"Vodka/Wine Aunt Vibes"

People seem to have forgotten that "proship" was the Fandom norm for the longest time.

Only, it wasn't called proship. It was called ship and let ship. Or minding your own buisness.

If someone had a ship you didn't like or thought was gross, you would avoid them. If they drew art or wrote stories you didn't agree with or like, you would ignore them.

There were tags like smut, whump, and angst to tell people about things they might not want to read. And then dead dove: do not eat for taboo subjects and especially gritty fic.

Then people started to ignore that. Younger fans started to bully people because they disagreed with shipping certain characters. Whether it be because it "wasn't canon", they thought it was gross, or they just didn't like it.

These people began calling themselves "anti-ship"

Pro-ship became a label to show that someone was against anti-ship.

Eventually, the anti-ship movement began to die down. So do you know what they did? They started accusing people. Of being pedophiles, groomers, rape supporters, and more. All because they wrote or drew things that these people didn't like.

They began claiming that THEY were the Fandom norm, and that these "proshippers" were the bad people. They started claiming that proship stood for "problematic shipping"

Due to this, the term "pro-ship" is often misconstrued as to what it means. Many people don't even KNOW what it means.

It means "anti-censorship".

It means that we support someone's right to produce art, no matter how gross, no matter how taboo, no matter how "problematic"

Because it's not hurting anyone.

If it's something you don't want to see? Block the person. Block the tag. Say in your bio that you don't like it. That's what they're FOR!

This was discussed in earlier days of fandom.

Except now, it would be like the person who didn't like the cherry pie and ordered it anyways then demanded that no restaurant serve cherry pie because it was poison. Not only is it a ridiculous request, it's blatantly untrue.

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

It was women with secretarial jobs doing a lot of the heavy lifting, if memory serves correctly.

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Boss make a dollar, she makes a dime. That's why she's printing Kirk X Spock zines on company time.

so.

i guess fanfiction wasn’t a phase….

anyway tag how old you were when you got into fanfiction, and your first fandom, and how long you’ve been stuck in the trenches with all the rest of us

Yes the servers are gone. No, @ashilrak and I aren't blaming one specific person. We've received harassment on and off for years regarding this fandom, shipping, our not wanting discourse/bashing, etc... but that tends to come in waves in all fandoms, unfortunately. We're people and have real lives that take priority over fandom. Fandom is escapism for us, and it was no longer that at this point.

“the ending is always the same”

war of the foxes - richard silken / waterloo - ABBA / euripides’ medea - the little theatre / anne carson / the three fates - luca cambiaso / the oresteia - aeschylus / road to hell II - hadestown / when i met you - mira lightner / andersen’s fairy tale anthology

If there's one piece of advice I can give to fic writers who feel discouraged by the "content creation" culture and lack of community engagement in modern fandom, it's to try writing for an audience of one.

And I don't mean write for yourself!

Find one weirdo friend that enjoys sharing ideas with you, and write fanfiction for them. Get to know their taste, and tailor your writing to it. One person who will message you while reading your stuff and want to discuss it deeply and dig into and challenge your ideas - they will give you more creative satisfaction than a hundred vague, vacant comments of praise.

Maybe some other folks will end up reading and enjoying your work! If they do, they will probably have more in-depth things to say, too, because you'll be writing deeply on a specific set of concepts, not creating broadly palatable, derivative, marketable drivel meant to appeal to a large audience.

And if no one else reads it, you'll still have that one weird friend.

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

Writing advice from my uni teachers:

This is legit good writing advice, especially the first bullet point! In playwriting class we did a bit where every bit of dialogue had to be an accusatory question and it was glorious.

Percy Jackson Spring Equinox Gift Exchange

It's time for another gift exchange! All ships are welcome! Joining the discord server is required to participate.

Rules, FAQs, and Sign-Ups can be found here

February 16th is the last day to sign up!

Assignments will be sent out February 17th. Fics will be due March 15th and revealed on the 19th.

Feel free to send any questions our way.

Please reblog!

Percy Jackson Spring Equinox Gift Exchange

It's time for another gift exchange! All ships are welcome! Joining the discord server is required to participate.

Rules, FAQs, and Sign-Ups can be found here

February 16th is the last day to sign up!

Assignments will be sent out February 17th. Fics will be due March 15th and revealed on the 19th.

Feel free to send any questions our way.

Please reblog!

most baffling and annoying type of person in fandom will always be the ones who are deadass like “i hate literally everything about this dogshit thing but i’m still gonna complain constantly instead of dropping it and you have to take my opinions on it seriously bc i’m a fan too”

Dear writers on AO3: "No archive warnings apply" is for your fluff, soft character, chill smut or story fics. It's for when there's nothing big/triggering and none of the major archive warnings show up in your story.

"Creator chose not to use archive warnings" is THE EXACT OPPOSITE. It is a Massive "enter at your own risk" sign indicating one or more of the major archive warnings or other nasty/gnarly/triggering tags may apply but would be a major spoiler to tag (e.g. horror/thriller fics where one of the major characters is killed). PLEASE don't use this tag if you mean "no archive warnings apply," they're not the same thing.

Sincerely, someone who just saw four T-rated fluff fics in a row tagged "creator chose not to use archive warnings" and had a minor heart attack.

Okay, I get what you're trying to do here, but this is not actually true.

"No Archive Warnings Apply" is used when none of the required archive warnings are present in the fic, correct. This is for fics which do not contain Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, or Underage content.

HOWEVER. This emphatically does not mean the NAWA tag is only for "fluff, soft character, chill smut or story fics." A NAWA fic may contain balls to the wall raunchy smut, Blorbo's terrible horrible no good very bad day, massive violence not graphically depicted, relationships that are deeply unsettling to every outside observer within and without the story, whump, heartbreak, tragedy, and much much more. A fic being marked "No Archive Warnings Apply" is not a guarantee that anyone involved is going to have a good time — only that there is no Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, or Underage. There is a reason AO3 also has ratings and other tags available to authors.

"Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is, as you say, the "Enter at Your Own Risk" flag, but NOT because it means one of the Archive Warnings or other heavy content is necessarily present.

CNTW means precisely what it says — the creator elected not to use the Archive Warnings. It may contain all of them. It may contain none of them. It may contain weird edge cases where the author was unsure if an Archive Warning would apply. It might be a fic with dark, heavy, or disturbing themes despite the absence of those big four. It might be a perfectly pleasant T-rated fic posted by someone who simply does not philosophically vibe with mandatory warnings. (Those writers exist!) It may even be nothing but fluff imported through the open doors program from an older archive that didn't use any kind of warning system. CNTW offers no guarantees as to content; it simply stands as a signal to the reader that this work's metadata cannot tell them what lies ahead.

Now will many authors, out of preference, courtesy, or habit, choose NAWA for "softer" fics and CNTW for "darker" fics? Certainly. But this is neither universal nor required by the Archive. The warning tags mean what they say, no more, no less.

raise a glass to the posts you love that end up deleted. to the fanart and fanfics you lose track of and can't locate. to the blogs you used to look through that ended up unexpectedly disappearing. to the things you didn't archive because you always assumed they'd be there.

I’m so sleepypilled. I’m sleepymaxing no matter the location. I’m nightcap and candle on a little plate core. honking and mimimi-ing.

People worrying is their fic is too self indulgent like....... that is the point of fanfiction. You are supposed to indulge . Every fic is self indulgent

Indulge in the thing you want. Do it more. Have all the cake. That's the entire point.