Anti-shipper Musician Revives the Violent Ghosts of Fandom Stasi
TikTok Billboard Pseudo Star Keath Ósk of Yaelokre threatens shippers, claiming that unauthorized drawing and writing are a “gun towards the author”
Fandom Elders and those who are well-versed in the lore have sardonically begun retweeting the posts from twitter user Yaelokre (AKA musician Keath Ósk of Iceland) with the phrase, “Welcome back, Anne Rice” to signify the tension between shippers and creator as Ósk has recently put out a statement asking for their fandom to “report” inappropriate writings and drawings for a copyright take-down procedure. Fortunately the fandom is fairly small (at least on Twitter), with Ósk having just about 67K Twitter followers and most of them being anti-shippers. In other spaces the fandom can be quite big, reaching 1.11 million on YouTube and 1.3 million on TikTok. One wouldn’t think there would be a whole lot of sexualization going on in an indie fandom focused around a little imagined band of masked child minstrels, but with every drop of lore and beautifully rendered art pieces (created by Ósk themselves), there was bound to be some kind of appreciation best expressed through sensuality. Unfortunately for those who best express themselves via eroticism, Ósk has provided a link for the rest of the fandom to root them out, a sort of Fandom Stasi kind of vibe, if you will.
A relatively new “fandom,” Yaelokre itself is the name of the project, a series of ballads and folkish diddies (à la The Oh Hellos). The music is whimsical, catchy, and accessible along with the stylistically fae-like illustrations which bring the whole together along with Ósk’s ever-present and well-run social media. Nevertheless, with a burgeoning socmed presence, and compelling characters and lore, it’s fairly inevitable that one is going to develop an actual fandom—something that is well out of your own control and something that is merely a matter of course. One cannot imagine that JK Rowling was all that happy with her characters having been imagined as transgender, considering her absolute vehemence toward the LGBTQ movement, but fortunately nobody has to listen to her and we still get to enjoy transman Harry getting his little boycunt destroyed by Draco “Big Dick” Malfoy while our favorite pervy Moaning Myrtle watches in the bathroom. Of course the HP fandom is so ridiculously large that it might be near impossible to manage a little Fandom Stasi, but with a smaller fandom—is it still possible? And an even greater question: is it worth it?
Incredulousness toward the idea of Yaelokre “super fans” being weaponized into a pseudo Secret Police in order to threaten NSFW artists and writers has so far been twisted into perceived “harassment” via hyperbole—something that Ósk themselves isn’t at all unfamiliar with since apparently making your own fanworks that happen to be erotic has been likened to pointing a literal gun at them, as though NSFW art of their bland little characters would be a literal threat against their very life. Their Twitter goes on to say, “The Lark, the Harkers, even the trees, they are NOT meant for your messed up fantasies. I am angry and disappointed, im sorry, just use the email to report things. Obviously i dont own the internet, but i do own these characters. Theyre the only ones i have” [sic] while ignoring that the entire basis of things like Ao3 or fandom artwork is hinged upon the Fair Use Doctrine, a portion of copyright law that allows for the usage of copyrighted material under certain circumstances, one of which happens to be transformative use—i.e. transformative fiction, parody, or criticism. It doesn’t matter if the creator of that fiction is not based in America where the Fair Use Doctrine is in place because Ao3 and several other internet sites are hosted in the United States and fall under the U.S.’s purview that regard. That one “owns” a fictional character doesn’t actually matter when it comes to fandom creative works. It is also important to note that transformative works also cannot be sold and are subject to copyright claims only if they violate the “market” aspect of the Doctrine. Ósk doesn’t care and explains that their work is being “vandalised” [sic] and that they are “just trying to get through it” while encouraging their followers (they call them “Wonderfolk” which is honestly so inspiring, perhaps the NaziFuckers should call themselves “WunderVolk”) to mobilize into their personal army of snitches, suggesting that they report not only impure art but also independent fandom wiki pages.
Of course, all of this hullahballoo later and I still haven’t been able to find a single image on Twitter of any of these monochromatic, boring little minstrels even close to being erotic. In fact the only images are hidden in a work on Ao3 and clearly depict of-age characters with secondary sex characteristics. Under the Ao3 fandom tag “Yaelokre Musical Project - Keath Ósk (Albums)” there are a total of four fics labeled as erotic with the first written around July by user “Rozzo” and only tallying up just over 2.5k hits, most of which are probably “hate reads” considering some of the comments, including this one: “i know other comments have said this, but these are CHILDREN and it has been CONFIRMED BY THE CREATOR that they are ACE. please look into therapy, people like you ruin entire fandoms. of course this was bound to happen, but that’s no excuse. this is utterly disgusting and i genuinely hope you seek help.” [sic] from guest reader “leo.” Nevermind that the writing is…well to say it plainly, it’s bad—it seems that there is a little bit of a demand for it, as the author has even taking to writing “requests” of certain ships and engagement in the comments is honestly enviable despite the wishes of death and blatant misogyny (not that I haven’t had my share of that but at least I can format properly).
In regards to Rozzo’s fiction, which seems to be one of the specific instances probably brought to Ósk’s attention (as they did in one tweet mention “July” which was when the fic was first posted), one has to admit, it is rather on the disrespectful side, but in this house we don’t ask if you should do something, we merely insist that you can do the thing. On the other hand, people also can hate that thing and tell you about it. A handful of hate comments on Rozzo’s work are honestly art in and of themselves, some of them almost titillating in their depravity and worthy of fantasy. Others are boring, run of the mill nonsense and one is a straight up Stasi-esque mob thug threat which was probably quite exciting. As this is Rozzo’s only work on the archive and could possibly be simple ragebait, we can deduce fairly solidly that the Streisand Effect is now in full swing and it can be reasonably assumed that due to the insistance that people not do The Thing™ (sexualize Yaelokre), people are about to do a whole lot more of The Thing™.
Should you do The Thing™? Absolutely not. It’s quite rude. Can you do The Thing™? Why yes—yes you can. In fact you can do the thing and be good at it, as Ao3 author futagogo has proven by writing an honestly gorgeous piece of erotic fiction for the fandom that should, by all rights, be considered incredibly flattering to have inspired. Still…one must be prepared for the Fandom Stasi, for if Rozzo’s nasty little musings (affectionate) are subject to removal then futagogo’s whimsical, surging, passionate literary masterpiece is as well…and that would be a profound loss to the fandom. Disturbing comments are one thing but abuse of copyright law (if you know you know when it comes to “Janet”) is a continuing issue online.
Oh, and for the record, if any of the WunderVolk want to sexualize my characters, you are more than welcome.