#this is spurred on by fic deletion discourse ftr but it's not limited to it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

incesthemes · 11 days ago

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my hot fandom take is that discouraging authentic interaction with fanworks through arbitrary "rules" and increasingly limited and prescriptive scripts of "acceptable" interactions damages fandom as a community perhaps just as much as passive, entitled consumers who demand free labor from fan creators without offering interaction in return

#i just don't know what creators expect when they throw a fit if another fan acts in any way other than the two prescribed emotions they're #'allowed' to have #this is spurred on by fic deletion discourse ftr but it's not limited to it #you're allowed to delete your fics. of course you are. it's your fic #but the fans of your fic are also allowed to be visibly and publicly upset #implying they shouldn't be is saying you don't think people should forge personal connections with your art #which is of course antithetical to art #both actions are allowed AND understandable. you as a creator don't have the right to dictate how people should feel about your work #the only thing that accomplishes is pushing people away. discouraging them from engaging authentically #this also extends to stuff like creating arbitrary etiquette rules around concrit or 'concrit'#yeah it absolutely sucks to get unsolicited crit in your comments. of course it does. you worked hard on that #but saying people should never criticize a fic means that well meaning fans will avoid engaging authentically with any fic at all #because they internalize that speaking about a fic beyond 'i love this!' is somehow rude to an author #and this is NOT a hypothetical. i see this exact behavior all the time. they're too scared of offending to be genuine or contribute to art #art is a discussion. if you refuse to let other people participate in that discussion then you are just as much at fault for the destructio #of the community as passive consumers are. all because you don't want your feelings hurt #unfortunately you DO have to accept that someone may be rude to you or behave inappropriately about your art #in order to get authentic feedback from other not-rude people. there's no getting around it #but people seem to have chosen isolation over community yet again. because we're all scared of criticism and judgment #alas!

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