Being an extremely picky reader, I have a lot of sympathy for people who can’t find the kind of fic they want to read, who don’t resonate with many popular fanon, who have tastes that just aren’t often addressed in most fic. The smaller the fandom, the worse off these woes, usually. What I don’t give two shuddering shits about are the folks who make this the authors’ problem.
Fanfic detractors love to say it’s not real writing, but even putting aside the 101 ways that’s total bullshit, the sheer act of writing takes time. At my fastest, I could write maximum 1200 words an hour; these days, it’s closer to 500. Yet, you have so many writers churning out fic after fic, ranging from bite-sized bits to epic-length monstrosities. That’s hours and hours of our lives. I set aside 2–3 hours a day for writing, and you can bet those add up fast.
So here you have these people creating scores of content for the hell of it, putting it up for free, and expecting damn near nothing in return. There are outliers, of course, but the general sentiment I’ve seen is that we don’t want money, and we don’t demand comments, though we appreciate the everloving shit out of them. At the core of it, writing fic is a labour of love, and fandom is a gift economy.
You know what’s not a gift? Being a little shit in the comment/ask boxes of your local fandom writers.
It’s fine, absolutely a-okay, spectacularly acceptable to not like or even viscerally hate any given character, trope, ship, or even specific fic. But listen, that’s a you problem—and it doesn’t have to be problem at all if you just click that pretty X and exit the story posthaste. The author won’t even know you’d been there, and you’re free to go wash out the taste of whatever fuckery made you nope out. If you’re inclined toward writing yourself, you can even give the tried-and-true art of writing out of spite a go.
But, for the love of god, don’t hop into the comment box and list all the ways in which the author could’ve made the story the one youwanted.
It’s not your story. It’s also clearly not for you. The writer wrote the story they wanted the way they wanted it. Leave it the fuck alone.
Some writers may ask for concrit; feel free to give it, provided you’ve nailed the constructive part of constructive criticism.
But their writing has typos and grammar errors: Shit happens, and we’re not robots. Ignore it, or if you can’t stand it, stop reading.
But it’d have been better if it was another ship/character/direction: That’s your opinion, which will remain valid for only as long as it stays solely in your head. Again, stop reading. Exit quietly.
But the content is problematic: My brother in Christ, it was meant to be. We’re not all pearl-clutching puritans. Stop reading things that upset you, especially if they’re tagged!
Harassing authors won’t get you the content you want. Nor, for that matter, will politely pestering them make them see the holy light of whatever crusade you’re on. Most you’ll manage is break the confidence of a fledgling writer or drive someone vulnerable out of fandom. And if that’s your endgame, you’re the kind of trash a handful of words from voxofthevoid.tungle.com can’t change, so fuck you anyway.
Creativity begets more creativity. In every fandom I’ve written for, I started writing because, after a point, reading wasn’t enough. I have specific tastes that don’t always align with broader fandom tastes—for instance, I like out-and-proud sadists and writing my favs as tops/doms, whereas the predominant trends seem to favor the opposite. I also like very specific kinds of fuckery with my fluff, which are often hard to find. All that’s fine. I have MS Word and the will to use it.
Granted, writing fic deliberately tailored to my tastes isn’t the same as reading fic that’s coincidentally tailored to my tastes, but that’s fine too. I can be immeasurably grateful to the wonderful folks whose writing does strike a chord in me while also endeavouring to one day make someone say, “Damn, voxofthevoid, this is exactly the story I needed.” That’s what I want to give to fandom.
Others are free to think, “Yikes, voxofthevoid, you’re fucked in the head,” and be on their merry way; just don’t make it my problem.
And if you, personally, don’t have the time or inclination to be the porn fic you want to see in the world, there are other ways to encourage the kind of content you want to see. Participate in fandom exchanges. Seek out writers that take prompts or requests. Send positive encouragement (not rude demands) to the writers whose work you enjoy.
Don’t throw a tantrum in the comment/ask box. It helps no one. It pisses off a lot of people. Nobody benefits.
Sincerely,
Someone who’s very, very tired of seeing entitled shits make fandom a nightmare for everyone
Being an extremely picky reader, I have a lot of sympathy for people who can’t find the kind of fic they want to read, who don’t resonate with many popular fanon, who have tastes that just aren’t often addressed in most fic. The smaller the fandom, the worse off these woes, usually. What I don’t give two shuddering shits about are the folks who make this the authors’ problem.
Fanfic detractors love to say it’s not real writing, but even putting aside the 101 ways that’s total bullshit, the sheer act of writing takes time. At my fastest, I could write maximum 1200 words an hour; these days, it’s closer to 500. Yet, you have so many writers churning out fic after fic, ranging from bite-sized bits to epic-length monstrosities. That’s hours and hours of our lives. I set aside 2–3 hours a day for writing, and you can bet those add up fast.
So here you have these people creating scores of content for the hell of it, putting it up for free, and expecting damn near nothing in return. There are outliers, of course, but the general sentiment I’ve seen is that we don’t want money, and we don’t demand comments, though we appreciate the everloving shit out of them. At the core of it, writing fic is a labour of love, and fandom is a gift economy.
You know what’s not a gift? Being a little shit in the comment/ask boxes of your local fandom writers.
It’s fine, absolutely a-okay, spectacularly acceptable to not like or even viscerally hate any given character, trope, ship, or even specific fic. But listen, that’s a you problem—and it doesn’t have to be problem at all if you just click that pretty X and exit the story posthaste. The author won’t even know you’d been there, and you’re free to go wash out the taste of whatever fuckery made you nope out. If you’re inclined toward writing yourself, you can even give the tried-and-true art of writing out of spite a go.
But, for the love of god, don’t hop into the comment box and list all the ways in which the author could’ve made the story the one youwanted.
It’s not your story. It’s also clearly not for you. The writer wrote the story they wanted the way they wanted it. Leave it the fuck alone.
Some writers may ask for concrit; feel free to give it, provided you’ve nailed the constructive part of constructive criticism.
But their writing has typos and grammar errors: Shit happens, and we’re not robots. Ignore it, or if you can’t stand it, stop reading.
But it’d have been better if it was another ship/character/direction: That’s your opinion, which will remain valid for only as long as it stays solely in your head. Again, stop reading. Exit quietly.
But the content is problematic: My brother in Christ, it was meant to be. We’re not all pearl-clutching puritans. Stop reading things that upset you, especially if they’re tagged!
Harassing authors won’t get you the content you want. Nor, for that matter, will politely pestering them make them see the holy light of whatever crusade you’re on. Most you’ll manage is break the confidence of a fledgling writer or drive someone vulnerable out of fandom. And if that’s your endgame, you’re the kind of trash a handful of words from voxofthevoid.tungle.com can’t change, so fuck you anyway.
Creativity begets more creativity. In every fandom I’ve written for, I started writing because, after a point, reading wasn’t enough. I have specific tastes that don’t always align with broader fandom tastes—for instance, I like out-and-proud sadists and writing my favs as tops/doms, whereas the predominant trends seem to favor the opposite. I also like very specific kinds of fuckery with my fluff, which are often hard to find. All that’s fine. I have MS Word and the will to use it.
Granted, writing fic deliberately tailored to my tastes isn’t the same as reading fic that’s coincidentally tailored to my tastes, but that’s fine too. I can be immeasurably grateful to the wonderful folks whose writing does strike a chord in me while also endeavouring to one day make someone say, “Damn, voxofthevoid, this is exactly the story I needed.” That’s what I want to give to fandom.
Others are free to think, “Yikes, voxofthevoid, you’re fucked in the head,” and be on their merry way; just don’t make it my problem.
And if you, personally, don’t have the time or inclination to be the porn fic you want to see in the world, there are other ways to encourage the kind of content you want to see. Participate in fandom exchanges. Seek out writers that take prompts or requests. Send positive encouragement (not rude demands) to the writers whose work you enjoy.
Don’t throw a tantrum in the comment/ask box. It helps no one. It pisses off a lot of people. Nobody benefits.
Sincerely,
Someone who’s very, very tired of seeing entitled shits make fandom a nightmare for everyone
Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:
extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example
entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.
S H A R E D with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E to do it.
Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.
if there is a fan art/fic/edit of a ship you don’t like SHUT THE FUCK UPandMOVE ON
im tired of seeing shit like “i hate the ship/bad ship/terrible ship/ the worst ship ever but nice art/fic/edit” THAT IS NOT A COMPLIMENT. it’s simple really, you either actually compliment the fanwork or the ship or you zip it because your negative opinion on someone’s hard work is annoying and unwanted and rude especially to the creator.
if you purposely post ship hate on AO FKN 3 and tag it so shippers see your hate on AO FNK 3 then you have a serious fuck up in your head and need a life. you have to be pretty down bad to post ship hate on AO MOTHER FKN 3 like it’s twitter and take the time to tag it ALL OVER A SHIP YOU DONT LIKE. nope i’m not having it anymore. AO3 is a safe space, neutrality zone, no stupid ship wars here i’m DONE.
there are no ship wars in AO3, there are no ship wars in AO3, there are no-
Friendly reminder that fan-made content (fanart, fanfic, fanvids, etc) are:
extremely time consuming. Remember someone actually took time out of their life to create that, time they could’ve used to, idk, sleep, for example
entertainment you’re consuming for free. I can’t stress this enough: you’re enjoying someone else’s craft for free. You paid exactly zero money to look at/read/watch it.
S H A R E D with you, not made for you. This is the most important point: someone created that, put it online and you found it. No one forced you to consume that fanwork, you C H O S E to do it.
Whenever you feel like leaving a mean comment, anonymous hate or make a ~clever post about how ‘lol look at all of these overused tropes every fic writer crams into their fics’ remember you’re being a dick to someone who shared their work with you. You’re not being funny, you’re not being edgy, you’re not being brave for calling something out - you’re being a dick.
It’s been a while since I’ve checked the #ByaRuki tag here on tumblr. And I wish I didn’t, cause there’s more people against the ship using the tag, than there are fans using it to post content for the ship.
I know we, ByaRuki fans, are at fault for this, for it’s up to us to keep the tag and fandom alive, but it’s not like it’s that difficult to tag as #antibyaruki or byar*ki or any of its variations, if you don’t like it.
It’s annoying to check out the tag of one of your ships to have people saying why they don’t like them. And it’s ABSOLUTELY FINE do dislike something, no one is supposed to like everything (and certainly not what I like) but if I ever say something about the ships I dislike, I should keep in mind that people going through the tag of the ships they like, want to see content produced by people who also like them, not my reasons for disliking them with extensive (and absolutely unnecessary) character analysis.
Because NO, SHIP X DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. BECAUSE CHARACTER X WOULD NEVER ACT THIS WAY.
Thank you. I KNOW RIGHT??? That’s why it’s NOT cannon, most of times considered CRACKSHIPP and why we do write fanfictions and create fanarts for it.
Anyways, this post is just to say that, dislike whatever you want, however you want, but TAG APPROPRIATELY, so people who DO HAPPEN TO ENJOY the thing you dislike, don’t have to lose time scrolling through your gibberish.
Wow absolutely do not do this! To any fic! If you love a fic please download it when it’s live but if the author has deactivated the fic then please do not start playing detective and tracking it down!
Some reasons why an author might hide/deactivate a fic:
Finding a publisher who will happily publish a scrubbed version of their story but only if it’s no longer online (because publishers are weirdos who hate being sued!!)
Revealing personal details that might make it easy for a potential employer/stalker to identify their fandom handle.
And DONT REPOST stuff that’s already here! WHY do we even have to go through this again huh? DON’T. DO. IT.
And if you share something from a different platform that isn’t on tumblr already you ASK the creator for permission and then give CREDIT!
reblog, don’t repost, this
Terminology reminder: reblogging is Tumblr’s in-site sharing system but REPOSTING is saving a picture from a post and then making your own post
I have seen genuine confusion about this in the past (largely from ppl more used to other sites that don’t have a reblog system) that’s the only reason I’m adding the explanation
Saying “this niche, properly tagged, warned, and rated piece of fiction could theoretically hurt someone” is not a good argument. This properly labeled cookie with the allergen information at the bottom that contains gluten could theoretically harm me very badly, but only if I consume it. Tags are like nutrition labels, and warnings are like allergy information. If you know you have an allergy to something, the logic is to stay away from it. It is the same with fiction. I’m not running through stores yelling at people to take all the products with gluten off the shelves just because it could hurt me. Instead I ignore it and go to the gluten free section and find cookies that are right for me. And if running through a grocery store yelling sounds ridiculous, that’s because it is. Stop doing the same with fiction.
this is the best way i’ve seen this put!!
And just like with food, what might be harmful for one person to consume could be quite *beneficial* for others. One man’s trigger is another man’s catharsis.
AND if you lack the maturity/self control/awareness to stop yourself from eating things that could potentially harm you, you either 1) are too young to be making your own food choices and should be supervised by a parent/other adult who is supposed to be responsible for you (and the store clerk who put the food on the shelf is NOT) or 2) need to take accountability for your own actions, because if you deliberately consumed something you knew could hurt you as a fully autonomous adult, then you really have no one to blame but yourself.
I am bad with spicy-hot food. I don’t like the way it makes my mouth feel, or the things it does to my digestion. However, some people like the way it makes their mouth feel, and it doesn’t do anything to their digestion (or it does things they also don’t mind). Attempting to ban all spicy-hot foods ever when, by and large, they’re already clearly labeled, would make me a huge jerk!
Someone attempting to sneak spicy stuff into my food or to trick me into eating spicy food would make them a huge jerk. Someone not labeling spicy food they plan to share, or otherwise warning people who don’t like spice about the heat level, would also make them a huge jerk.
Likewise, if you love spicy food and pack a nice, spicy lunch for yourself, have it clearly labeled as yours, and then someone who can’t stand spicy food steals your lunch and eats it themself, they have no basis to complain that you’re “poisoning” them. If you’re either the thief or HR in this situation, I am side-eying the hell out of you.
And DONT REPOST stuff that’s already here! WHY do we even have to go through this again huh? DON’T. DO. IT.
And if you share something from a different platform that isn’t on tumblr already you ASK the creator for permission and then give CREDIT!
reblog, don’t repost, this
Terminology reminder: reblogging is Tumblr’s in-site sharing system but REPOSTING is saving a picture from a post and then making your own post
I have seen genuine confusion about this in the past (largely from ppl more used to other sites that don’t have a reblog system) that’s the only reason I’m adding the explanation
Additionally, a reminder that just saying “credit to the creator” or “not mine” is not a magic spell that gives the creator their proper due. Proper credit MUST include the creator’s identity and a link back to the original posting place or creator’s profile, if one is available.
