[ SECRET POST #4481 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4481 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.



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02.
[The Hobbit]


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03.
[Tim Burton's Dumbo]


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04.
[Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born]


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05.
[Giles Coren, writer and TV presenter]


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06.
[The Dragon Prince]


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07.
[Quicksand on Netflix]

















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 43 secrets from Secret Submission Post #642.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Since everyone is assuming that the main reason for deleting/not wanting your fic still around is because you’re embarrassed about it, I just wanted to throw in another perspective on “readers rights”. It’s like working the customer service desk except you don’t get paid and nobody is buying anything, they just expect to get what they want all the time and if you don’t give it to them then it’s just not good enough.

I had been in fandom nearly ten years, I started back when I did have endless hours to write fic because I didn’t have real life responsibilities to deal with. Fast forward a few years and I have a full time job and I’m getting pressured to update faster or write more or participate in this fest or whatever. And if I didn’t keep up my fandom output, then the “friends” I had made in that fandom would either lose interest because they weren’t getting what they wanted or turn downright nasty. And that was before the days of entitled people demanding these things in anon comments on AO3. And until a certain point I would spend all my free time trying to keep up with what these people demanded even though the only communication I had ever gotten from them was a comment harassing me because I hadn’t updated in a month.

It wasn’t until the anti culture and people getting doxxed and harmful shit like death threats became part of fandom that I realized fandom isn’t worth it anymore. I looked around and I had a thousand or so fanfics to show for ten years and my own mental health in tatters (and it took that to see how wrecked my mental health was because of these “readers” and their “rights”).

So I deleted everything. Because you know what, no, there is no such thing as readers rights. I can’t stop people keeping copies, if they have, in the same way that you can’t make people be respectful. But strip away characters and shipping and what those fic were was my time, ten years of it, wasted. So it should be my choice to pull them. And if your knee jerk reaction is that you have more of a claim on what the writer does with their fic than they do, you are delusional. Given that most people dine and dash these days, all you’ve contributed to this relationship is a fraction of the time it took the writer to produce it, purely for your enjoyment. If you don’t read it, ok the writer might be bummed out if they write purely for the number on the hit counter but if all writers get alienated and jaded and sick of being beholden to readers and stop writing, there will be no fic for you to enjoy/stake your claim over.

The best analogy I have is — there’s somewhere I shop that if you have a loyalty card, on your birthday you get a free own brand chocolate bar. I was once behind a woman tearing apart a shop worker because that free chocolate bar wasn’t good enough for her. She wanted a bigger one/a branded one. It’s a free chocolate bar. If you don’t like the free thing, don’t have the free thing. Unless you are paying for it, you are not owed anything just because you are blessing that shop worker/fic writer with your presence. I wish I had realized that sooner, before fandom got to the state it has now.

(And for the record, while I’m blissfully jaded about fandom/entitled people in general, I’m much happier out of it, have a great circle of friends that I don’t need to bribe to keep, and I got a promotion at work. I just need to find something other than fandom secrets and ONTD to scroll mindlessly while I wait for my alarm to go off. Though writing this out was great closure.)

[(Anonymous)]

I’m sorry that people treated you like a fic vending machine. I’ve never sent an “update plz” message or review because if that was the only feedback an author was getting I imagine it would suck.

I only ever posted a couple of non-kinky kinkmeme fills on LJ back in the day and have no idea if they’re still up, and have sent anon flashfic asks and a couple longer anon submission fics on tumblr; I never had accounts at either, so I couldn’t be hunted down to ask for sequels.

[(Anonymous)]

Man, I get so tired of entitled authors. If you are writing for whatever feedback you do or do not get and not for your own personal enjoyment, you are doing fandom wrong. Who gives a fuck if people ask you to update or if you get no comments at all? Write what you want to write, when you want to write.

No great loss, though, I've never known anyone with this attitude who wrote stuff worth reading anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT—As someone who’s never posted any fic or anything else un-anon, and has reams of fic I’ve never posted anywhere, and is all in favor of people saving fic and authors leaving it up even when they’re no longer fond of it, you sound like the kind of fan who makes people decide to quit posting and pull their fics.

I mainly write for myself; that’s why everything I’ve shared has been in response to a prompt or request someone wanted to see. But as a fic reader, if everyone wrote only for themselves and didn’t care about feedback, I know for certain I’d have way less fic to read and enjoy.

[(Anonymous)]

If people were writing solely for their own personal enjoyment, most of them wouldn't post fic. And then you'd be here whining endlessly about how fandom is dying and you just don't know why.

[(Anonymous)]

This! Fandom is a two-way street.

[(Anonymous)]

Funny, because most of the people I know who write fic do so because they have a particular story/scenario itch they want to scratch for themselves. They just post it because they figure someone else might enjoy it too.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT - I was speaking specifically as a fic writer. Comments and kudos are fun but completely irrelevant to what I choose to write and post.

My tastes aren't very mainstream so I'm unlikely to whine about lack of fic since there is rarely much for me anyway. And I do leave feedback on the rare occasion I find something that appeals to me. I just don't consider it "payment" (lol) for a service. My god, what a capitalist way of looking at it.

Fandom is not supposed to be about getting "paid", in real money or in feedback. Seriously.

[(Anonymous)]

People can delete anything they want, but I just can't agree that saving an offline copy of a fic (just to read, not re-post) is a disrespectful act.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

It's not anything to do with respect.

There are situations where readers and authors have made implicit compacts and do "owe" each other some kind of respect -- of each other's time and attention, mostly, and courtesy, but for the most part not anything more.

Most of the people in fandom are both readers and authors, though. So use the golden rule if you must... Just remember not everyone wants the same things.

[ayebydan]

♥