Seein' too many Twitter refugees asking if they'll get in trouble for saying "kill yourself" to people and while no, you're not gonna get nuked from orbit, that is maybe something you just shouldn't be doing in general perhaps?? Maybe telling people to kill themselves is bad actually?? Some of y'all are wild, why is the first thing you can think to ask on a new platform if you can send one of the worst kinds of harassment to people?? Grow tf up and learn how to use the block button. It'll do wonders for your mood, trust me.

What part of "it is unacceptable to tell another human being to kill themselves" is hard for you people to wrap your heads around?

No means No, even if it's a big name author with tons of lawyers behind them. When they say "please don't show me fan fic," that's enough, and, if they give more detail about why, you don't get to judge whether you think they're telling the truth or not

To clarify: I saw a post where someone said they didn't believe that Big Name Authors were genuinely afraid of being sued, but that instead they were just snobs who hated fanfic and thought saying "oh no I could get sued" was more polite than sharing their true feelings

Another author shared a detailed, eloquent explanation of what a bad take that was, and all of the points were 100% valid

but

No Means No

and I was just so baffled that the OP was more willing to spin a tale of authors all agreeing to the same lie about not wanting to get sued so they could hide their disdain for their fans, than just respecting the requests not to do it

Authors who hate fanfic are not afraid to say so.

Authors who love fanfic are not afraid to say so.

We are not collectively in the business of lying for free. We get paid for that. So no, we're not running a mass conspiracy to lie to you about our feelings.

I just got an ask about a Native spirit that many Natives have asked monsterfuckers to not use.

It starts with a W.

People from the culture it’s from do not say its name because in their culture, saying the name summons the spirit. Out of respect for my friends from that culture, I do not say/type the name either.

I would kindly ask you not put that creature in my ask box in the future. I know the person that submitted it likely didn’t know so there’s no hard feelings. It’s alright. I’m not upset.

I’m not really the best person to educate folks on this topic and I wish I had some resources on why that’s not a good thing for non-Native people to use for their fiction.

I’m sure even my wording here isn’t great. I know the spirit is from a specific Native culture (there’s a lot of them, for those that didn’t know lol) and I can’t remember which one(s) and my brain is still fuzzy from being sick.

So if any of my followers are familiar with this issue, please feel free to share the info of why this isn’t good.

Again, I understand the person that sent the ask likely didn’t know all this. I’m not upset. I just think it’s worth mentioning.

Ugh I’m trying to research to find resources of actually Native folks saying it’s bad for non-Native folks to use this spirit and instead I’m just finding Hot Takes like

“The *** may be a figure from American Indian mythology, but it belongs to all of humankind”

No? Like haven’t we (colonizers) taken enough from Indigenous people without also appropriating their spirits and misusing them? Fuck right off.

I’m too sick to deal with this shit today.

Hello! Hi! Yes! Maybe I can help here!

Here are some very basic things to help people understand this:

As a non-Anishinaabe Native, my go-to term for this spirit is the winter hunger.

Additionally, many Southwestern and Western Native American tribes have stories of beings called sk-nw-lkers who I hate having to even obliquely ‘say’ for similar reasons to the former: They can hear when you speak about them.

Just like the winter hunger, the desert swallowing you whole is not a being which is to be used by anyone who is not themselves of a Native tribe that has experience with this being, and also not if you do not know the lore. Whether or not it is dangerous, it is if nothing else deeply disrespectful.

Also this is not true. You do in fact have the copyright to the specific writing you did in a fic, because that's not how copyright law works. Like this is not a grey area.

People who write IP content for corporations give up their copyright on a contractual basis--the company wants writing they can sell about characters/settings they own without getting entangled in royalty obligations etc, so they hire people. Who sign contracts saying they don't own what they write as part of that job.

That's why you don't own Star Wars stuff you wrote for Disney; you specifically agreed not to own it.

Writing for IP you don't own leaves you in a position where you can't legally monetize it (without taking out the Owned parts ad rebranding), but it absolutely does not automatically cede or void copyright. That is super not a thing.

SUPER not a thing, I cannot say this enough.

I can't sell my Batman fic, but neither can DC Comics without my duly authorized consent. Because they own Batman, but not the prose I composed about him.

Do not perform that kind of massive corporate overreach for them. Holy shit. Do they not own enough.

It’s fascinating that this misconception of copyright still exists. Haven’t we all seen the posts on here where authors beg fans to please not send them fanfic of their works? They’re not doing that because they feel like it, they do that because fans legally own their words and ideas, and an author who takes them even unintentionally can in fact end up in real legal trouble for taking something that’s not theirs. It doesn’t matter whether they own the canon.

This.

Copyright is the most basic of protections for all writers. If there’s anything professional/career writers want spread around, it’s the knowledge that all writers have the same protections that copyright confers on us.

Astonishing indeed that anon would attempt to upbraid somebody on copyright issues when, themselves, they understand them so poorly.

The idea that because you don’t own Batman, your Batman fanfic is public domain is one the DC-Warner Bros’ lawyers would take exception to as well. They know they don’t own the fanfic, but they own the hell out of Batman. Public domain? Not hardly!

I hate that planned obsolescence is starting to reach fandoms. I hate that fandoms are starting to die after two, three years, I hate that whenever you stop getting content that means the fandom will die and be gone.

I need people to stop trying to brush off old interests as being 'cringe' as soon as you lose interest, or worse: make it seem like it's imoral to like something that they themselves held so dear before.

Fandoms are meant to last for years and years, the moment content stops being created is the moment we truly thrive because we keep creating the content ourselves the way we love it and expand on the things that are already there for us.

I don't care if you lost interest on something, it's fine and normal even, but stop trying to blame and make fun of people who still do love the fandom and the content and the things we can create.

I need people to enjoy fandom again

If you laugh at someone for doing a certain behaviour, but know you wouldn’t if they said they’re autistic, then maybe you shouldn’t laugh at all

people complaining about the lack of content in fandoms lately: maybe if y'all didn’t steal and repost other people’s hard work and actually showed your appreciation for it by liking it, commenting on it, reblogging it, etc, and/or didn’t spend all your time harassing people who like things you don’t like, or like things differently than you, fanartists and writers would feel like producing more work?

[ID: The floor is sand meme. An image of an upside down person, with their head and torso in a hole. The image is captioned “The floor is supporting each other’s queer headcanons even if they’re different or incompatible”. End ID]

It’s amazing what people will say about autism when they don’t think any autistic people are around, but when they’re called out by an autistic person they’ll try to back pedal so fast they could win the Tour de France in reverse and still fail at justifying their words.

Reminder: Whether you’re neurotypical or neurodivergent, respect autistic peoples’ special interests, and don’t act like they shouldn’t like it just because you don’t

Casey Fiesler, Everything I Need To Know I Learned from Fandom: How Existing Social Norms Can Help Shape the Next Generation of User-Generated Content, p735

Update: Now with link to an open access version of the paper and correct page, apologies for the typo.

(via studiesof-fandom-original)

As you all may know, I am an Asian American, and the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the US is tragic and terrifying. A few years ago, my mother and I had unprovoked, racist threats spat at us while we were simply grocery shopping. They didn’t care who we were as people- they just reduced us to our race. I want this space to be positive and encouraging for everyone, and that’s not possible unless I make this space clearly anti-racist. I hope this comic is a hopeful reminder that we’re all able to make the world a better place together! I can’t stop anything alone, but together, we can make a more caring society that welcomes and protects people of all races. 

That last post does drive home that one of the reasons some people who dislike tragic fiction feel so vehemently about it is because they believe that a sad ending is some kind of punishment or condemnation of the characters and their choices. Which - yeah, if I felt that way I’d probably dislike tragedy too!

That’s not how tragedy works, though, is the thing. There is no win-state. Traditionally speaking the audience goes in knowing that there is no win-state, already aware of the story’s destination but here to see the journey. (Maybe there’s something to be said here about fate, and modernity, and how our experience of certain stories subtly changes when we don’t understand fate as a very real force. Maybe there’s also something to be said about a kind of cultural bootstraps individualism and belief in the power of personal choices.)

Tragedy is about making choices when there is no correct choice - when all you have left is your agency to choose. Tragedy is a maze with one exit, where the story is how you get there. Tragedy is humanity as the beautiful wild creature with its leg in a trap, gnawing it off to be free, and the audience caught in terrible awe at so much furious alive-ness in a story made of death.

And obviously it’s valid for that not to be some people’s cup of tea. I can see why it wouldn’t be! But I do get sort of curious sometimes at how fundamentally differently different people seem to experience sad stories, and I think the idea that sad endings are an implicit condemnation of the characters explains some of it.

I just wanted to put this out there. If you're someone who tries to comment on fics. If you're someone who tries to reblog art and headcanons and meta. If you're someone who wants to let creators know that you appreciate their creations.

You're doing enough. You're doing more than enough.

Please don't feel guilty for the times that you can't or the times that you forget or the times that you just don't know what to say.

You're appreciated, even when you don't speak up. You're welcome in fandom, even if you don't speak up at all.

You don't have to pay a fee to enjoy someone's creation. It's incredibly appreciated when you do, but it's not a requirement. You're welcome in this space either way. ❤