i’ve seen a lot of fanfiction authors, including myself, worry about the redundancy of our work, either because we feel it’s been done before or someone more popular beat us to a certain plot point we thought no one else had thought of or just because writing is hard and other writers are scary.
1. fanfiction is rooted in canon, and everyone is working from the same canon you are. even if one person is writing a bakery au and the other is writing a serial killer space opera, the point of origin means there might still be elements in common. it’s okay. (this goes double for canon aus, because the closer to the canon your au is, the fewer elements there are to vary.)
2. in larger fandoms, there are so many fics! so many. the sheer number of authors means that sometimes people are going to have the same idea. you don’t read one fic and then never read any fic like it, right? just do your thing.
3. fanfic isn’t being written in a vacuum. surrounding the original canon is the matrix of fandom memes and headcanons and metas. the ones that become popular take on a life of their own. all of the other authors are exposed to the same content you are, so don’t worry if you both borrow the same things.
4. if you took two authors and gave them the same outline, with the same plot points, and told them to write, they’d still probably produce distinct works. no one can write the story in your head but you. keep writing!
ALL OF THIS
also like let’s be real, a lot of us want to read 50 versions of very similar stories lol.
This! I guarantee that it doesn’t matter that you think “popular author” has already done X trope perfectly, if I am a sucker for that trope I still want to read your fic. I want a bilion different variations of that trope. I can’t get enough of it.
Tag: good points
the most succinct explanation of why some lesbians use they/them or he/him pronouns is that pronouns are very much like names, in that they are culturally established signifiers we use to refer to someone else, and almost always those signifiers are gendered.
You’ll see a lot of lesbians start to go by androgynous or masculine names (or nicknames) to feel more comfortable. Sam, Pat, Chris, Jay, Moe, etc. are all really common chosen names among lesbians for that reason.
I also knew an older butch– my parents’ age– who went by Otter (& her femme partner went by Kitty) because they decided to just depart from standard names entirely– and I see younger lesbians using neo-pronouns in very similar ways for very similar reasons.
A lesbian who was raised with the name Christina and the pronouns she/her/hers deciding he’s more comfortable with the name Chris and he/him/his pronouns to reflect his complex relationship to womanhood is not a huge confusing leap, it’s pretty normal depending on what circles you’re in.
Gender is complex, and gender nonconforming lesbians, butches, and femmes have often navigated gender on their own terms to find ways of being comfortable in their bodies, relationships, and lives.
Fandom Etiquette
I’ve been around for a really long time in various fandoms, and no one ever writes this stuff down. I’ll start. Please add to the list. We can’t expect people to follow “rules” they don’t know exist.
written with the help of @unbreakablejemmasimmons
Fanart
- if you like something, reblog it. Help the artist get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.
- if you want more of it, support it. This can be via commissions, reblogs, recommending the artist to other people, shouting in the tags, or sending the artist asks/messages.
- if you hate it, keep scrolling. Keep the hate in a message window with a friend, not in the artist’s notes.
- if you want to use it, ask permission. Artwork is beautiful and you want to show it off. But please ask the artist before you throw it into your header or your icon.
- if you use it, give credit. And not just a post where you say “Do you like my new icon? X made it!”. Put it in your blog description, that way when someone rolls around your blog three months from now, they also know where your icon/header came from.
Fanfic
- if you like something, reblog it. Help the author get their work out there in front of more people. Share the joy that it brought you.
- if you want more of it, support it. Kudos are fine, but if you want more of the thing you like, you should comment. Subscribe to the story or the author. Send them a message about how much you like what they wrote.
- if you read it, kudos it. Or give it a thumbs up. And this is just if you managed to get all the way to the end. If you finished the story and you actually liked it? Comment and reblog.
- don’t demand content. Be patient. Stories take time. You can encourage without being demanding. Show your love for what’s there without telling them to post more often.
- be gentle with criticism. Some people want it and some people run away from it. If you don’t know what type of person the author is, it’s best not to go there. “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”
Fandom
- ship and let ship. You love your ship and other people love theirs. No one needs to “win” when we’re all going to end up in tears anyway.
- if you hate it, stay out of the tag. This has two meanings: 1) don’t deliberately put hateful commentary in a tag and 2) if you hate a tag, don’t go and read through that tag just to make yourself angry
- if someone makes you something, appreciate it. Read and comment the fic. Like and reblog the artwork. Pimp it out and tell them how much you loved it. It’s a gift, treat it like one.
- if it’s a gift, put some effort into it. You signed up for that exchange three months ago and now it’s a week before you have to send the gift and you don’t have the time or the inclination to do the thing. Well too bad. Someone out there has been working hard in your gift, so you should do the same for them.
- none of us are “better” than anyone else. We’re all trash for our particular show/film/book/ship/artist/what-have-you. My fave is no better than yours and yours is no better than mine.
- actors are not their characters. They are people. Treat them like people.
Alex (character development wise) lately has just seemed (to my non-episode-watching ass) like she’s gone with laser focus into kids/parent-everything which feels a lot like it’s happening in defiance to how and why her relationship with Maggie ended, like.. somehow if she throws herself into the mum thing now it’ll make the break up “worth” it or sth? which, in my reading of Alex and her maturity levels, is something she should be above at this point in her life. idk how do you feel about it?
Like.. filling that hole in her heart where Maggie used to be via adopting a kid just seems like the most unhealthy coping mechanism and a recipe for disaster and emotional trauma for the kid. Alex needs some gd therapy to deal with her parental neglect and her alcoholism if we wanna call it that/basically just all her bad coping mechanisms that keep her from actually coping. And then she needs a few months or a year and then some to heal from that emotional mess with Maggie and coming out.
It isn’t just Maggie, tbh.
Alex has had a big year, that involved lot of people leave her, especially now with Kara going. Maggie and Kara are the big ones, but she’s also lost any leads on finding her father (who told her she wouldn’t understand why he was working for Cadmus until she was a parent, like, hello motivation right there).
But, yeah, I could def see her latching onto getting a kid to justify leaving Maggie as part of the reasoning, or a reason for it needing to happen sooner.
And, it def isn’t a good idea for her or for any kid brought in.
At this point I ship Alex with Therapy and not much else.
True, though
so i was thinking about that post, about how maladaptive coping methods were at one point adaptive and do you think about how Kara and Lena both react to conflict and betrayal?
Kara is influenced by the shadow of kryptons destruction in her every action–how many people do you think she wishes she can see one last time? maybe she thinks about how stupid that one fight was in the light of such overwhelming loss and how she holds on tight to people no matter what. no matter how much they hurt her.
James and Winn lied to her for months after she was nothing but honest to them, where she didn’t even have a choice to tell James her secret, where this is something James can choose but Kara will never stop being an alien, who’s living in a deeply xenophobic society and still James and Winn were the ones who lied.
how j’onn was actually an alien but treated her like she was gum on his shoe and had her shot of the sky with Kryptonite and wouldn’t let Alex tell Kara about being in the DEO for 3 years.
Alex never went against orders and told Kara she was part of the DEO (aka alien Guantanamo) and killed her aunt. alex said it herself–clark abandoned her. astra tried to kill her and her sister but again Kara forgives her, because Astra is dying and what else left is there to do?
lena creates the thing that tortures her. the thing that killed and tortured her aunt (also there are plenty of things that can kill humans but when loved ones are killed by a certain thing, like a knife, or a gun, or even a dog humans tend to really hate the thing that killed them) and after the initial freakout she still extends her hand in friendship. and you know what? maybe Kara forgives too easily
it’s not really a criticism of lena but with everything that happened with Lillian and lex I think a lot about lena and her inability to forgive can be summed up as I finally love myself enough to be angry about how I was treated. and for someone who was always told she wasn’t good enough and had people who should have loved her try to kill her this isn’t the worst attitude to have..
whereas Kara kind of just. takes it. and keeps taking all of it. and there isn’t really talk for Kara any more about how to get past her anger and the betrayal
it’s that John mulaney quote- I’m going to hold all of my emotions right here and then one day I’ll die.“
whereas lena maybe needs to look at her one strike you’re out of my life policy if she wants to have healthy relationships w people bc people fuck up without it being an abusive kind of situation. it just happens. like. if Kara truly was acting like Lillian she would have said James was lying and he’s doing this because they used to date and he doesn’t want lena and supergirl to be friends (psa i am not saying this is what happened THIS IS THE BEING LIKE LILLIAN SCENARIO I JUST WANT TO BE CLEAR) but she owned up to it and was like ok we need to talk about this I did do that and i want to still be friends but all Lena can see is a repeat of her mother and lex and immediately cuts ties and metaphorically runs.
tl;dr lena and Kara both need therapy. so much fucking therapy. please someone bring them and everyone else to therapy.
Why ya need to shut up about “shitty fanfic”
Do you know all those posts out here about being supportive of young artists and being careful with how you talk to them about their art? Or just appreciating fanart in general and not being a total asshole?
That doesn’t exist for fanfic writers.
I am so freaking tired of seeing posts talking about “what a pain it is to rake through shitty fanfic” and memes about “shitty fanfic existing in abundance” , “shitty fanfic being the only fics that update regularly”, “popular pairings having a ton of fanfic but only a few good ones”, and all this crappy attitude towards fanfics that may not be that eloquent or fandom famous.
Don’t be an asshole. Everyone needs to start somewhere. Maybe in a few years these writers will improve and make much better fanfic. Even if they don’t, they are doing something they love and should not be freaking criticized for it. Keep your ranting and opinions about “shitty fanfic” to yourself. You’re making a majority of fanfic writers feel self-conscious, unmotivated, and even more unappreciated.
Days like ‘fanfic writer appreciation day’ are super nice, but ultimately fall short unless we fix this horrid attitude fandoms have towards fanfic.
Young authors don’t get the breaks that young artists do. New artists will post a sketch and get boatloads of encouragement. New authors will most likely either get ignored or get hatemail (both have happened to me when I was 14).
Everyone writes “shitty fanfic” when they start out. But if you shit on artists when they’re going through their “shitty fanfic” stage then all you’re ever going to get is “shitty fanfic” because young authors won’t stick around long enough to get better
YAY SHITTY FANFIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WE’VE ALL GOTTA START SOMEWHERE!
also a lot of the time shitty fanfic still has a lot to offer – some of my fave repeat reads are obviously from the author’s early work, and maybe they’re not perfect but they effect me the way I wanna be effected
And finally: IT’S FREE.
It’s really quite rude to walk up to SOMETHING BEING GIVEN TO YOU FOR FREE, AT THE COST OF SOMEONE ELSE’S LABOUR and bitch about how it’s not exactly what you wanted.
You don’t have to take it (aka, you don’t have to read it, or say anything if you do and backbutton). But ffs.
I gotta weigh in: it’s not JUST the new and young writers that see that “shitty fanfic” dialogue everywhere and have a bad day. I may not be the best damned writer out there, but I’ve had a few that worked for a lot of people. And STILL, every time I see that go around, after 13 years pubbing online fanfic, I think it applies to me. Stop spreading the negative, folks, and raise up the people who are trying to make you have a better day, even if only for a five minute read!
Don’t dump all over the writers, folks. For one thing, you may not be the intended audience! (Plenty of things I loved as a teen and won’t reread now are still loved by teenagers, for example.) For another, as @violent-darts said, this is free writing. No one held you down and made you read it. (Don’t even start with ‘but internet access costs me money.’ It does, but those writers aren’t getting a penny of it, so from their POV, you’re getting it free.)
The writers can improve, their focus and intents can change as they age, their world- and character-building can get better… but none of this improvement and change will happen if they’ve already been chased off to other hobbies.
If you thought a story was all right but could use some work, ask if the
writer would like constructive criticism or a beta. If they say yes,
make sure you include things they’re doing right as well as wrong; if
they say no, honor their requests. (I am personally still
friends with people who sent me feedback that included, “You have this
typo/grammar error/factual error…”)Also, keep in mind: if you don’t know the author, personally, then you don’t know if they’re among the net denizens with mental health issues.
We reblog the hot line numbers and mental health suggestions around tumblr because they’re needed. We put trigger warnings on fic and posts for reasons. Please do not send feedback that would add to those reasons.TL;DR? If you really don’t like a fic, use your back button. And if you’re only giving negatives? Most people won’t read all of your letter; that doesn’t count as constructive.
like, i’m not saying that adults don’t have a place in fandom. they can and they do, and many are perfectly great people.
but if you’re an adult, say, in your mid to late 20s or older, especially if you’re in a fandom that’s filled mostly with teenagers, you do need to be careful about how you interact with young people in fandom.
you need to be careful about the content you produce or share, and if you do something that people take issue with, you need to be prepared to address that in an honest and meaningful way, instead of blocking the young people who are telling you you’ve done something wrong and going on a rant about how “it’s just fiction” and “ship and let ship” and “do whatever you want” and “i’m too old for this.”
if you’re an adult in fandom, you need to be able to recognize how the content you produce might affect young people, and honestly, you should be able to show maturity when dealing with it, because you are still an adult talking to many people who are literal children.
many of those young people will, by default, view you as a sort of authority figure based on your age alone, as that’s what they’re used to. be careful of the lessons you teach them.
Hm. Okay. Here’s the thing.
We all know who you’re talking about and which situations you’re talking about. What you really have an issue with isn’t anything to do with anyone’s age, it’s about people producing things that other people find hurtful, then not responding the way the hurt people would like them to when called out on it. That can and does happen anywhere, regardless of the ages of the people involved. It’s a separate issue that should be discussed and dealt with.
And yes, in some of those recent situations, the ages of the offenders or the offended were brought into the discussion, by both sides at different times. The age difference does complicate things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the main issue.
You may be thinking “why do you care if I focus on age, it was a salient part of the argument for me, you’re trying to defend adults who don’t care how their words hurt children!” But here’s the thing.
You may not realize this, but in other fandoms adults have been doxxed, have been threatened, have been outed because they were creating things that someone, somewhere deemed “dangerous for minors.”
Adults who were creating things that were not meant for minors, that were openly and blatantly tagged as being NSFW, explicit, as containing triggering material. I’ve even seen people who weren’t even creating the offending material being harassed, bullied, and threatened, for daring to stand up for the people who were. Not even just online, but in person. I’ve been a victim of it myself, though not to the extent that I’ve seen many others go through.
All because a segment of the fandom decided that because certain content could be dangerous for minors, it should never, ever be posted anywhere a minor might possibly read it. Adults who do post it are responsible for every bad effect it could possibly have on anyone who reads it and are horrible people for not willingly taking on that responsibility.
I know the situations you’re talking about are different. In many of those situations, adults chose to interact with the minors who were complaining about them, and yeah, when you’re choosing to directly interact with a minor you need to tread carefully.
But once you go down the “adults in fandom are responsible for the minors in fandom” road, if lots of people start clinging to that mindset, that is where it can lead. And that is an extremely serious issue. It can literally destroy careers and ruin lives.
I am not in this or any other fandom to produce content for minors. I have asked many times for minors not to follow me; I don’t block them, but I know quite a few people who block any minor who follows them. I produce enough SFW content that I don’t mind minors being able to, say, reblog it from others on their dash, but I do not want them following me and getting explicit content directly from me, full stop. If it becomes an issue, I will start blocking people.
If you’re a minor, I’m old enough to be your mother. But I’ve got my own kid, and I’m not in fandom to babysit anyone else. When I create or reblog content, I do not and will not take the presence of minors into account when doing so. Because that is not my job.
Now, right now I’m choosing to get involved in this discussion, which will involve people much younger than me, including minors. So yeah, I’m being careful about what I say and how I say it. And I agree that any adult who willingly engages in conversation with minors needs to do the same.
But I simply can’t agree with your last two paragraphs. Those “literal children” already have parents. If their own parents aren’t monitoring what media they consume, aren’t having conversations with them about problematic messages in media, it certainly isn’t my job to do so. Period.
This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stop seeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.
How people interact with oppressed groups they aren’t a part of who complain about their representation of those oppressed groups is an entirely separate issue that is not about the age of the people on either side. Age can complicate it, especially in that it can be difficult to communicate across a generation gap when people on either side have such enormously different experiences. I think that that has caused some problems.
But any adult who is not willingly choosing to interact with a minor is not responsible for minors who consume their content, and conflating the two issues is downright dangerous.
@porcupine-girl nailed it 100% but this especially bears repeating:
This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stopseeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.
Fandom is a good way for teenagers to learn how to interact with people in different age groups as peers. Because that’s what we are, we are fandom peers posting on the same web sites and obsessing over the same shows and no one in fandom has any authority over anyone else (no matter how much some people might try to claim it). I am not your teacher, your parent, your babysitter, or anyone in any position of authority over you or anyone with a responsibility for taking care of you. Nor am I willing to take on that role. The vast majority of the billions of adults in the world fit that description. Only a very few, ones you know in real life, are responsible for you personally – and soon that number will be none as you become an adult yourself.
I block anyone with an age under 18 listed in their profile if they try to follow me – not with any animosity, I’m just not interested in interacting with kids on a fandom level. This is a completely valid option and I think it’s a wise one.
Plus the original post here is predicated on the assumption that fandom belongs to people in their early 20s and younger and the rest of us are just hangers on. Sorry baby, look at the demographics; you’re the minority. We’re not in your house. I, for one, am happy to interact with anyone I have interests in common with and bond over those interests; I think people of all ages have exciting perspectives and interesting minds. But I don’t want to be treated like a second class citizen by anyone, and as said above, I am interested in interacting AS PEERS ONLY. I ain’t your mommy and I have enough people IRL trying to leech emotional labor off me, I got none for strangers on the internet.
I have watched my friends raise their kids in fandom. Literally. Raise. Their. Kids. I’ve watched young things I met carried in arms toddle, walk, run, be 8, 18, 28, marry, come to a convention carrying young things in their arms.
It was assumed that everyone who knew the parent would keep a vague eye on the child because friends don’t let friends’ little ones run into traffic. But at NO POINT was it ever assumed or expressed that the adult fans had to stop being adult fans talking about adult things. If a minor walked into the “How to write explicit bondage” panel, then someone gently suggested that this was not the place for the kid to be. If the kid found the dick pics in the art show, they were told “go ask Mommy what ‘slash’ means.”
I get that the OP wants to protect children, but while it’s my job to make sure someone too little to take care of themselves doesn’t get hurt, it has NEVER, through three generations of fandom, been my job to be anyone’s actual parent or to stop adulting around adults.
Oh, and the line “I’m not saying adults don’t have a place in fandom; they can and they do” – that line? Child, ADULTS BUILT FANDOM. We created the cons and the fanzines and the webrings and the clubs and the fan sites and the VCR tape swaps and the letter writing campaigns and the podcasts. We maintain the fan sites and the fic repositories and the conventions and the rest. Did you think those things just spontaneously evolved? Fuckin’ A we have a place in the culture that we built!
I don’t get the attitude teenagers have these days regarding this dynamic. When I was young and first getting into fandom, I was very aware that most people were older than me, wiser than me, had more experience than me, and were not beholden to hold my hand or babysit me. I engaged with adult material at my own risk, and my own blatant lying about my age.
I get that the prevalence and omnipresence of the internet allows more young people to be online and interact these days so it’s easier to assume the person on the other side of the screen might be your age, but…no? Most people in fandom are old af.
What do you kids think you just stop having interests and being social about them when you turn 25? Pfffft that’s rich.
As someone who has been living with severe suicidal ideation my entire life I wanna tell you all something, you don’t have to stay alive for yourself. People will say it’s a bad idea to live for external things because they’re temporary, and it’s true living for yourself is ideal but if you’re not to that point yet that’s ok too.
I’ve lived for my dog for the past 4 years, before that I lived for my snakes, before that I lived for my cat. You can live for whatever needs you and whatever matters to you. Live for your best friend, live for your plants, live for your pets, live for your animal crossing town. Live for whatever keeps you alive and the day will come when you can live for yourself.
This is something everyone should see. Thank you for sharing this.
Transformers kept me alive. When the 2007 movie was announced I was going through an incredibly hard time emotionally. I saw the preview and every time I thought about killing myself I thought, “but then I won’t get to see this thing I’ve always wanted to see, good or not.” And it got me through.
I’m in a place where I live for myself now, but don’t toss away a life preserver just because other people think you should be able to swim on your own.
don’t toss away a life preserver just because other people think you should be able to swim on your own
Question of Smoke 