[ SECRET POST #5567 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5567 ⌋

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


01.



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02.
(image is from The Story of Yanxi Palace)


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03.
[image is from One Piece]


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04.
[Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed]


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05.
[Centaurworld]


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06.
[Hogwarts Legacy]


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07.
[How I Met Your Mother]
















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 34 secrets from Secret Submission Post #797.
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

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/CqERZsr.png

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah, very much so. I blame the AO3 crowd for that.

[(Anonymous)]

I blame twitter and the easy access it provided to professional content creators and actors. Closing the distance between the creator and the fans was good in some ways - more accountability for lack of diversity, for one - but terrible in others.

One of those negatives was that people grew used to an online environment where you could directly tweet at people to demand what you wanted to see, and sometimes you got what you wanted. They then classed fanfic writers in the same category, and felt entitled to demand if them as well as they didn't see them as any different to the paid professionals.

Add to that the increase in performative morality, an increase in right-wing activity, and an increase in younger audience members (who have less general awareness of grey areas and are more primed to follow the popular crowd) and this is what you get.

[(Anonymous)]

As far as the creators being accessible on Twitter goes, fans can lobby for whatever they like, but there's no obligation to give it to them.

Conversely, there sure are a lot of creators (specifically writing teams for TV shows) who love the adulation and likes and shares and shit. They feed off that energy and encourage it by interacting with fans to stoke their egos. They're perfectly welcome to use social media anonymously or ignore fans, but they don't, so I feel zero pity for them.

[(Anonymous)]

+1000

[(Anonymous)]

Can you explain this? I’m just a casual fanfic reader and I feel like I’m missing some context. What exactly are AO3 users doing that you don’t like?

[(Anonymous)]

They have a legal fund to try and stop authors and creators from asserting control of their own IPs. They think that if you publish something, then it should be fair game for anyone else to use it as they see fit. Notably this stance does not apply to fanfic authors though, who are entitled to the type of IP protection that Disney would have wet dreams to achieve. AO3 wants to tear up everything we have on copyright law for everyone else though.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you the anon who just likes to shit on AO3 all the time, or do you have a point to this?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Yup, it's the "AO3 IS DESTROYING COPYRIGHT!!1!" troll.

[(Anonymous)]

Yep.

[(Anonymous)]

Do you ever stop? Could you, please? Because you're really fucking annoying.

[(Anonymous)]

Really? I blame instant-gratification everything for that. Kind of like when you go to the internet and post an obviously inflammatory comment, in the hopes you'll have angry people's tears to jerk off with five minutes later. Except with other people, they have either grown accustomed to instant feedback to something they wrote/created, or else they have never known a world where that wasn't a thing.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I don't like it either. There's always been some level of entitlement, but the fact that people can easily hop onto Twitter or whatever to bombard their favorite creators with what they want to see or don't want to see just made things worse.

[(Anonymous)]

It's definitely due to social media and the accessibility of canon creators. I miss the days when the first rule of Fic Club was you didn't talk about Fic Club anywhere anyone connected to the canon could hear about it.

Fans get drunk on power when they can do things like running John Green off Tumblr and start acting absolutely tyrannical to people who are just in the fandom with them, not even canon creators. After all, if they can get a rush of power from screaming at show writers and voice actors and such, it's even safer and more convenient to do it to fellow fans. They get addicted to the rush of brain chemicals that feeling self-righteous gives.

[(Anonymous)]

They never shoulda released a Snyder Cut. Hell, even making a Firefly movie set a real bad precedent.

[(Anonymous)]

Did anyone even prefer the Snyder cut over the original release? All I heard about it was even more complaints. I like to think TPTB knew that the complainers would hate it as well and only released it as a middle finger to the complainers. They got to charge them twice for the same movie!

[(Anonymous)]

It's the hypocrisy that gets me. Pretending to be righteous, when all they do is bully people. Disgusting.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, this showed up right after I spent a whole weekend watching my tumblr timeline flood with "writers are leaving the community because no one engages and it's discouraging".

I feel so conflicted. Part of me understands how discouraging it can be to get little engagement, but I couldn't help but feel a little bitter that most of the writers who were caught up in the "PLEASE REBLOG, LIKES ARE USELESS" discourse were BNFs. Easy for them to say with their multiple fics with hundreds or thousands of likes, but the 100 reblogs is discouraging.

I get if there is literally little to no engagement, but I feel like the fandom is generally active? I don't know what to tell writers who get upset that their fics don't get "big numbers". Like, how much are you looking for? (legit, cuz I don't know how much is "good" and how much is a "failure") I'm excited if one of my fics gets ANY attention at all (outside of trolls, hate and spam). Yes, it is discouraging a bit and it makes me sad if a fic I really liked and hoped would get big numbers doesn't, but IDK. I mainly began writing and posting fics because I wanted to share stories I created when I got into the fandom. Like...IDK, am I too far into my pretentious artsy side that I forget the social side to fanfic writing?

Don't get me wrong, I've been reading, leaving comments, liking and reblogging fics, but IDK...it feels weird when everyone is demanding for more. Maybe I suck at social shit. The whole vibe felt like I was surrounded by insecure demands for more attention and sorry man, no one owes you or your fic exactly what you want.

I'm so sorry if I'm an asshole for thinking this, but it bothers me when people spend a lot of time worrying about getting the most numbers and the most followers and the most eyeballs onto their thing...I like eyeballs on my things, but I also] would rather have people who actually enjoy my things engage rather than just a bunch of people who are doing it because we gotta make all the BNFs happy that they will continue to get those big big numbers and high engagement. It just starts to feel like high school all over again. I just want to write and read fics, tell writers that I liked their fics, not be rounded up by the popular kids telling us that the social setting is turning into [XYZ] and we need to [ABC] to start making the fandom fun again.
If they want to make PSAs to get more engagement, they're free to do so but fuck, man, do I hate it. Let your work speak for itself, if it's not super popular who gives a shit? Find a new hobby in the fandom to get the clout you want then. Some of us just want to fucking write.
Eh...am I one of those entitled assholes in fandom?

[(Anonymous)]

No, I don't think you sound entitled. You do leave comments and interact, so you're holding up your end of the bargain here and you're fine. The entitlement comes with demanding huge numbers and throwing a hissy fit when you don't get them for whatever reason (and sometimes that reason is someone is known to be so wanky that people don't want to interact because you don't want to draw the attention of someone who acts like that).

The entitlement also comes in when fans expect the canon and other people's fanworks to cater to them, specifically. When the writer's own ideas for their own story don't matter.

[(Anonymous)]

(Cozy Werewolf anon)

Nope. You aren't the problem. It's actually tumblr. If likes did the same amount of work as reblogs did in all the search functions and getting posts to be popular. Plus, tumblr isn't really a site that likes long posts.

Tumblr was never met for writers or half the stuff that goes on there right now. It was a website for artists to rival instagram. And too bad for tumblr, not only did instagram win that battle, it came out just as livejournal was having major issues due to the buy out by Russia. So, art went to instagram and fandom went to tumblr.

You keep doing your part. You sound like you're doing fine.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, you don't sound pretentious or entitled at all. Actually, I really relate to what you're saying -- when I would write, it wasn't to get kudos, likes, reblogs, etc. Like sure, that /would/ be nice, but it's not my goal. I've got a fun story (to me) that I'd like to share, esp. if there's not much of it in the pairing, so here. I hope someone enjoys! Just like I enjoyed so many pics before!

As far as engagement, I (as a reader AND occasional writer) don't feel like anyone is obliged to do anything -- that is the writer didn't have to write this and share it (but they chose to) and the reader has not obligation to comment, like, reblog, engage. It's/nice/ and appreciated when all those things do coalesce, but I don't think anyone is required to do any of it. So it's nice when someone does -- the fact you do is nice because maybe it encourages the writer, maybe it makes them smile, maybe you're connecting others to a fic they wouldn't have known! It's all great! Personally, I only comment if I REALLY liked it and need to gush about it to the author lol. But I usually kudos. Also, I'd rather have one person who genuinely enjoys the fic to leave a comment once in a while than have a bunch of engagement that I'm probably not going to be able to keep up with.

I think the real question is the intent that the person is writing with/what's their end goal and what's their personality like. If you write because you want social engagement, because you feel pride in your work and want acknowledgement, because you're lonely and want friends, because you want to be a BNF and a fandom celebrity, that's cool, it's your prerogative -- so it is with the person who wants to write because I just had this idea, here take it; the person who runs with the "I'm going to be the only person writing X, because there's only 2 X stories and I want more", or the person writing for fun, etc.. But some of former tend to lend themselves to that competition/HS/middle school BS popularity contest you mention, and I agree. To that end, I really think it's personality and end goal.

[(Anonymous)]

Hear, hear! I couldn't agree with you more.

[tabaqui]

I think it all depends on where you are in fandom. I don't see much entitlement in my circles other than 'can we please have non-cliche representation of minorities/LGBTQ'.

[(Anonymous)]

That's also entitlement though, because most of it is "My headcanon about this character being a lesbian based on the fact that she smiled at another girl one time never became canon, so I'm going to call out the creator for their homophobia."

[tabaqui]

Um...no? It actually isn't. It's discussions about how there should be more diversity and inclusivity in movies and tv, and 'ship talk, and whatnot. It's not people going off on anyone as a homophobe. It's not even directed *at* the creator, other than in general.

Like I said - my fandom circles are pretty different, apparently.