alias_sqbr

For anyone who didn't see it on sqbr, I posted the notes while reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; or, You're So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction Is about You".

This is a 1997 queer studies paper about the limits of 'paranoid'/fear-based readings which focus on finding the hidden, darker meanings of things, and how these can end up suppressing other sorts of readings. She suggests that paranoia has its place, but we would benefit from creating space for the full range of emotions, in criticism and life in general. I didn't like/agree with all of the paper (especially the way she blurs the line between mental health diagnosis and critical theory) but it was certainly interesting and got me thinking.

I'm sure I misunderstood some parts, the original paper is a better option for anyone who feels up to reading it, and I link to a few versions of it. But my notes might be helpful as a glossary and relatively accessible summary for anyone else who has trouble parsing humanities papers.

I'm cross-posting here since my interest in the topic relates to how I write reviews and meta.

A post I really liked on tumblr made me realise something about creativity I don't think I've ever seen before:
It's not that taste is subjective, and what feels like "mediocre" to you may be amazing to someone else.
It's not just that creating while mediocre is a necessary step towards being good.
It's not even that it's ok to stay mediocre if you're having fun.
All these things are true. But it's also ok to be mediocre, and get worse, and still keep going anyway.

I have this huge fear of Getting Worse At Things and I'd just never questioned it being an inherently terrible thing as a creator that means you should stop. And I mean obviously I'd rather not get worse! And I don't think I am! But accepting it as a possibility that wouldn't mean the end of everything is very freeing.

An Archive Of Our Own (AO3) is an archive for fanworks. Any work posted there needs to be given a title, a fandom, a rating (from "General Audiences" to "Explicit", with the option to pick "No Rating"), and warnings. Here's the AO3's guide to using warnings, note that it deals with some possibly triggering subjects.

Note these two cases in particular:

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Use this if warnings may apply but you don't want to use them.

No Archive Warnings Apply
Use this if AO3 warnings don't apply to your content

These are not the same! But the specific differences can be muddy.

From A Moving Forward PSA for everyone using AO3 by kkglinka:

“No Archive Warnings Apply” means the fic is PG13 at worst, probably fluff, totally safe.

“Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings” is the polar opposite. It’s a glaring Enter at Your Own Risk billboard. It means: a shitload of warnings apply but I ain’t telling because this story requires shock value. It’s very important to read the author’s notes for those fics because they might be using that older format from above.

So I thought this was roughly true, if a bit over-simplistic, then decided to do some rough poking at the AO3, and now I don’t think it’s true at all: as far as I can tell, while works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" are overall lower rated and "safer" than works marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings", the difference is small enough to not be much of a useful guide to the content of any given fic.

For example: using the AO3 search, 14% of fic tagged "No Archive Warnings Apply" are explicit, while 16% of those tagged "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" are. A difference, but not a hugely significant one. And under the cut I have a bunch of examples of dark topics which are about half as common amongst "No Archive Warnings Apply" works as "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" ones: a significant difference, but not large enough to make "No Archive Warnings Apply" safe.

My goal isn't to criticise kkglinka, I agreed with them until I ran the numbers (and it is of course possible that I somehow ran the numbers wrong) My goal is to encourage an accurate understanding of how AO3 users use these tags and warnings, and also to have fun playing with numbers because I am a nerd. In the likely event that my own analysis is flawed, I would be interested to hear about it.

And I do agree with kkglinka's final point: if you see something marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" you should check the notes and tags very carefully, especially if there's subjects you find triggering. From broader fandom context I suspect kkglinka is pushing back against the situation where someone posts a worked marked "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" that contains major character death or whatever, and a reader(*) gets angry because they think "Creator Chooses Not To Use Warnings" means "No Archive Warnings Apply". And it does not! It means the work could contain literally anything, and if you can't deal with that you shouldn't read it.

So I guess my point is that readers should also check the notes and tags for works marked "No Archive Warnings Apply". If a work marked that way contains major character death etc then yeah, you have a right to be pissed off. But a whole bunch of other stuff is fair game, including porn and other "unsafe" content. Always step carefully.

Content Note: discussion of triggering tags/content
( More rambling along the same lines )