#someone on AO3 posted a list

[bunnwich]

Likers of my Leona x Yuu Fics like Love Potion who wants to be tagged??? Gonna post another soon.

[possamble]

good fucking lord

[wordynerdygurl]

Someone to Watch Over Me

Part 6:  “This Lost Lamb”

It’s love at first sound, pitch perfect and fated, everything in harmony. If only life were a love song.

Corroded Coffin is doing well, there's nothing but opportunities on the horizon- for Eddie. Is Amanda still a part of his future or is this where their fated romance ends?

Author's Note: Part 6 is posted on AO3! Happy Reading!!

Taglist: @thatsonezesty13 @sxlly-pxbble @kerri-leighjade @carleighsworld @mediocreaf @weird-stranger13 @cupiden  @sereisstuff @elviqs @hevanleigh @ethereal-daydreamerr  @armyangxls @alana-stewart @lonely-af-fangirl @darkhairedmenrule @b1tchbabytears @punishers-girl @ravencrap-hufflefuck  @rosegoldarti @boeutiful @atlwhatevs @mermaidsandcats29  @aereth  @drfrank211 @ladysteddie @friendly-neighborhood-ghoul @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore @sweetsweetjellybean​ @sammy-jo1977 @hiscrimsonangel

[vacantvisage]

Btw I currently have 25 works on my active AO3! Most of them are BG3 so if you’re interested, take a little look ! 💖🕺✨

[spacecasehobbit]

Fighting back against oppression is not the same thing as committing oppression, and it is not hypocrisy not to tolerate intolerance from others.

That is not what a lot of supposed activism on this website actually does.

Guilt-tripping total strangers based on unfounded assumptions about their lives and experiences? Demanding attention and validation from strangers, as a way for said strangers to prove that they aren't Bad People, by demanding that what amount to personal vent posts be treated as meaningful educational resources on incredibly complex and serious issues? Trying to claim moral high ground over the fictional interests of strangers based entirely on some people's feelings of disgust as the only evidence of harm?

Wanting people around you to feel angry, or small, or ashamed, with no goal besides making someone else feel bad when it makes you feel better about the unfair hurt you've endured?

These aren't examples of activism or progressive ideology. They are examples of hurt people lashing out at easy targets with misidirected anger. They are examples of people engaging in the cycle of harm, when someone has made them feel small, and they chose to look for someone else they've decided should feel smaller as a way to make themselves feel big again.

I'm sure most tumblr users can think of at least a few posts they've seen like this, if not dozens or more.

Not just isolated posts, either, but posts with hundreds to thousands of notes worth of validation from other strangers.

That shit is harmful. Absolutely no one is ever obligated to engage with guilt-tripping, directionless anger that focuses mainly on punching down at one's peers, regardless of the source which originally inspired that anger. No matter how sympathetic someone's pain might be, it is not kindness to validate random cruelty as an outlet for genuine pain.

Engaging in meaningful activism is hard work. Hurting easy targets in the name of righteous causes is easy.

Being a decent person means being willing to ask yourself which one you're doing, and then being willing to step back and disengage not only when the answer is, "causing more harm," but also when the honest answer is, "I don't know."

Activism is not the same as causing harm. The corollary to that is that causing harm is not the same as activism, either.

[bedlamsbard]

man, sometimes the stuff that crosses my dash makes it really clear to me that your average fanfic writer has not had the experience I've had where one or two of their fics are deeply, deeply hated and have been for years. like, it's in the back of my head that surely everyone's had that experience at least once but...uh...apparently not.

[firenati0n]

the most exciting part about being THEEEE chronically online friend in a group is when someone expresses interest in something you are Extremely and Wholly Interested In and you get to send them, say, a list of 30 fics to start off with for, say, red white & royal blue...and then they READ THEM and then you feel immense satisfaction at having properly influenced someone because they ASK YOU FOR MORE and also ask you if there's stuff like this out there for other media and you get to say YES BABYGIRL FANFICTION IS A WHOLE NEW WORLD and suddenly you've created a monster

[supercantaloupe]

tagged by @malcolm-f-tucker, ty! my fic writing output comes from a varied and bizarre set of source materials...we both will just have to deal with that i guess

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway!

le finestre son questa - don giovanni - 1.3k - mar 2 23

Your lady had a difficult evening: you’re not sure what happened, exactly, but you helped her dress for a masquerade before she left, and she returned hours later looking more frustrated and tired than she had when she’d left.

2. (currently still untitled. sorry) - don giovanni - 3.7k - feb 28 23

He wakes to the sound of steady beeping and the vague humming of electronics and machinery. Then, bright fluorescent lights, which he squints against the moment he tries to crack his eyes open. Then, the pain.

3. e buonnotte a tutti - don giovanni - 13k - feb 11 23

“Saint Anthony’s? Really?”

“Yes, really. Punch it into the GPS already.” Giovanni sinks a little lower into the passenger seat and fumbles with his dress shirt buttons.

4. 25th annual solesian national spelling bee - fantasy high - 26k - last updated dec 25 22

“Adaine, I swear to the gods, open this door at once.” The elder Abernant sister pounds her fist on the locked door to the library.

5. deh vieni a consolar il pianto mio - don giovanni - 3k - oct 24 22

The dining room is a mess, with bits of food and shattered porcelain strewn about the floor, and the faint haze of smoke hanging in the air.

6. skeleton in the closet - oklahoma! - 9.4k - may 22 22

“Beth, stay on the path. And stop swingin’ the dinner pail like that.” Clara scolds her little sister, who, from a few paces ahead, turns to give her a scowl.

7. starlight - oklahoma! - 34k - last updated may 13 22

Crickets chirp in the cool night outside. Laurey sits on her bed, trying to enjoy a quiet night in for herself.

8. dance you all over the meadow - oklahoma! - 945 - may 7 22

“Slow down, you’ll trip.” Laurey’s grip on Curly’s arm tightens, and she feels his on her shoulder tense. “What are you in such a hurry fer?”

9. l'astuto cacciator - giulio cesare - 2k - feb 27 22

“Enough financials for now,” Cleopatra orders, waving a hand to her attendants. Papyrus records of tax and grain are swept clean from the table and swiftly replaced with platters of fresh dates, olives, and figs for the queen and her advisors. “Tell me of the Romans.”

10. awake in a lonely room - oklahoma! - 1k - oct 10 21

Old Eighty is hitched to the fence in the front yard. Her eyes are sleepy and bored. 

tagging: @tragedyposting @kingfisherkink @grasslandgirl @pearlandbrine @druid-for-hire @leporellian and @theresa-of-liechtenstein...regrettably i'm not sure who else among my mutuals writes fic at all so i may have to leave it there short of 10 ;;

[strixcattus]

Just for the purposes of getting my thoughts together I may as well try to compile a list of all the fics with at least a chance of getting written.

Currently Posting:

Colliding Trains of Plot (Demon Slayer AU/canon divergence), AKA that one weird role-reversal fic. Covers the Mugen Train arc and has a lot more to it that's planned, but not yet written.

Currently Writing:

I Lied When I Said I Would See You Again (Demon Slayer AU), an AU set in the Puella Magi Madoka Magica setting. It's fluff, I swear! It's had a set number of chapters from the start, and there are only a couple chapters left to go before I can get on the edit-and-post train. I also want to draw designs for the main characters of the AU, so you'll know when I'm close to posting the fic because I'll post a bunch of spoiler-censored designs on tumblr.

Sequels to Posted Fics:

The Definition of Family (Demon Slayer AU) is not a stand-alone oneshot! I've got plans in the works for a few other oneshots set in the same universe, each one focusing on different characters. Hard to say exactly which ones will be written and posted when, but once I'm free to work on more projects I feel like these might end up high on my list.

What Could Have Been (Demon Slayer AU), the sequel to CToP. This one covers the Entertainment District arc alongside an equivalent but very different arc from the alternate universe. I'm not as stoked for this one as I am for some of the others, but I am excited for what'll come after it.

Partially Written, Cut Off, On the Back-Burner:

A Hollow's Guide to Vampire Slaying (Bleach canon divergence): A canon-diverging retelling of the Bount arc in a world where Ichigo goes AWOL inside his own inner world and leaves his hollow to fill in. Cares not for any later-revealed canon.

Confronting the Impostor (SpyxFamily): On a mission, Loid ends up needing to impersonate an SSS officer and, perhaps thinking it would be easiest to disguise himself as someone he knows, takes on the persona of his brother-in-law. It doesn't seem like such a great idea after they meet.

Welcome Back to White Space (We've Missed You, Dreamer) (OMORI post-canon) has been living in my untouched tabs since last year and is easily the longest unfinished fic I've got. A world that's existed for four years, with inhabitants that are real enough to have minds of their own, does not go quietly—or indeed at all, if there is someone willing to sustain it. And Omori is very much willing to sustain his world in order to keep his friends alive, even if he needs to enlist Sunny's help in order to return them from Black Space.

Pride Cometh Before a Fall (Fullmetal Alchemist canon divergence) is set in a timeline where Edward Elric is in reality the homunculus Pride. Fortunately, his time living with (spying on) Hohenheim's family has warmed him up to humanity, and he's very willing to turn on his father in order to preserve it.

Completely Unwritten, but Interesting:

The Eight Wonders of Kimetsu Academy (Demon Slayer AU, title not final) is, in a similar vein to ILWISIWSYA, a shorter long-fic with a set number of chapters. Also similar to my current project, it's focused on familial fluff, in a sort of "the real treasure was the family bonds we found along the way" way. Loosely inspired by Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun. Loosely.

On Second Thought, Do Panic (Bleach AU) is, essentially, Bleach IN SPACE!. Crash-landed galactic peacekeeper Rukia Kuchiki strong-arms ordinary human Ichigo Kurosaki into helping her repair her spaceship, fight back against the alien hordes invading Earth, and return to her home on the Seireitei space station—until they crash along the way and Rukia is taken home for imprisonment while Ichigo is left to die (or be rescued by an acquaintance who's not quite an Earthling himself, but that part comes later).

Three May Be a Crowd, but Four is Just Ridiculous (Bleach canon divergence): This is the story of what happens when Uryu dies post-Winter War. Don't worry, this is a happy story. This is a story of Uryu being found in the Rukon by a clone of himself and promptly invited on a zany road trip with the goal of killing Kurotsuchi. It's also the story of far too many people deciding to clone Uryu. I'm sure nothing bad will come of that.

It's Simple, It's Easy, and It's Free (Bleach post-"canon") won't be written any time soon. This is because it's going to be posted in comic form, and I have to learn a lot more about art before committing to anything of the sort (to say nothing of the fact that I'd need to have seen a lot more of TYBW to actually write it). Included here for completeness.

Not Pictured:

This isn't a complete list—I have a couple of partially-written fics that I'm just not interested in working on at this point in time, and a whole lot more of ideas that won't come to light until I've cleared up more of the fics I'm most interested in (including time-travel fics for Demon Slayer, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Bleach; a couple of OMORI fics; a Fullmetal Alchemist haunted house AU; and a fic for Angel Beats, of all things, that I won't be picking up again until I have somewhere I can watch the anime)

[noisytenant]

i think it would be really helpful if appended to any post regarding opinions on and discussions of fiction, the op had to append a list of the fiction they have experienced and enjoyed in their lifetime. No more context collapse. There are no downsides to this

[booksandabeer]

I'm so maxed out on social interactions right now. I've talked to what feels like two hundred people in the last five days. Slept in three different houses. Travelled literally thousands of miles. I'm physically tired and emotionally exhausted and—oh look, it's time to eat AGAIN!

I just want to sit in a quiet room and stare at a white wall for four hours straight.

[aro-aizawa]

@ ppl who explain fanfics' major plot points and how they're resolved in their public bookmarks: genuinely i adore you and would die for you

[hua-fei-hua]

you might think no one will miss your ancient anime fic if you delete it of ffn, but just remember that if enough of you do so, someone's gonna make note of the number gone on a private spreadsheet somewhere.

[biromantic-nerd]

[id: a single underlined ao3 tag that reads Squick free / end id]

that's... not how it works. you can't guarantee that your work definitely won't squick anyone. what do you think you're saying?

[alas--pringles]

periodic reminder to update your library if you download fics you like. i forgot for more than a few months and found 4 deleted fics in my bookmarks :(

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.