I miss when we were gardeners. when we tended to our fandom garden as a collective, instead of worrying that someone was making their part of the garden fancier than yours. I remember when people didn’t expect that it would be here tomorrow, when we lived in fear that we’d wake up and a site that housed our words would be gone, vanished. now, we don’t even care when our faves vanish and their blog becomes abandoned. we used to nurture fandom because it was an escape from the acting some of us had to do day to day, that we could be ourselves here. it feels—at times now—that people walk in, pluck a flower and leave. that if you’re not posting something new, your use is so little. but then, I remember when gif makers were respected and appreciated, and never had their work stolen and immediately put on twitter, and when moodboard makers and artists were adorned with so many reblogs and comments with ideas and headcanons that aided in new stories being generated. now no one shares any ideas out of fear some blog will write it first and you’ll be accused of stealing what you’ve spent months on. I remember when writers were seen as people who were just as talented as the people I’ve mentioned before, when people acknowledged how long it took to write a chapter or a one-shot. now, we’re easily replaceable, whether it’s AI or we’re simply not quick enough that people don’t want to invest. I remember waiting six months for an update on my fave fic, and I never felt slighted by it. because we liked being in fandom? we liked being supportive of everyone in it. we didn’t like everyone in it, because that’s impossible, but we didn’t make it our mission to burn them until they left, because we understood that even a gardener we didn’t like, was still someone cultivating a flower for someone we couldn’t make on our own. the saying it takes a village applies to fandom, and the question we need to be asking ourselves is: are we all doing our part or just taking and hoping it’ll be there to take from tomorrow?