sidhebeingbrand:

A library story

So when I was a kid, probably 12 or 13, I checked out a compilation of post-apocalyptic science fiction stories from the public library. It looked like every other book on the shelf. It was fic from a dozen different authors, and the blurb on the inside cover was pretty vague.

Of the stories in that book, 2 were R-rated. One had surprise rape. One had surprise inter-generational incest. For the shock value. To make the reader ~think. Dude authors. Do I wish I hadn’t read it? Yah. Kinda. It lives in the back of my head with the other gross detritus of the world, all the horrible upsetting shit I’ve read. I read a Star Trek licensed novel with animal torture in it, to illustrate the horror of sociopathy, and I wish I hadn’t read that too.

During the summers of middle school and high school I read voraciously and while I managed to steer clear of MUCH upsetting content I sure as hell stumbled on some doozies.

If my library had been Ao3 I would have gotten a pop up asking me — hey, kid, there’s gross shit in that book, are you old enough to check it out?

And if I was a dumb kid I still might have said ‘yes’, but I would have had a heads up.

Quick personal statistics!

Surprise incest I’ve read in paperbacks I bought in a store or checked out from the library: I’m going to say…. half a dozen instances? Dozen? Surprise rape, at least double that. What is it about the fantasy genre that brings out the creepy writers, and why do they consider sexual assault ‘gritty realism,’ could they fucking stop.

Surprise incest I’ve read on Ao3: none. It has warnings and I avoid it like the plague.

Surprise rape I’ve read on Ao3: none. It has warnings and I avoid it like the plague.

Ao3 is one of the safest goddamn places on the web to read fiction because it has a standardized, mandatory labeling system. Is there appalling content on it? Oh god yes. Does it do a better job of warning you about that content than any library or bookstore? Oh my god yes by ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE.

I vote funding for my local library every time it’s on the ballot, even though there’s gross shit on the shelves, because I think it’s a resource that’s important to have.

I donate to Ao3 even though there’s content I find fucking appalling archived there, because I think it’s a resource that’s important to have.

Because I know that defunding libraries won’t stop gross dudes from writing gross shit and calling it ‘thought provoking literature’, and I know shutting down Ao3 won’t make creepy fic vanish from the internet. It’ll just take the warning labels off it.