i actually hate rn that theres no discussion on what happened with atiki and why
like were all just gonna keep going like nothings wrong like nothing hasnt been wrong for a long time
i didn’t get to read the fic before she pulled it. I have the absolute faith that she had zero intention for it to be interpreted as dub con, even a little bit. she’s like Enthusiastic Kink champion. i will miss her dearly, but she was already feeling outside pressures and of course the anon harassment didn’t help.
at the same time, there were multiple people who interpreted part of the fic as dub con and regardless of whether or not it contained actual dub con…those interpretations are valid bc it still made them uncomfortable. some were rude about it but some were polite and just the NOTION of the word dub con being remotely associated with her fic caused her distress.
she would never write a dub con fic and even those uncomfy with it said that it turned out not to be dub con. that doesn’t take away the fact that they still felt uncomfy enough to ask for a warning next time. although i do hope she comes back bc I already miss her, I hope she finds peace away from tumblr, if that’s what she needs
they were not valid enough to literally drive a ESL writer out of her place in this fandom based completely on a subjective accusation. they were (from what i hear) highly inaccurate accusations (and i’m going to go ahead and give her the benefit of the doubt on this one because of her record on dubcon). its one thing to feel uncomfortable, to ask questions, and to have her confirm, vehemently, NO it would NEVER be.
that would be the end of that. your incredibly individual experience with a piece of work does not give you the pass for anything against an author, other than unfollow, unsubscribe, distance, etc if you dont like the result, especially after such a clear confirmation in negative.
but people kept pushing. kept going. as soon as someone even so much as whispers the word trigger on here, the accused party is a goner.
its a poison that ate through atiki in a day. and its That, that i cannot stomach. not the interpretations, the questions, but the venomous callout culture that grants immunity to anyone claiming to be a victim.
This notion of ‘oh well it made me uncomfortable so now they must pay with their exile no one can challenge me on this because i used the word trigger’ cannot be the deciding force on every damn case here
ive been here a long time now. this isnt unique. this isnt me trying to invalidate feelings of distress, this is me challenging the actions the collective take to dealing with very VERY subjective interpretations
A little confused by this. If I don’t want to read a fic because of uncomfy subject matter, I just skip it.
Don’t fucking harass writers out of their community, regardless of how much righteous anger you think you can justify. If you participate in that kind of witch-hunting, the only thing you’re accomplishing is making people afraid to create and share what they’ve created. It isn’t just the loss of a great writer like Atiki we’re dealing with because of this shit, it’s the loss of all the new writers who are going to decide it isn’t worth the risk to post something, or who will alter their potentially groundbreaking and amazing work out of fear that they’ve crossed a line. Creativity doesn’t flourish in an environment dominated by fear.
You don’t protect yourself when you attack someone else. You might feel better for a little while, but you have solved exactly nothing.
As an aside, I am not sure of what is going on lately, but another writer recently pulled their fics from AO3. It was In Care Of by Quietasasleepingarmy. They said they didn’t want their writing on there anymore. Its too bad. It was a very sweet fic, so if you know it, its gone now.
All of this. Here’s the thing… I get that people have very individual tastes about what they want to read. That does not give them the right to literally bully people out of this fandom by harassing them and telling them to “kill themselves”. Stifling creativity in order to create a “safe” space will leave us a world with absolutely no original, daring work left. If you don’t like a work of fiction… don’t read it. Don’t recommend it. Move on to something you do like. For gods’ sake, don’t harass the author like they are the worst person on the planet. There are actual monsters in the world doing horrible things – join a cause that actually helps combat THAT, not some innocent person writing fanfiction. So whether the work was dubcon or not (knowing Atiki, it probably wasn’t), whether the work was properly labeled or not, the aftermath was ridiculous and disgusting and I’m still reeling from it. And the sad part? She’s not the first, nor will she be the last. Because the bullies won. She left the site. Just like theglitterypotato left before her, and countless others who faced anonymous harassment and bullying. The bullying doesn’t stop if they get what they want.
I’m a firm believer in the freedom of creativity and the freedom of expression. I may not like everyone’s way of expressing their creativity, but I will stand up for their right to create it. It all reminds me of why we have things like banned books week, to remember that banning and challenging a creative work STILL happens to this day, and is never, ever right. When we start burning books (or in this case, fanworks), it’s the people behind them who get hurt. Instead of going after someone who wrote something you don’t like, how about taking a little personal responsibility to decide what you want to view on the internet. Block people, blacklist words, I don’t fucking care WHAT you do, but YOU need to create your safe space rather than putting it all on the shoulders of a fandom whose artists and writers are giving up and moving on.
And more importantly, we should all take a page from Wil Wheaton and practice the #1 rule of life: Don’t be a dick.
I have read the fic (and I saved it on a document) and this is what was about:
john wakes up naked in sherlock’s bed and looking at certain evidences he draws the conclusion that he has had sex with sherlock but can’t remember because he was intossicated. and sherlock goes along with what john thinks has happened. what is revealed next is that this conclusion is completely wrong, it’s the opposite, that night of sex didn’t happen because john was intossicated!
“You said you wanted to have me,” Sherlock said, finally, very
quietly, “you said it multiple times, and you told me what you
wanted to do to me and I—I wanted those things, I wanted it too but
I – -I couldn’t. Because I knew you weren’t going to remember, I
knew you were barely conscious. It wasn’t possible, it wasn’t
right. So I waited until you fell asleep and I left and…
and in the morning, when you woke up, I saw that you’d already
jumped to conclusions. It was too late. You already thought we’d
spent the night together and it’s difficult to kill and idea once
it’s been planted inside someone’s head. So I improvised. I let
you believe you were right and I… I lied.”
sherlock lies because he panics and that causes all the misunderstanding.
was this fic dubcon? no, there is no description of actual dubcon sex happening
did this fic contain elements of implied dubcon, that even if later it have been revealed not to be true, could be triggering for people sentitive about this topic? yes
atiki posted this fic late at night (circa 3 am), she was eager to publish it after a long time she didn’t write and she didn’t have a beta that could have given a second opinion. her mistake was not to put a warning in the notes
about a situation that could be read as dubcon but it’s not real.
after receiving the first critics and backlash she apologised multiple times and deleted the fic because she didn’t want to cause harm. this thought stressed her and made her panic while people continued to attack her for writing dubcon and receiving anon hate telling her to kill herself.
this continued for all the next day because for one mistake that she tried to correct and apologised for the tumblr attitude is still going for a witch hunt. (under a read more she told she read a blog that was plotting a vendetta against her for what happened)
this is one of the last ask she answered before deleting:
so atik did a mistake (putting a warning beforehand, I still want to highlight that she didn’t write dubcon) that she tried to fix at her best apologising and deleting the fic but the tumblr attitude is to jump at throats like she was one of the worst person ever in fandom because everything must always been black or white.
and this is the reason why we have lost one of a hell brilliant person that gave us amazing fics and headcanons and funny posts and shitposts and she didn’t deserve that.
Reblogging because this conversation needs to continue.
I just…I don’t know, guys.
Losing Atiki is a real tragedy, and not the first nor even the third or the fifth…and it didn’t have to happen.
Things in our fandom are not good right now.
Somehow, sensitivity and compassion and the desire to create safe spaces have been twisted into a weapon that people who feel powerless IRL can use to harass and bully others. While I do believe in using tags and warnings as a polite courtesy, what that’s devolved into is a type of policing of artistic expression as a kind of power trip…and nothing, nothing deadens creativity and expression like fear over being attacked. Especially if we can’t tell where the next attack may be coming from.
Not to make this about me, but hell, I’m gonna make it about me for a minute.
I’ve been having a really rough time of it lately in my real life. This is not a secret, nor is it news. With all this going on? I feel like my happy fun place is basically none of those things. I’m anxious about writing, I’m anxious about posting, I feel like all the fun and color has been sucked out of the thing that brought me the most joy.
I don’t want this to be the end of the line. I don’t. I have so many more stories to tell. But everything feels frozen and remote, and I can’t reach what I need to reach, and that’s the kind of feeling you really can’t consciously overcome. It’s the feeling, ironically enough, of being unsafe.
I am on the bloody edge of deleting and walking away from everything right now, because I don’t know if I have the emotional energy to fight through this mess right now. Maybe I should just freaking go and find some peace and quiet.
My best friend and the smartest person I know in the whole world is telling me NOT to delete, not to let the bullies and the knuckleheads win, to fight it out and stand tall and stake my claim on my little corner of the fandom. She’s right. (She’s always right, it’s boring. 😉) But I’ve mentally been on the edge of deleting for the past 24 hours, because I just don’t know how to reclaim what I thought I had here.
This isn’t like, a threat or a cry for attention or a demand for people to say, oooooh, Caitlin, please don’t delete!!! That’s not it. I’m just thinking out loud.
I’m not threatening to take my toys and go home. At least, I’m not trying to. I’m genuinely lost and sad and I don’t know where to go from here. I really don’t. But I do know we need to keep talking about all of this, because we’re on the edge of losing things that are really important to all of us, and I don’t want that to happen. God, I really don’t.
@consultingcaitlin Stay. Life is what we make of it, even when the world is in shreds about your feet. The unfortunate thing about art is there will always be naysayers, no matter the media, no matter the intent. One has to brew a pot of tea, put up a blanket fort, and invite only the kind and generous minds within.
It’s not a ‘Sherlock Thing’ – there are SWTFA implosions happening constantly now on the edge of my dash. It’s not a ‘Tumblr Thing’ – I know authors that are bullied on Goodreads and through email, etc.
It’s a human nature thing. There’s not much to do about it but endure.
my issue with this is chalking t up to ‘human nature’ absolves us collectively of the responsibility we have toward eachother in this space.
i dont like sweeping shit under the rug because ‘haters gon hate’
Reblogging this because all these are very important points and we really need to keep this conversation going. Because when I read people trying to lump what atiki did with the likes of aa or other literal rape apologists, my blood starts to boil.
It’s not a matter of double standards, it’s a matter of looking at things in context. Did atiki mess up for not thinking of putting a warning and for reacting badly when asked to put one? Absolutely. Did she deserve the literal slavine of insults and threats that swamped her inbox? Abso-fucking-lutely not.
It’s really disheartening that one single mistake done in good faith could erase months and months of lovely (and highly praised) content. In under 24 hours people went from idolising everything she did to telling her to literally kill herself. How is that fair? How is these people’s hurt more valid than hers?
This is not about the fic anymore, or about content warning or debating wether dubcon was involved or not. All of that was decided one hour after all the shit happened and atiki decided to delete the fic, which should have been enough. This is about the way some people always like to claim the higher moral ground by pushing down everybody else around them and reducing them to their one single mistake instead of realising that not everybody has malicious intents and sometimes an honest mistake is just an honest mistake.
I think the worst thing that can happen to a writer is feeling forced to delete a work. It’s a bit like killing one’s own child (sorry if this sounds too dramatic). Others make you deliberately destroy something you created, a work of art you poured your soul into. It’s so sad.
In the above I read a lot about the feelings of readers. How about the feelings of the writers? We expose ourselves with our fics. We pour out our fantasies, we let readers look in the chasms of our soul. Good ficiton gives away a lot about the person who wrote it. That’s why it hurts so much if the readers start to insult our works – because they insult us with their scathing remarks. It’s not just the writing they criticise (which is absolutely ok if it’s done helpfully and polite; it’s even appreciated) but they humiliate our very selfs – in front of a large cheering crowd.
A lot of shit happened in my life. Still I write very dark fics. This is sometimes not easy for me. But that’s what happens when I start writing. I can only draw on my experiences. Honestly, it’s a kind of therapy. I would never state that in the notes to my fics because I don’t believe people want to read how I work through my traumas – they want a good story that caters to their preferences. And they are entitled to get exactly that. Should anyone dare to judge my coping mechanisms they can go fuck themselfs.
Good writing should not just be warm paste that makes you feel happy. Of course, there’s a place for such stuff as well. But I at least want to read ficiton that stirs something inside me, that challenges me, that might even shake and upset me. That’s what art should aim for – a world without triggers would be a very dull place indeed.
Thank you @isitandwonder. Absolutely all that you have said here. 💜
I read that fic, and I had no idea about the backlash. This is a pretty standard trope in this fandom. I have read this story by different authors fifty times already, and none of THOSE authors were hounded from fandom.
Atiki’s fic was absolutely reasonable for the context of the Sherlock universe and the established fandom.
Fic has its own set of rules.
Fic is not fiction. A writer doesn’t have to introduce a character and let the actions of 300 pages define them. A reader doesn’t have to meet the character – they are already solid in the reader’s mind. Fic lets a writer skip the discovery, and explore an aspect or interpretation of an already-established character.
Fic is not life. Fic is not a roadmap for how to act. It is not a suggestion for how you or others should have sex or conduct relationships. It is not expert advice vetted by a priest, a psychiatrist, your mom, and a sex therapist.
Did Atiki mess up? No. Did the people who bullied her mess up? Yes.
Just in case we were in the mood to congratulate ourselves for being an inclusive safe space. I like to think it’s true but it’s really, really not. The entitlement fandom feels to callout whomever it wants has gotten completely out of control.
I am sick of this. It is why I am working on a 50 Shades re work. Why I started A Little Sugar Never Hurt Anybody.
We are all adults.
If you are not an adult, do not read things that deal with adult issues/subjects.
If you are not mature enough, don’t read mature fiction.
Stop this.
This furthers no goal.
Fuck you.
Sit down and really think about what you are doing.
The end.
I swear to all I hold holy I will fight you on this.
I write for myself now and I’m glad some still read along. I’ve had a pretty terrible couple of years and some days I struggle with writing- I struggle with fandom. It’s gone bat-shit bananas. I feel so much pain about losing yet another author.
These people, us, me- we are PEOPLE, too.
I’m not sorry about how I feel on this subject.
And I will say it-
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER DO NOT READ
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER DO NOT READ
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE SUBJECT MATTER DO NOT READ
Has it gotten through yet?
I hope so.
to be honest I think this is at least one factor in why I’ve slowed down. There are a lot of good people in this fandom, a lot of people who love and support one another. But there’s also that trickling fear in the back of people’s minds, that if they say the wrong thing or write the wrong thing or draw the wrong thing then the vultures will come. Some people have been driven off, some of have simply stopped writing for the fandom. It’s voices stilled by bullies and that’s what I can’t stand.
I’m a small fish, and I’m thankful I haven’t drawn anyones negative attention. I’ve always been very very careful to tag and tag throughly, but one person’s simple mistake shouldn’t leave them in tears and being forced off the entire site.
This isn’t healthy, this isn’t right, and it isn’t sane.
Look, I don’t want a giant pile of wank pointed my way, but I’m going to put this out here and say it once:
I’m so tired of this fandom. Not all of you, of course, not even most of you. I know the vast majority of us just want to ship whatever we ship, delight over the show we love, discuss and create what we want.
But there’s also a reason that people stay out of it. My best friend enjoys the show, but says that she’s ‘not in the fandom’. Because she’s seen how much shit goes on over here and wants no part of it. And that’s sad. It puts up a wall. If all someone sees of a fandom or a group is shitposts and infighting, then why the hell would they want to be part of it?
I know I haven’t been writing as much. Part of that is time and stuff going on with me, part of it is the show, and part of it is fandom. It’s difficult for me to write anything with the show where it stands now. I don’t mind writing stuff going back in time or AUs, or other pairings, but my Johnlock feels kind of broken and I don’t know how to get that back.Hopefully S4, whenever we get it, will fix some of that.
I’m lucky in that I joined fandom when I did. It was the late summer of 2013, things were still vibrant, everyone was still puzzling over Reichnbach and I was able to write and grow and get so much positive feedback and meet so many amazing people that my life was literally changed.
But something has happened over the last year. Maybe it’s just part of a fandom’s lifecycle. Maybe we’re all just trying to deal with s3. Maybe the more strident voices in this fandom are driving out those of us just trying to do what we do. Well, that one isn’t a maybe, that has certainly happened. And it makes me sad when we lose those voices, when people are so fed up and tired of this fandom that they stop participating. Sure they’re still writing and creating other things, turning their attentions elsewhere (for the most part), but I can’t blame them for wanting out of this. Even if they aren’t a target of the wank themselves, how much are they willing to have on their dashes, how much are they willing to tolerate?
I don’t like bullying, in any form. I was bullied far too much as a kid to tolerate it as an adult. Even if you’re self-righteously convinced that yours is the only way, that what you’re doing is best for other people, I would plead with you to think about what you’re doing, and who you’re hurting in an effort to ‘correct’ things.
I’m not going anywhere, I don’t think. I’m still here, in my own little corner. But I’m also posting this because even though I’m a nobody I’m still afraid to post it, still afraid this will make me a target. And that’s not right.
This is exactly it. I know a lot of people want to avoid the whole thing entirely and don’t want to see any wank on their dash, and that’s more than fine. But as a fandom, as a community, I think we really need to take a look at ourselves and make some positive changes, because over the last year or so there have been so many times when I’ve see people take hiatuses or want to leave entirely (including myself) because of some of the pure meanness that can come out of the woodwork sometimes.
This used to be a place of excitement and joy. It used to be such pure fun.
I can’t say that about the Sherlock fandom anymore.
I agree completely. I’m not afraid of the wank but I’d rather it wasn’t there at all. I mean getting labeled as a paedophile supporter just for eblogging a list of fic recs, would be funny if it wasn’t so damaging. I lost people I thought were friends over that, just because they believed the wank. This is the side of the fandom I don’t want any part of. I do however think they are few and that they get bored easily, looking for new blood to bash.
I was in this fandom before the internet existed, before tumblr and I’ll be in it long after too.
I’m going to tell you something that may or may not make you feel better: there has always been wank in this fandom. Hear me out. I know that sounds bad, but it is actually the best thing.
I came in here just prior to series 2, around the fall of 2011, and let me tell you: it was not a wank-free space. Before we had Mary wank, we had Irene wank, and before that, there was Sally wank. OH, THE SALLY WANK.
marielikestodraw, an incredible artist, deleted her page because of harassment. Pretty sure it was because she drew some (great!!) arts for a fic that had a (GASP) woman involved with John and Sherlock. (This was post-S1, so it was, amazingly, Sarah. Good fic; highly recommend.) oatmealjumper, who ran probably the best fic rec page around in those days and who I still love to pieces, left for a number of reasons.
Awesome people have always come in and out of fandom, and it’s always been heartbreaking to lose them. Here’s the good thing though: you know who else left? The people who harassed ‘em.
What I’m saying isn’t that this place has always been toxic. I’m saying that toxic people come, and the fandom outlasts them. There is always enough love in this place to outweigh everything else. The good lasts. Bitterness is hard to sustain, but damn, is it fun to keep up pure, sincere enjoyment.
Someone will always find something to wank about, but those people don’t last. The excitement lasts.
I remember the Sally wank, my god, I got shredded when I said I didn’t like the character. And the loss of marielikestodraw still hurts me but you’re right, the wank comes and goes and the best policy is to ignore it as best you can.
Call me cynical, but it kind of feels like all the good people are leaving and the wankers are staying, determined to make this fandom in their own image and only with people who think exactly like them.
I understand why it feels that way. This is why I think it’s important to spend some time talking about this issue from the side of those of us who don’t want the wankers to take over. I know I would rather spend my time writing fic and reblogging metas and having heated discussions over the state of Sherlock’s cherry, but the fact that people are so scared to say anything does not sit well with me.
The fact that I was scared to post it was the final reason I did so.
Posted on
Look, I don’t want a giant pile of wank pointed my way, but I’m going to put this out here and say it once:
I’m so tired of this fandom. Not all of you, of course, not even most of you. I know the vast majority of us just want to ship whatever we ship, delight over the show we love, discuss and create what we want.
But there’s also a reason that people stay out of it. My best friend enjoys the show, but says that she’s ‘not in the fandom’. Because she’s seen how much shit goes on over here and wants no part of it. And that’s sad. It puts up a wall. If all someone sees of a fandom or a group is shitposts and infighting, then why the hell would they want to be part of it?
I know I haven’t been writing as much. Part of that is time and stuff going on with me, part of it is the show, and part of it is fandom. It’s difficult for me to write anything with the show where it stands now. I don’t mind writing stuff going back in time or AUs, or other pairings, but my Johnlock feels kind of broken and I don’t know how to get that back.Hopefully S4, whenever we get it, will fix some of that.
I’m lucky in that I joined fandom when I did. It was the late summer of 2013, things were still vibrant, everyone was still puzzling over Reichnbach and I was able to write and grow and get so much positive feedback and meet so many amazing people that my life was literally changed.
But something has happened over the last year. Maybe it’s just part of a fandom’s lifecycle. Maybe we’re all just trying to deal with s3. Maybe the more strident voices in this fandom are driving out those of us just trying to do what we do. Well, that one isn’t a maybe, that has certainly happened. And it makes me sad when we lose those voices, when people are so fed up and tired of this fandom that they stop participating. Sure they’re still writing and creating other things, turning their attentions elsewhere (for the most part), but I can’t blame them for wanting out of this. Even if they aren’t a target of the wank themselves, how much are they willing to have on their dashes, how much are they willing to tolerate?
I don’t like bullying, in any form. I was bullied far too much as a kid to tolerate it as an adult. Even if you’re self-righteously convinced that yours is the only way, that what you’re doing is best for other people, I would plead with you to think about what you’re doing, and who you’re hurting in an effort to ‘correct’ things.
I’m not going anywhere, I don’t think. I’m still here, in my own little corner. But I’m also posting this because even though I’m a nobody I’m still afraid to post it, still afraid this will make me a target. And that’s not right.
Posted on
All this crap? This is why I just had a close friend tell me “And again, this is why I am not in the Sherlock fandom”
Great job being inclusive and making folks feel welcome.
