#low engagement sucks

[thegreatwicked]

Holding my stories hostage? Do your arms hurt from reaching so far?

I just need to vent for a minute here, bear with me.

Wow, ok, so yesterday I made a post to one of my writing accounts stating that I was putting writing my longest story to date, on hold to work on other things ie other writing projects due to low interaction/engagement, and for all I know no one is really even reading my stuff, right? I thought that was reasonable. Apparently not! I almost immediately got a DM from a reader who said and I quote:

"People like you are what's wrong with the fanfiction community. You can't just hold your stories hostage until you get your ego stroked."

I was absolutely gobsmacked. Like, I know some people do that and it is a tale as old as time writing vs reviewing or commenting. But at what point is it acceptable to have boundaries? I don't think I was being unreasonable, low engagement might suggest no one cares and while I enjoy writing it, it's just not going to be a top priority, I didn't say 'review/comment or else' I said, I was going to work on other stuff. Not that I would stop writing. I am not entitled to long-winded comments or reviews or glowing reviews but you're also not entitled to my work, sooo.... projecting much? I briefly considered deleting my account on the site but that's not fair in any world, so I decided to delete the comment, knowing it was probably a troll or something, I didn't block them but I also took the notice down and I'm just going to leave it at that for now. I'll update the stories I mentioned when I get the inspiration to do so I guess. It just sucks, yes, you should write your stories for yourself but not everyone is built to simply WRITE outside world be damned, those people are published authors and I admire them for having the patience to wait for reviews of their work. This is also why I have no problem paying $20-30 for a book, because I'm sure that writer has at one point stared at their unfinished manuscript and screamed into the void "I'M A FRAUD!!!" And I believe those people are entitled to financial compensation.

I'm not stopping and I'm not deleting anything but Jesus. It just really took it out of me, like my motivation train is running out of steam amid the silence but now I'm struggling to even want to find the motivation. I just needed to say that out loud. Rant over.

[tirsynni]

So the issue about the right to post criticism on people’s fics have come up again. Okay.

First off, the most obvious thing: unless the person asks for constructive criticism, be very wary about giving it. Again, please, keep in mind: this is fanfiction. This is a story typed out by a fan in their free time and posted online for others to enjoy. This isn’t a work that someone polished with the plan to publish for money. This is a fanwork posted by a fan for other fans to enjoy. Most writers I know don’t want constructive criticism. They want to engage with other fans with a medium they enjoy. “I really enjoyed this and I hope you do, too. Here’s an idea inspired by watching that scene.”

Of course, some writers do want constructive criticism. They ask right in their notes for it, which leads to my second point...

What are your credentials? When it comes to offering constructive criticism, are you confident in your skills to offer it? People tend to be, yeah... and then tell me what they would have written. “This is something I would personally enjoy and I wish you had written this instead.” “This does not match my headcanon of the character and you should have done this instead.” “You should have written the other character as the top.” None of this is constructive criticism. None of this is helping a writer improve. When these thoughts occur, instead of leaving them as a comment, consider writing the fic yourself! Seriously! Go for it! That’s the joy of fanfiction! You want to see something? You can write it yourself!

But really, what are your credentials? Do you know how to edit? Proofread? Did you take classes? Do you have a degree? In what? What’s your personal experience? Can I see your resume? Can you offer constructive criticism in a way which will improve that specific writer’s specific style? Can you help the writer tell the story they want to tell and not you? Because that is incredibly challenging. It’s easy as hell to tell someone what you would like to see in their story. It’s also the reason many writing circles and writing groups fail: too often it dissolves into “This is what I like, so you should change this” or “Well, such and such heard from such and such that this is really important for fiction.” That’s not how actual constructive criticism works. That’s not how you help a writer grow. 

“Well, if someone is writing and posting stuff online, then I have the right to criticize them.” Do you enjoy having so many free works at your fingertips? Would you like to see it happen in the future? Because while you’re free to criticize, that writer is free to stop writing. Writers don’t have to post. Writers can delete existing fics. Writers can and do give up because they are so excited to post their project online, only for multiple people to offer them “constructive criticism,” making them feel like shit, while many other people enjoy the fic but don’t bother telling the writer. 

“I have the right to tell the author what I like.” You also have the right to write your own fic. Which is probably going to be more productive?

“I have the right to tell the author their fic grosses me out.” Great. You also have the right to tell that to random people you meet in the street. Go for it. I personally value the concept of “don’t like, don’t read.” You did choose to deliberately read that fic, after all. That’s all on you. The author didn’t put a gun to your head and force you to read that work.

“I have the right to tell the author their errors.” Did they ask? Why are you so focused on the errors and not what you liked about the fic? I promise, if you tell authors what you enjoy about their fics, that will help them grow their skills far more than criticism. Getting positive feedback encourages fic writing, and practice helps the writer with those errors far more than random people on the internet.

At the end of the day, is your constructive criticism helping? And honestly, is that “constructive criticism” for the author or for you to feel proud about your awesomeness or for you to lift yourself up by belittling someone else? Before you gave the constructive criticism, did you ask the person? Did you value their opinion enough to verify that they wanted it in the first place? Fuck, did you even take the time to ask the person if they wanted a beta reader? Because if someone is happily posting their fic and they didn’t ask for help via a beta reader prior to posting, it might be because they’re more focused on the fanwork itself than grammar and the such, and that’s okay. If you can’t play around with fanfiction, with what can you play around? It’s fanfiction. No life or death seriousness to it!

Generally when someone leaves me constructive criticism, it isn’t constructive. It is that person telling me what they would have written in my shoes. You doing that isn’t going to make me write it. Hell, if people keep it up, writers might not write anything at all.

It’s very popular now to call writers greedy when they want positive comments or engagement with their fanworks. It’s also popular to defend the right to criticize the author when giving a comment. I would really prefer for these people to just write their own fic. Write what they want to see in the world. Maybe it’ll balance out all of the writers not writing because they’re getting hesitant about posting their works or feel too discouraged to even write in the first place.

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

some sort of comp

[tillman]

i mean also the fact every fandom ive ever been in eventually starts treating me the exact same and i dont fucking know why and it pisses me off so bad.

[toytulini]

Thank you for your tags on the baeddalism post. As someone who is aroace (formerly biace) and a nb transmasc I've literally watched every identity I have be dragged into discourse time and time again and it's always the exact same rhetoric to a nauseating degree. People are so terminally online that they constantly invent new nonexistent stereotypes of other queer identities to get mad at or just pick a queer identity to be the monster of the week, and it's excruciating to see it repeat the same way everytime.

I wanted to try to respond to this more eloquently after i had some caffeine, but if we wait for eloquence itll go unanswered for years. but lmao yea of course. Im also aroace and enby. I was here since like 2014, I suffered through reading all these same stupid arguments about a-specs and my tolerance for it is so fried. The queer infighting and gatekeeping bullshit is so rotting. I hope we learn one of these days. My disillusion that this keeps fucking happening is at least tempered by the fact that all the blogs who I followed for good takes on inclusionism and queer solidarity during the acecourse are also not tolerating this shit, and they are recognizing it as the same old bullshit its been the whole time.

[pragmatic-optimist]

An Appeal re: Anon Asks

For the last week (although honestly, the last six months), I've been having conversations on and off about the responsibility of answering asks on your blog and the impact it has on fandom as a community. 

At some point during Season 2 of Lone Star, the Anon asks, in particular, got truly out of control, and it's only gotten worse over time. Your blogs are your blogs, and I respect that. At the same time, as a fandom community, we share this space. Whether or not we all know one another, we're all coexisting in the tags and on this site. It takes a lot of emotional labor and time to filter and block on Tumblr, especially when folks don't tag consistently or correctly. Like many in this fandom, I also want to have fun while I'm here, but it's hard to do that when there seems to be little to no discernment in answering asks or properly tagging them.  

When it comes to unnecessary negative comments on fanfic, we often say, "it's not hard to close out of something if you don't like it." The spirit of that applies here, too. It's easy not to answer an ask, especially an Anon ask.

If someone isn't putting their name on something they're asking you to post to your blog, I would argue it requires an additional second and third look and careful consideration of how you answer it. (Certain asks are answered flippantly and then tagged for all to see, but that is an entirely separate post I won't be writing). 

Everything you share gets eyes; how many depends on how loud of a voice you're considered in the fandom. And it's been my experience that the louder the voice, the more substantial the likelihood you'll find problematic Anon asks in your inbox. Answering these asks on your blog gives them a platform, and tagging them gives them an audience outside of your followers. If you're a "big blog," it increases the odds that some of us will also be subjected to these problematic asks through reblogs. All of this broadly impacts fandom conversation because now it's deemed acceptable to send XYZ type of ask, use XYZ word(s), bring up XYZ topic, or talk about XYZ actor(s) or character(s) in any type of way.

The whole "this is Tumblr, it's not that serious" argument is privileged because some of this stuff is serious for someone like me (and others in this space). I can't just pretend someone isn't implicitly making it seem okay to say certain things, especially if their blog is looked at as a popular fandom source.

This ask is just one example of what I'm talking about:

It's the use of a racialized fetish term, and honestly, it's super cringe. Seeing this in the show tag is deeply uncomfortable as a Latinx person. What was the point of answering this ask and then tagging it? It serves no purpose and hangs out in the show tag like we all just throw it around (we don’t). It's been brought to attention, and still, it lingers. 

A fandom community should be safe and fun for all, but we don't live in a perfect world, so it takes work. Part of being in a community and doing the work is kindly holding people accountable to make it that way and being willing to have constructive conversations when concerns are raised. It's not accountability if you only show "remorse" when your friends bring something to your attention, and then nothing changes.

Accountability also ceases to exist when the fandom community chooses deep avoidance, handwaving things away whenever someone tries to share a concern. I have no idea why this keeps happening here, but I do know that every time it happens, it is profoundly isolating and makes it clear that fandom is only meant to be fun for some. The rest of us have to either put up with it or leave. 

If that's the message the Lone Star fandom intends to send, it's being received loud and clear. 

****

(Edit: the post is finally down, but I’ve shared a screenshot because it took three days and more than one person to address it publicly and this is exactly what I’m talking about.)

[llitchilitchi]

.

[spitefulcrepechan]

How tf does gametoons of all people make better lore for Garten of Banban than the ACTUAL makers of Banban?

[milktearosethorn]

awhile back i posted the first part of a fic and it flopped soooo hard and literally got no comments despite there being an interest on tumblr and it made me super emo and i doubted myself so i put it down for months. now i'm picking it back up to write the second part/conclusion and i'm rereading it and i'm like '????? this actually slapped pretty hard???' i can't believe i tricked myself into thinking it wasn't good 😭

[mildmayfoxe]

who want 2 talk to me

[cowgurrrl]

I hope you know how unbelievably talented you are. You churn out chapter after chapter like it’s nothing, and they only get even better each time, none of them are ever subpar, and they don’t feel rushed. You’ve got me reading this before bed to try and dream about being rockstar!Joel’s girl. You’re work is amazing and meaningful. Thank you for writing. (And thank you for feeding my delusions about being Joel’s actor girlfriend and having two little stepdaughters) 💌

LEJFKSJDJS THANK YOUUU

I really appreciate your kind words. It made me feel so special and loved 🥹🥹 I’m definitely just going through a little bit of slump which tends to happen after almost fifteen years of writing, working out original plots, being creative, and then trying not to feel like it all sucks lol but it’ll be great!! It’ll work itself out and I’ll (hopefully) stop over analyzing my silly little words on my silly little doc in my silly little room

Thank you so much for being so kind and making my day 🫶🫶

[sunfoxfic]

I'm on my student newspaper, and my main responsibility is to do event coverage - go to different things happening on campus and write about it. A lot of times it's just panel discussions or talks, but sometimes it's more interesting things - the Christian student group's paint night or a pride celebration hosted by the director of inclusivity.

This week is national library week, and I went to an event today the library was putting on - a couple hours set aside for outdoor games. Sidewalk chalk and giant tic-tac-toe and balls to throw around - and snacks, can't forget the snacks. It was a beautiful day and the library staff was very friendly and interesting.

Aside from myself, a total of 4 students came.

This isn't unusual; a lot of events have low attendance. Lower attendance than they should. I know engagement is a big priority for the school, and there are legitimate problems in the way the school chooses to go about this - their choices of advertisement are weird, for example - but I really have to wonder...

Do students know they have to engage if they want to be engaged?

Like, genuinely. This is a college campus. It was 2 hours set aside on a beautiful day with Doritos and Oreos and plenty of things to do. And 4 people came. While there is a significant commuter population at my school, there's also a significant resident student population. Plenty of people were around, and plenty of them were doing nothing.

This is a situation in which it was easy for students to engage. No commitments, no mental energy, nothing. And 4 people came.

I've been to so many events with low turnout, and I just have to ask - do people know that community comes from doing community things? That connection comes from connecting? That you can't just wait for it to pull you in - you have to grab the rope when it's being offered?

[medicinemane]

The world is set on prescriptivism and... it doesn't jive with me

[itsmiyamore]

hey fellow fanfiction writers are there specific days or times that are best for posting? I'm guessing friday might be good bc after that is the weekend but idk what time to post

I just don't want my fic to flop again like my last two :(

[teethpaste]

Today marks 1 year since I broke up with my ex even tho I should really count it in January since that’s when I finally went no contact

So funny 2 think we talked may - January (my dad died in April and I was losing my mind and broke up with him the next month bc everything in my life was crashing) with him calling me every day saying I ruined his life , that he was depressed, that he missed me and he bought the house for us and I just up and walked away. How I was his person, how he wanted to marry me. Shit I begged him to tell me the 3.5 years we dated but he only told me after I left

While He would do the guilt trip thing , i do have to give credit that he was also wildly supportive of me going thru guilt / work stress in the months after our breakup. Hes the person I called when my dads brother died 40 days later and when I had a panic attack and felt suicidal as hell in Germany. Or when I got the worst food poisoning of my life in Copenhagen and thought I was gonna die. He gave me so much comfort and I miss that. Only came to find thru town gossip he had a whole ass gf while he was calling me and making me feel awful. I truly held on to so much guilt about the breakup meanwhile he was moving on and still using me emotionally. But I guess I was using him emotionally too - but it was out in the open. Wasn’t hiding a lover or having ulterior motives. I would tell him I was sorry but I was a shell of a person and couldn’t be in a relationship + would recount the other issues we had.

Anyways, why do men always do the things with their new gfs their exes begged them to do? Was told against my will he posts her on social media all the time (he never would with me I would begggg him and he would say he just didn’t use social media like that, even tho he was on it every day talking to his ex lovers lol)

TLDR I’m over here having a pity party for myself and I just knooooooow he’s gonna marry this girl. Men always do. They say you’re their person too late and you walk away and they freak the fuck out and propose to the very next girl that comes along. This will be the second time it has happened to me, when it does

[denrite]

Bruh it's so hard to create fanart when I'm so hyperfixated on my OCs

I literally cannot not draw my silly little fellas💔

But I don't really post them here