Any Works Permitted But

[dragonlady7]

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mikkeneko https://mikkeneko.tumblr.com/post/641797536937541633/any-works-permitted-but :

Okay, here’s the problem.

You either have an Any Works Permitted fandom situation or you don’t. Because the moment you amend this statement to Any Works Permitted but, what you are doing is placing on the field the weapon by which any reader, for any reason, can go after any author or fic that they don’t like.

Whether the work in question actually violates the but is not really in question. If you teach the kids that “these are the magic words you can say to make the thing you don’t like go away,” they will use them, over and over until any kind of inherent meaning becomes destroyed.

That is what we got when we attempted to play “Any Works Permitted but not the pedo stuff.” We got definitions of “pedo stuff” that distorted to include any two people with any age gap, any two people with a size or height difference, any two characters who are of an age group with each other but the author is of a different age group, any character who is a teacher with any character that has ever been a student – it went on. It still goes on.

My argument is not that anyone who claims “this fic has this problematic element” is lying. Many fics do have problems and many people pointing this out are quite justified in doing so. My argument is that there is no way to distinguish between people who make these objections in good faith and people who are weaponizing them against fics which are: for a pairing they don’t like. About a character they don’t like. Include a character or pairing they don’t like. Written by or for a person they don’t like. Contain an element they don’t like (even if not the one ostensibly being objected to.) Made them feel a way they didn’t like.

When you have an Any Works Permitted fandom, you are going to get some stuff that is trouble. You are going to have some fans who do not, cannot feel welcome sharing a space where this content exists. I think that sucks, I really do. But the alternative is to have a fandom where any reader can, at any time, choose to go after and destroy any creator they don’t like. The alternative is to have a fandom where creators can be hounded out of the fandom, or off a social media platform entirely, because some people took a dislike to their stuff and had access to the Correct Magic Words.

The alternative is to have a fandom that is dead. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[heartofoshun]

I've been fighting against fandom censorship for years and I just don't know how to present the question in a way that people can understand. I do not know what else to say about it except to say censorship is much more insidious and dangerous than violating any particular reader's comfort zone. What next? Book burnings?

[krait]

This is a good summary.

What younger fen seem to be missing is that "problematic" does not mean 'this thing shouldn't exist,' it means 'this thing has problems,' and that's true of everything. Stomping your feet and demanding somebody else take the problems away is not an option. They're something you have to learn the skills to deal with, because you'll face them as long as you live. If your only solution is trying to control other people so they'll remove problems for you, you're not only going to fail, you're going to be miserable.

Those of us who have been kicking around fandom a while can remember when it was Any works permitted but slash... and I can still point you to a couple of archives where that's the case. There are fewer of them than there were when I first found fandom, however, and why is that? Fans decided that inclusivity was better, and that you can't solve problems by insisting they don't exist.