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Welcome to Ravens Keep!

We are a 18+ UK based yet open to all inclusive community, dedicated to the exploration of all things Witchy, Pagan, Spiritual or Occult.

Whether you are curious, sceptical, or already walking your path, The Keep is open to you.

We offer:

An 18+ only space UK based time zone (but open to all!)

• Relaxed and welcoming community
• Open to all paths, practices, and skill levels
• Self-Assignable and Opt-in events roles
• Practice oriented topic channels
• Regular events, prompts, & challenges

So, why not take a peek inside and see what we’re about? And then, who knows?

Perhaps you’ll find that you would like to stay a while!

Join us at: https://discord.gg/pC8NMZdVhW

Fandom is a giant online space place made up of thousands of tiny online places, and in this article, we’re going to talk about why it’s important for each author to find a tiny place of their own. Fandom corners are internet places where people connect in small numbers over highly niche interests. In our analysis of 29 hour-long interviews with authors, three central themes around fandom corners emerged: connection, encouragement and feedback. A fandom corner could take the form of a Discord server, a chat group on Facebook or Skype, a board on a less-traveled forum, or the right intersection of tags on AO3. Finding your corner means connecting with relatable people who make you feel comfortable, encourage you, and can give you feedback on your ideas and writing.

Connection and Comfort

Authors feel more connected in fandom corners because of the niche intersections of interests and identity that bring people together. For example, one author spoke with us about a set of Discord servers around a ship and fandom that brought together queer women:

“I particularly like that there’s sort of these little communities of queer women or mostly queer women or queer aligned groups… It’s just nice to talk to people who get it, who get why you’re so excited” (P4).

People in this group had common ground because they shared a traditionally underrepresented identity and they were into the same fandom. The term affinity has been used by internet researchers to describe shared interests and identities. In P4’s experience, affinity in the fandom corner created a safe environment to talk about writing queer sexuality in fanfiction.

“I’ve seen how friendly and nonjudgmental everyone is in responding [to others]. That makes me feel quite safe to go and ask them, ‘how do I write this thing?’ And it’s something that’s quite sort of deeply personal and intimate” (P4).

The community Discord provided authors with a safe place where they can connect to each other in a carefully moderated and curated group. But the feeling of small community extended into public spaces as well, where P4 noticed the same usernames coming up repeatedly in AO3 comments and on Tumblr. Although the overall community is large, the group of people interested in a few specific tags can be very small. P4 began connecting with others over private message.

“When I get the same people commenting on things that I’ve written, that makes me feel like I’m part of a little group… I’m part of the gang that does this. And privately talking to people who’s stuff I read who are other fans, it’s a quite nice feeling of belonging” (P4).

Finding a space where a small group of people connect over niche interests can help authors to feel like they belong, give them a comfortable place to talk about sensitive topics, and help them find people to connect to over private chat. As we discuss next, these connections and comfortable places are also support writing as authors receive encouragement and feedback from their communities.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Fandom corners are helpful spaces for authors experiencing writer’s block. Almost everybody we interviewed mentioned a time where they felt stuck, unable to make forward progress, or that a scene was just not working. A common strategy was to take a short break from writing and come back to it, but sooner or later authors would turn to others to vent their frustrations or get help. A small community provides the perfect setting for authors to feel comfortable talking about their frustrations and supported by people who are close to them.

“There was a chat that I used to visit a lot… We will be very encouraging toward one another and to encourage others to just continue writing even though we were complaining” (P3).

Small groups provide a space where authors can commiserate about the sheer difficulty of writing, letting them vent out frustrations to an audience that really understands. The encouragement they receive helps them keep going. In addition, authors might send a snippet of their writing and receive fresh ideas that help them to get unstuck.

“I’d copy out a section and paste it into discord… they read the part where I was stuck and said just keep doing this, I think what you’ve done here is cool and maybe try doing this as well” (P12).

“Sometimes just, even though I’m very introverted, turning to my trusted group of friends and having them help me troubleshoot is very, um, it turns a problem into something that’s really fun and silly” (P10).

Because they were comfortable enough to share rough writing when they’re stuck, authors could get encouragement and new ideas to help them move forward. Communities also organized ‘sprint’ events, where writers held each other accountable for writing as much as they could for a short period of time.

“We will set time and be like “in the next 30 minutes, we are going to write as much as you can and when we come back, share the sentences”. So kinds of being forced to write. Some people come back be like “I wrote a thousand words” and I will be like “I got 10”. I will be like I didn’t come up with anything but they will be like “well those 10 words you didn’t have them before. So overall it’s a positive thing” (P3).

The closeness people feel in fandom corners creates an environment where they can commiserate, give each other encouragement, and be accountable for writing. This does a great deal to help authors break through and make progress when they’re feeling frustrated or stuck.

Feedback

A fandom corner is the perfect place for authors to get feedback on their writing. Since these small communities are places where people share interests and build relationships, authors felt that there was a high likelihood that others would be interested and respond to requests for feedback.

“There’s a couple of different communities where there’s people that I trust, and I might post a general message saying ‘Anyone willing to give a look at this, and tell me what you think?’ And then usually then somebody will reply” (P1).

Authors preferred to get feedback from people they already knew and trusted, especially when seeking feedback on unfinished work. So an online space frequented by those folks was a great place to ask for help. Authors would often get immediate responses when they posted to group chats, allowing them to ask for help as they were in-process with their writing.

“I’ll post a snippet of a scene and it will be hey how do you guys think about this part I am working on it right now. With the discord group they are very immediate. They’re really good for in the moment help…We have a very close friendly relationship” (P15).

Having an ongoing relationship with feedback providers also helped authors to get deeper, more thoughtful feedback. They felt understood by their in-group because of their shared context. If someone has read all of your prior fic, they start with a lot of common ground for giving feedback.

“They’ve all read my fic pretty in depth. So I can be like remember when this happened, or where should I go for this part of, you know, my next venture into this universe or whatever. They know what’s up there so I don’t have to reexplain everything or force them to watch the show or something, so they can understand what I’m thinking all the time” (P17).

The benefit of fandom corners boils down to being understood by others. Authors in these tight-knit communities mutually understand each others’ interests, their writing contexts, and the experience of writing fanfiction. That’s why others in the fandom corner will offer encouragement and comments to each other in public spaces like Tumblr and AO3.

“I feel like there’s a sort of comment exchanging between writers in fanfic, you know, I’ll comment on yours and you’ll comment on mine, cause we all know how much we love it.” (P4).

People maintain the same connection whether they’re in a small group chat or a public internet space. This begs the question: is the fandom corner the small group chat, or is it the tightly-connected people who are there? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments.

Conclusion

For every combination of tags, there is an opportunity for people to connect and form a small, close community around their shared interests. Wherever fandom corners emerge, people feel comfortable, build relationships and find support. These little groups are great places for authors to connect with each other, get encouragement when they’re stuck, and get helpful feedback on their in-progress writing. So go find your corner!

About This Series

This series is a breakdown of findings from an interview study run by a fanfiction research group within the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. In January and February 2019, we interviewed 29 fanfiction authors to understand how they connect with each other, build relationships, and seek out writing feedback. We learned profound lessons about the importance of building connections, the reciprocality of relationships and feedback, and the intersection of fandom with real life identity.

Authored by Regina Cheng and John Frens. 

This work was first posted to tumblr in August & September 2019.

Online connection changes lives. Authors we interviewed found support, feedback, friendship and even lifelong partnership from people they met online through fandom. People online can help authors develop their writing by providing feedback both in public spaces like AO3 and in private chat. But getting connected is not always easy. Several authors encountered difficulties with making new connections, turned away from their communities, or never connected much with others online at all. Feelings of social anxiety stopped people from reaching out, communities that didn’t feel like safe spaces turned people away, and a culture of fear towards internet strangers made others difficult to trust. In this post, we’ll describe the barriers that can make it difficult to connect in the fanfiction community. 

Social Anxiety

Talking to people is hard, and talking to people you can’t see on the other side of the computer screen can be even harder. An experience shared by many of our interviewees was a feeling of social anxiety. Social anxiety is a fear of judgment from others  that manifests in many ways, for instance, the perception (without any particular evidence) that the person you are considering reaching out to is not interested or welcoming towards being contacted.

“I’m a shy person, so usually I may not [reach out]. I just say I feel embarrassed in speaking to people that seem cooler than me, more experienced… maybe I’m bothering them. Maybe they don’t see me as a friend, they have just been polite, this kind of thing” (P11).

Contacting someone with a higher profile, such as a prolific author or fan celebrity, amplified social anxiety. Interviewees held the perception that these folks are likely overwhelmed with contact already and therefore would be unwelcoming.

“I wouldn’t want to reach out to them because they’re on a different level than me in terms of popularity and probably get hundreds of messages all the time” (P18).

Authors who were reluctant to reach out oftentimes waited for others to contact them first. Or, instead of reaching out online, they relied on irl friends outside of the fandom for writing feedback. As a result of social anxiety, people don’t take that first step of reaching out to an online stranger, and therefore they don’t receive the benefits of a potential connection.

Unsafe Spaces

Writing and posting fanfiction in a public space is, in a way, baring your soul to complete strangers, and one sure way to stifle the soul-baring process was the institution of discriminatory rules that disproportionately affected a subset of the fan community. Restrictions on free expression created the feeling of an unsafe space, and it is this feeling that drove authors away from the community. During our interviews, authors discussed situations where they left communities because they felt the space was unsafe. The ban of NSFW content from Tumblr after its acquisition by Verizon, widely viewed as an attack on sexual expression that disproportionately affected queer people, was a recent example.

“When Tumblr banned not safe for work, it was really distressing for a bunch of us who don’t really fit on the very heteronormative sexual scale. So there was a lot of trying to figure out where we were going to go now, where we were, how would we stay connected, how would we continue to figure out and find stuff that we enjoyed” (P25).

Long-time fandom authors told us of similar exoduses from LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net after similar content bans and mass content deletions. These actions by platform owners divided fan communities and forced authors to find connections elsewhere.

In addition to institutional actions, individuals who made personal attacks or used hate speech also made authors feel unsafe. These antisocial actions happened in prominent fandom spaces.

“P27: There are people who write things that a fandom may consider controversial. This could cause them to get unhelpful criticism, rude and discouraging comments, so they will be constantly discouraged from writing.

Interviewer: That would happen on AO3?

P27: Both AO3 and tumblr, that’s where I know it happens.

Interviewer: And you’ve seen other people treated like that?

P27: Yes.” (P27).

One author spoke of an experience where she was berated for years by a reader because she wrote about drug addiction.

“Because [my fic is] about drug addiction, that brought a reaction that I really didn’t expect… sometimes [readers] impose their views. I got bullied for a couple of years, and even when I went on hiatus that person came back… they were imposing what they thought on me” (P7).

A single bully discouraged and pushed away this writer, even as they received an outpouring of messages from readers who connected with the story.

Another author discussed how controversy over a gay character sent them elsewhere:

“At the time I was writing about neon genesis evangelion. And it turns out at the end of the show, the main character Shinji Ikari is gay. Well, it’s revealed he has a thing for this guy. And I was writing this kind of thing too, and people got super angry. So they’d leave because, oh my God, he’s gay and that was terrible at the time. So, uh, yeah, I quickly left” (P8).

Fanfiction authors tackle difficult, important and controversial topics, and they need a space where they can find others to relate to without fear of harassment. If personal attacks, hate speech, or discriminatory rules are present, they may feel they can’t stay connected and will be forced to go elsewhere.

Personal Disclosure

Navigating personal disclosure can be difficult for authors when they’re interacting with internet strangers. Although authors disclosed deeply personal facts about themselves through fanfiction writing itself, some preferred to avoid connecting their fanfiction identity to their offline identity. Others wanted to protect themselves and their families from potential exposure on the internet. Identity and safety concerns associated with online personal disclosure slowed relationship building between authors and online friends.

Is this faceless individual actually a murderer, merely feigning deep interest in Star Trek and waiting for an opportunity to strike at unsuspecting fans?

Being raised to fear internet strangers was a shared experience among several participants in our interviews. Authors chose different degrees of disclosure they were comfortable with, and made nuanced decisions about who to reveal information about themselves to, where and when.

“There’s not any set guidelines. I think it really depends on who you talk to… how long have you been with the person? What type of things do you talk about? Do you feel like it’s safe to give that information?” (P21).

Oftentimes, the decision of whether to reveal a piece of identifying information had to be on-the-spot. P21 had to decide whether this person who wanted to be co-author was someone who could be trusted.

“… You kind of have to sometimes make a snap judgment and ultimately it worked out fine in this one case… it really does have to come down to instinct, gut, sometimes, there’s no kind of set formula to be sure” (P21).

Personal disclosure and relationship-building go hand-in-hand. But In an environment where personal disclosure requires caution and nuance, building connection and relationships becomes much more difficult.

To Be Continued…

There are powerful isolating elements like social anxiety, unsafe spaces and stranger danger keeping fanfiction authors apart. How do authors overcome these barriers to make connections, build relationships, exchange feedback and change lives? Stay tuned for the next part of our series on connection and feedback in fanfiction communities.

About This Series

This series is a breakdown of findings from an interview study run by a fanfiction research group within the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at University of Washington. In January and February 2019, we interviewed 29 fanfiction authors to understand how they connect with each other, build relationships, and seek out writing feedback. We learned profound lessons about the importance of building connections, the reciprocality of relationships and feedback, and the intersection of fandom with real life identity.

In January and February 2019, our research group did an interview study on how fanfiction authors seek feedback for their fiction. We interviewed 29 fanfiction authors and learned about their insights on feedback and relationship with feedback providers. In this blog post, we are going to talk about our findings on the impact of public comments, and the particular positive outcomes of comments that contain specific thoughts and insights.

Comments Are Generally Valued

Fanfiction authors appreciated public comments on their works. “All I want for Christmas is comments, if you liked it please let me know,” (P2) one of the authors we interviewed once wrote in her author’s note. All kinds of comments are welcomed as long as they are conveyed in a friendly and respectful tone.

Concise positive comments, such as “wow”, “amazing”, “awwww this is so cute”, though simple and maybe not that informative, are still valuable to authors. Those comments “tell you that you’re hitting the right emotional chords, that you’ve been on the right track” (P21). “That’s really helpful.” One author said:

“If there’s a session where you’re getting absolutely none of that, that might prompt you. Like okay, I meant that to be really eliciting a certain emotional response and it wasn’t getting it, so that might also be a sign to go in and kind of work on that” (P21).

Comments Help New Authors Enter the Community

Comments were especially valuable to new writers in the fandom. They made authors feel welcomed in the community, and helped authors learn about community norms and writing styles. One author told us that when they posted their first work in a new fandom, comments helped them get connected in the new community:

“You enter into new fandoms, you’re writing for a new audience and you don’t really know anyone… I don’t really know the rules of this particular fandom and I don’t really know what people are going to think of my stories is going to fit. And that initial bit of support and positive feedback to get that on early works, and to feel, okay, I’ve just sort of arrived in this in this fandom, and in this community, but people are making me feel welcome, and making me feel like what I’m writing is valued and appreciated by people” (P1).

Specific Comments Are Particularly Appreciated

While in general all kinds of comments were welcomed, almost all of the authors we talked to expressed particular appreciation for comments in which the reader expressed opinions and thoughts about particular aspects of the story. One author talked about how she formed a personal practice to write substantive comments when reading others’ fictions:

“I try to copy certain lines while I’m reading and try to leave a substantial comment… and say I really liked your story because of ZYX…I do both because I’ve been writing fanfiction for a long time and I know it’s fun to have substantial comments. I do it because that’s what I like and I know it can make someone’s day” (P29).

Authors recognized the effort that readers put into substantial comments, so they regarded receiving those long specific comments as an honor:

“You don’t write a big long comment like that, if you’re not affected by something. Because it’s hard enough to get readers to click the Kudos button and just give me a little heart, let alone write a comment, let alone write a long detailed comment whenever that happens” (P14).

Specific Comments Recognize Authors’ Effort

Many authors mentioned that receiving long and specific comments made them feel that their effort had been recognized. When they were proud of a part of their story in particular, they liked to hear about whether the emotion and thoughts that they tried to convey impacted readers in the way they expected.

“It just feels great when I spent so much time working on something and working on a particular detail, I absolutely love hearing someone’s reaction to it, like, what specifically they liked about it… It’s great getting those compliments but I want to know about their experience living in the story that I’ve created” (P2).

“The most interesting and in depth sort of feedback, people really seem to connect with the characters and the characterization of the story and the writing of the story, which I really, really like. It’s very satisfying when you put a lot of effort into something and they actually noticed and they’re like, and they comment on it like, oh my God, the way you wrote this, the flow of it, the thing… that’s my own kink, hearing people say that they understood what I was writing and that they understood what I was going for” (P14).

Specific Comments Teach Authors about Writing

Being able to hear what the audience thought about their fiction was not only a joyful experience to fanfiction authors, but also a valuable learning opportunity. Authors learned from specific comments about whether their writing style and the direction of the story worked for their readers. Some regarded specific comments as feedback for parts of their writing that they were not sure about. One author told us they endured writer’s block when writing a certain character in their story. When they received positive comments on that character, 

“they were commenting on my characterization for the character. And I was like ‘oh, thank you god,’ because I struggle with this particular character a lot” (P20). 

The author was able to validate their writing from comments that specifically pointed to a characterization.

Specific Comments Connect Readers and Authors

Another important benefit of specific comments was that it fueled connection with readers. Specific comments elicited discussion between authors and readers. As one author said in the interview:

“I like having comments that are thoughtful and trying to analyze what I wrote, and are picking up what I put down basically… I usually respond to the comment and say thank you, and if they left analysis I talk back and forth” (P29).

These back-and-forth discussions lead to further connections outside the specific story.“I’ve made friends with a lot of people who started out just commenting on my fics a lot. You end up commenting back, and start talking” (P13). In some cases,  these connections developed into later beta reading relationships and friendships. “Most of the people that I sent work to… they’ve made comments that are the right sort of comments I suppose…” one author said while telling us the story of meeting her beta readers,

“and so I sent work to them after that sort of built up a bit of a relationship by then so that I know what sort of person they are and what sort of comments they might make… I know that if I sent it to them, they will be looking for the sorts of things that I’m looking for them to look for. The comment that they’ve made tells me that they’re reading it the way I want a beta reader to read it”  (P26).

Summary

Our findings about public comments suggest that it is more than valuable for fanfiction authors to receive comments, especially comments that provide thoughts and insights on specific aspects of the story and writing. We suggest that encouraging exchange of specific public comments will be beneficial to fanfiction communities.   

We are actively posting blog posts about other findings from our interview study. Check out our blog later for more findings! 

Is there a virtual community for polyA? A group chat on tumblr or a discord server or something like that? Asking for a friend.

There is not one - there are dozens and dozens! Here is a list of discord servers focused on polyamory, and my FAQ page here links a number of online communities. There are polyamory-focused communities on reddit, FetLife, and just about everywhere else that people congregate.

As in real life, remember that every group of people is unique and has their own communication style, quirks, and challenges. Often, online communities amplify these issues. Be careful about taking any community’s rules or attitudes as gospel.

Some communities have declared certain words or topics off-limits or have very strong beliefs about specific ideas, and while it’s polite to abide by the rules of a specific space, that does not mean that you are inherently wrong or immoral if you disagree. If you feel unwelcome, you are free to leave!

Be aware of the way that different culture building and moderation practices have an outsized effect on online communities. Stay away from ones that seem to run on shame, us-vs-them, or endless cycles of conflict. Remember that disagreement and danger are not the same thing, and that an excessive emphasis on “felt safety” can backfire.

Do not mistake online communities for group therapy, and avoid groups where “venting” about very heavy mental health topics is a primary mode of communication. Go in with an intention (to ask questions, get advice, make friends, have fun) and if you’re not getting what you need, don’t get sucked in - just leave.