No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

ao3commentoftheday

I see a lot of comments on your blog from people wondering and worrying about kudos. Let me tell you a story about a story.

About three years ago I wrote a soulmark one-shot, cleverly titled "Soulmark". It's not the best thing I've ever written but it's a good, solid little story. And it's been getting dribs and drabs of kudos, a couple every month or less.

Two weeks ago I suddenly got 8 kudos in a day, more over the next few days, and a really kind, well-written comment. Why? I have no idea. I didn't do anything different, didn't promote it.

Writing well, promoting, tagging and formatting properly all make a difference, but there is an element of chaos that will never completely go away.

naryrising

Sometimes when you get a bunch of kudos in a short period of time on a work that isn’t brand new, it’s possible that what happened is someone recced it to their friends. “I just read this great soulmark story, you have to read it, here’s the link,” posted in a chat group or discord or on someone’s blog, can drive a lot of readers your way. If you like someone’s story, telling other people about it can make a big difference to the author :)

Anonymous asked:

Me being traumatized and not wanting that to happen to other kids makes me a bad person now :)) I’m disgusting :)) and horrible :)) and it’s my fault that happened :)) and everybody hates me more now :)) cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

systlin answered:

You are not horrible. And I do not hate you. It is not your fault that it happened. But things that are marked as adult very clearly are not for kids, and if you read it anyway it is on the people who should have been supervising you and did not intervene, or, assuming that you were old enough to know what ‘adult content’ means and chose to engage with stuff produced by adult fans for adult fans, on you for ignoring the warnings.

If a ten year old child goes to a library right now, and walks to the romance section and pulls down a book, that child’s guardians are responsible for saying “Hey now that is not for you.” If that same child comes back at thirteen and, knowing there is content in that book that adults do not want them to read, furtively hides away from guardian’s eyes and reads it anyway, that is not the fault of the library for having that book, or the author for writing it.

I am very sorry you’ve been hurt. But adults are going to produce content for adults, and if you ignore the guidelines set in place to keep kids out of that content, then that’s not the fault of the adults who wrote the stuff.

ruffboijuliaburnsides

When I was 14 years old, I was in Sailor Moon fandom. Now, that might sound pretty family friendly, but rest assured, there was plenty of smut and plenty of REALLY dark-ass shit.

All this shit was marked, though not NEARLY as thoroughly as is common now-a-days, with a rating. R meant it was probably not for kids, NC-17 meant it was ABSOLUTELY not for kids. It didn’t always mean there was sex, just that the author recognized that the topics and themes they were covering were dark and shown/discussed very explicitly, and that it was really not something a kid should be reading.

When, at 14 years old, I went into a clearly-labeled NC-17 Sailor Moon fic, and I was DEEPLY triggered by some of the content in it. It wasn’t even the darkest parts, but it was explicit suicidal ideation and planning that dug right in to the low-level desire to die that I’d been struggling with for 2 years, and I was in a pretty bad place for the rest of the week.

I did not and do not blame the author of that fic. All the really dark/violent fics I read had much more content warning than the sexy fic I ever read, and this one had been not only rated as “adult” but listed “explicit violence” and “suicide” in the author’s notes at the beginning.

I had chosen to read this fic. After I read this fic, I did not read fics I knew included suicide for a few months (until I started writing my own to deal with my feelings, whole other story), and I stopped reading that particular author’s fics because most of them were very dark and violent, and I realized I probably shouldn’t be reading them.

I was 14 years old and I recognized that a) since I was unsupervised online (by design) I was responsible for staying away from upsetting things, and b) that the person writing the fic wasn’t to blame for my reaction when I went in knowing full well it was a fic that was not intended for me. And hell, c) I RECOGNIZED AT 14 THAT R AND NC-17 RATED FICS (what on AO3 would be M or E rated) WERE NOT INTENDED FOR ME.

I refuse to hold young people to a lower standard than I was held to - both by fandom culture and myself - when I was a teen. Not because “I had it bad so you have to too”, because I didn’t have it bad! But if I could do it, SO CAN YOU. If you read a clearly marked fic and you’re triggered because of mental illness stuff, it’s nobody’s fault. If you read a clearly marked fic and you’re triggered because of trauma stuff, it’s the fault of the person who traumatized you. But if you’re reading a clearly-marked fic and know it could trigger you, or it triggers you because your trigger is odd or rare and no one would think to tag for it, it is not the fault of the author or archive. Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s the fault of the fanfic author who did their absolute best to warn for the contents of their fic. And if you read a fic intentionally on AO3 that has chosen the “chooses not to use archive warnings” option, that’s a risk you have chosen to take. The only time a fanfic author is to blame is if they intentionally misrepresent their fic as not having violence/sex/whatever and it actually does.

Otherwise, it’s not their fault, and it sucks ass that you’re hurt, but you are ultimately in charge of your online experience. And if you find yourself intentionally reading/seeking out things you know may upset you, then you should ask a parent to curate your internet experience for you, because you’re clearly not yet capable of doing it for yourself.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.