churn out fics on my own, I would have loved to be involved in a more organized thing. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[chamerion]

I don’t even go here but this made my blood boil and you hit the nail on the head as to why: you were perfectly polite, and the reactions made it crystal clear that any dissent at all was going to get you accused of shit-stirring rudeness and that is a big damn red flag.

And like...listen, I’m fully aware that I am extra-sensitive to anything that even smells like purity discourse so maybe this is me going off on a kneejerk rant, and if so I apologize, but here’s the thing. I have a handful of weird, non-intuitive, very abstract triggers that are basically impossible to warn for. I’d never expect a warning, because that would be incredibly unreasonable of me. But one of the common threads between Weird Little Stuff That’s Apt To Fuck Me Up in fiction is that it looks soft and harmless on the surface while being fucked up underneath. That combo sets off some screaming danger signal in my brain that goes look out, that’s a big ol’ anglerfish, it looks welcoming but really it wants you to swim toward the light so it can swallow you.

Which means that this kind of thing - where the story itself contains all kinds of dark and disturbing implications that get glossed over and ignored by the narrative - is actually far more likely to leave me feeling queasy than a story that leans into the darkness and explores it.

I don’t begrudge anybody their warnings. I don’t begrudge anybody their spaces in which to read and write stories that avoid disturbing or depressing themes as a central focus. But I really, really need people to wrap their brains around the fact that safety doesn’t look the same for everyone, and when they frame upbeat fluff as the only way to be inclusive they are in fact making very specific value judgments about whose safety matters and who deserves to be excluded.

Anyway not to dump my personal feelings on your post, but I just wanted to validate your disappointment because you are 10000% right about this.

[dragonlady7]

Thank you for the validation. I am sorry to set you off but alas, even in a canon full of gore and dubcon and bestiality, there are Purity Antis who are determined to impose their will while entirely refusing to acknowledge that anyone might disagree with them for any reason! It's so tiring and I feel so old.

There's a rival exchange being set up and the antis are working themselves up to troll it. The mods are all upset that there's all this "drama" and are telling people they're being "flamed" and I have yet to see even one person be other than firmly polite about it, so that's... well, not surprising-- and they're like "well we're gonna go rules-lawywer THEM" and... the only rule... is to tag your shit... and if you don't tag your shit... AO3 has a reporting function for that express purpose... so there's literally no fuss or muss about that.
Anyway.
Yeah I think I try *hardest* to tag shit that on first blush doesn't look fucked-up but is. Like, I realized, reading books that are way too old for her to my niece, if something fucked up is about to happen, if i let her know, and be like "ohhhh this part is super fucked-up! this thing is gonna happen, that's fucked-up! are you ready for this fucked-up thing?" (obviously not in those words) then she always is, and isn't upset afterward. I'd never spring something on her! Man the first time a major character died I sat her down and we talked about it well before it happened, and when it was going to happen I kept reminding her that it was going to, and then we stopped and talked about how shocked and upset the POV character was when it happened--- anyway I'm digressing.

If they from the beginning had been like This Is A Fluff-Only T-Rated Bang we would've been like okay what the fuck, because this character canonically fucked a succubus while high on fisstech and also might be fucking his pet goat, and is a child soldier with a facial disfigurement, and like. this isn't a T-rated canon. But we would've been like, y'know, okay, that's fine, you do you, weird choice but okay. It's that they're just calling it Charactername Big Bang as if this is perfectly generic, and these content restrictions are in some way a standard thing, and everyone I know from Strikethrough days immediately erupted all over in hives.

Anyway it's nice to know we're not all just nuts for being upset about it, LOL.