If Stitch Won’t: I Will - PART ONE
Let’s Take a Look At Racism on Ao3
There is a lot of chatter about racism on Archive of Our Own coming from academics and activists who waffle here and there about what they want to highlight and what they want to talk about without ever providing concrete examples of things because they do not want others to naysay them or poo-poo on their judgments over what’s racist and what’s just the product of a grudge they have against a particular creator for some online feud. There are far too many folks out there who simply got fed up with Stichomancery’s inability to provide answers to legitimate good-faith questions or even just evidence to back up their claims about the virulent and horrific racism that one would think is being promoted somehow by a non-existant algorithm for how much it’s harped about. But has Stitch ever actually produced any of this racist fic? Has Stitch ever directed their readers to fic that is more than just Reylo shippers writing popular fanfic tropes or danmei readers catering to strange kinks? Hard to tell, since most of the links on their blog are broken and lead only to 404 errors or a google redirect.
As of writing this, I’m not sure if Stitch has ever gone up against targets that were more than just a means to an end to safely advance their career in writing about fandom. Why do I say “safely”? Hasn’t Stitch been hideously harassed all this time by all kinds of users online? Sure. I betcha. But Stitch doesn’t target people who might actually be unhinged like true white supremacists. Stitch targets people who are relatively harmless who are just loud and useful to place on the defensive so that they can use the incoming anger to further the narrative that they’re being “attacked” by people they’ve had blocked for years who’ve likely never even directly spoken to them. So if Reylo fanfictions and “savage” danmei fics aren’t the most egregious thing Stitch could be talking about on Ao3 (but isn’t for some reason), then what is?
Allow me to introduce you to Ao3 user Sugarino. Having joined Ao3 in 2017, Sugarino was a prolific writer of racist fanfiction, their works spread across a multitude of fandoms including Little Witch Academia, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, several Disney movies, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even one for the popular phone game Cookie Run. If anything can be said for Sugarino, it is this: at least their tags are accurate. Along with somewhat normal kinky tags such as “Urethral Play” and “Orgasm Denial” are tags that are less popular on the archive such as “White Nationalism” (this particular one having only 5 fics attributed to it and only two of those—Sugarino’s—are celebratory). Right now, a casual glance at Sugarino’s profile shows you fourteen fics with the very first having the title of “White on Black Violence” in the Neon Genesis Evangelion fandom. As with most of Sugarino’s works, one knows exactly what they’re getting into from just the titles, their second story a play on “Ku Klux Klan” as “Kool Kocks Klan.” The racism portrayed in stories such as these is shockingly horrific with incredibly butchered representations of Gullah Geechee-esque language and dialects (referenced in-text as “southern Ebonics”) and blatant exposition calling Black characters “apes” (and other more egregious words) with characters wishing to be able to “whip” them. Asian characters are depicted daydreaming about marrying white southerners and torturing slaves before they run into a “parade” of Klan members they describe as “stud-muffins.” The rest of the fic is a slur-filled feast of race play between Asian women and white men, setting the reader up for the next work in a series entitled “White Man’s Burden.”
Sugarino’s works are so insanely racist that it’s easy to look at them and assume satire. Unfortunately, from their past actions, and their obvious commitment to “the bit” we can safely deduce that this person is a legitimately off-their-gourd white supremacist. Archive user ladyofreylo posted on her Twitter warning others to watch out for and report Sugarino if they receive the same kind of racist comments on their fics as she received on one of her meta essays for the Star Wars fandom, and to my knowledge, none of Sugarino’s works have ever betrayed any hint as to their disbelief in the racist ideologies present therein. In fact, Sugarino’s works that are accessible today are some of the more mild in their complete portfolio, as some thirty-three works have been stripped from their profile, likely removed by the archive’s volunteer staff. Some were removed for obvious reasons, such as blatant plagiarism—Sugarino admitting plainly that the fics were stolen and altered to be “more racist”—while others are more difficult to figure out, as they have similar themes and motifs of “Kool Kocks Klan” and “White on Black Violence.” Along with the removal of Sugarino’s thirty-three stories, their previous profile picture is also missing, a small icon depicting a loli carrying a confederate flag; a clear indicator that their profile is not the sort of place you’d probably like to spend your time.
From all of this about Sugarino, what’s the take-away here? Thirty-three works and a profile pic have vanished from the archive since January of 2021, the last time the page was archived on thewaybackmachine. Sugarino hasn’t posted any new fics since this purge and has not, as yet, uploaded a new icon. But they could. So why doesn’t Stichomancery consistently point toward Sugarino as an example of blatant horrible racism in fandom? The answer to that is easy: Sugarino is two things Stitch can’t handle. The first of those is dangerous. The second of those is inaccessible. Stitch and those like them are going to target people they know will pitch a fit and who have an ethical and moral compass that will force them to bow to public shame. That’s the power of so-called “cancellation.” Sugarino is both dangerous and inaccessible due to their inability to be cowed by public shame and the unknown factor of their support system. Where is Sugarino outside of the archive? We don’t know. Who do they have connections to who might have reason to target and potentially harm BIPOC? We don’t know. Would pointing toward Sugarino froth up enough controversy against Stitch (because Stitch only runs defense) in order for them to safely claim “harassment” in order to drum up the rage farm? We do know: Absolutely not. Stitch pointing at works like these would foster agreement and invite the eyes of real white supremacists and Stitch isn’t in the market for riling up people who might actually potentially harm them, they’re in the market for white women who are (usually) on their anti-racist journey that they can utilize as fodder for the woodchipper of their content machine. It doesn’t do them any good to showcase a profile being slowly dismantled by the archive’s overburdened volunteers for its blatant white supremacist ideology, what does them good is capitalizing on a persistent and illogical shipwar against Reylos and other ships they hate.
So if Stichomancery won’t show you the hard racism on the archive: I will. Why? Because it matters. Because I don’t blame the racism of individuals on the Archive and perhaps even more shocking: I don’t even think that most of them should be removed or if they are removed, I think they should all be archived on thewaybackmachine to preserve evidence that these sentiments and extremist viewpoints existed, especially in spaces that clearly did not cater to them. Does the fandom have a problem with racism? YES!!! But the way fandom has a problem with racism is in the same vein as the racism we see in the systemic structures in which it resides. Banning books doesn’t help. It’s a superficial band-aid on a gushing cultural and political wound. Archive users like Sugarino are rare. Widespread censorship in our online library can only harm people it is designed to protect and it should have been a pretty insanely obvious red flag when I pointed out that Stitch was protesting a library that their first impulse was to debate the semantics of the word “library” so they could continue their crusade to toss Reylo books into a massive burn pile without any regard to their actual content.
Maybe Stitch is just practicing a little self-care in making sure not to even indirectly interact with white supremacists, deciding to dress up their enemies in imaginary KKK hoods (one of my favorite blog post call outs about me featured Stitch calling me “worse than the KKK” for -checks notes- telling them that Jhonni was harassing a Black person) to LARP as some intrepid, brave warrior for the good of all mankind without ever even being close to real danger. Casting BIPOC who disagree with them “white,” or “pick-mes” or “social justice pokemon of color” and stripping away their autonomy or identity is a favored tactic rather than just…going out and finding Nazis. The image that my mind conjures when I think about Stitch’s crusade against the archive is essentially the image of a lonely, angry individual (with a few loud horrible friends like Jhonni) finding a parade of queers and throwing rocks into the crowd with the absolute certainty that the one that gets hit has probably said something problematic and all the resulting affront to the rock throwing is in defense of said problematic thing rather than just…anger at rocks getting thrown into a crowd.
Stay-tuned, monsters. We’re not throwing rocks. This is the claw machine and we’re picking the Nazis up on purpose. Part Two coming soon.