OCT 28-NOV 1! HERE'S THE PLAN!!!!

(I should be screaming right, that's what Skelly does??) I contacted the best detectives, and they're going to help us investigate Skelly's disappearance.

YOU can help by leaving COMMENTS COMMENTS COMMENTS! Each day, one of our detectives will head up the investigation with a special comments theme. Details on each theme to follow, watch this space!

Here are detailed instructions on each day's theme from our incredible team of detectives! TOGETHER WE CAN FIND OUR BELOVED MISSING SKELETON!

I'm seeing a whole lot of self deprecation and negativity in the comments, and if skelly were here, do you know what he would say?

They'd say NO EXCUSES, JUST RESULTS

Fandom is so different now and it’s becoming un-fun with how quickly shit moves.

I just want to enjoy things. I don’t want to have to play a game of Artist-Race that seems to be afoot lately.

Ya’ll eat up fandoms, leave artists and writers bone dry and then move on so fucking quickly then fucking wonder where all the Good Fandom Stuff is.

Idk Maybe cherish some things for longer. Reblog stuff. Interact with people. Comment and share.

Fandom is Capitalism now and I’m not being nuanced.

people also seem obsessed with only Doing Fandom about currently active works?

“oh, I’m so sad that show ended! I really miss the fandom!” who said you have to leave, coward

Fun fact: You are part of keeping a fandom alive. Every interaction, every person in a fandom has their own part to play. If that’s reblogging art, fanfics or making cursed edits, that’s good enough.

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

Fandom is for community, not consumption.

I think everyone should leave comments on the fics they read. And like not just because it's a nice gesture to thank the author for their hard work or because it's lazy not to or whatever, but just because it makes you feel like you're actually part of a community and that makes it so much nicer to be in fandom.

Like I used to be really bad about leaving comments, mainly because when I really loved a fic I would be like "I have to come back and comment on this when I have time to write a properly long comment that truly reflects what I appreciated about this amazing piece of fiction" and then I obviously never did that and then I felt bad about it for a while and then I forgot.

I told my friend about this, how I had fics that had like impacted me so much, that I had read multiple times and never commented on, and she looked at me like I was insane. And she was like "I comment on every fic that I read and like", like that was self-evident and uncomplicated.

And then I started doing that too. If I read a fic and I like it, I leave a comment right away. If it's like 3am and I have no brain power to put words together, then I just write like "I loved it" or something like that and it has genuinely improved my fandom experience so much. Because I don't have to feel bad about not commenting or whatever, but mainly because I just really like having those small interactions, like that there's actually communication going on, I'm not just consuming fic, and sometimes the author responds and that's nice too, but it's not really about that. Like I haven't published a new fic in almost half a year, but I still feel like I'm actively contributing to this fandom/the spn community and that makes me happy.

so im hearing @astolat is god??? what's your 10 commendments my liege

My best stab! lol

-> people stealing, binding and selling fics on Etsy, risking everything that AO3 has built since the Anne Rice lawsuits

-> AI scraping being everywhere and Gen Z seeing nothing wrong with using AI to "help" fanfiction or outright "write it" for them, while older fanfic authors have struggled for years to perfect the style you love

-> comments being down across the board and consumption culture being at an all time high. a fic gets 800 notes practically overnight and doesn't get a single comment (and sometimes I literally have to beg for comments/feedback on my fics when I know that hundreds of people are reading them)

-> me, grinding my teeth while pouring my heart and soul into a 40k fic that I know will be forgotten by fandom in a month or could possibly be stolen to be sold as a "novel": I do this because I love this. I do this because I love this. I do this because it's my passion. I don't want to quit doing something that I love so much.

Me writing my soon-to-be 60k Sasunaru fic to practically no one. Guess it is just easier to think it as a solitude comfort act that people join in occasionally. Nice to have someone comments on it though. Like I reread the few ones I had more than 10 times each lol. Those are my inspiration to see it through. Have a feeling it’s going to be more than 100k

There also needs to be a button for “this is the 5000th time I’ve read your fic because I’m having a horrible day and this is the only thing in the world that always brings me happiness.”

good news: there is!

Support the folks posting work on comment-ebabled sites!

I love when people leave comments on my old stuff.

Its like passive income but it actually works to make me happy.

Honestly though, comments like that are gold to me. I love to write and a comment telling me that something I’ve done has improved someone’s life even in a small way? That’s impact. We live in societies that tell us over and over we have no value and nothing we do is ever good enough. So for someone to post a comment telling us that we improved their lives with our stories? That tells us our effort had value. We writers set out to improve the world in tiny ways, offering random acts of kindness in the form of a few minutes’ entertainment, and comments tell us we’ve achieved that little goal.

I think there's something that needs to be said about encouraging readers to leave feedback.

For me it's not about "tell me my writing is amazing and stroke my ego"

It's more about "please engage with me so that I can experience your joy secondhand and foster a connection with you"

I understand that not everyone wants this in their reading experience, some people are shy and a million other reasons why maybe someone wouldn't want to engage and that's perfectly fine!

But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.

On encouraging reblogs —

I understand that not everyone is comfortable reblogging, especially explicit content. This is ok!

But just consider that the only reason you were able to enjoy a fic or fanart is because someone else shared it, and by not sharing it yourself you are potentially robbing someone else of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as you did.

As OPs our reach only goes so far and this website relies on reblogs in order for anything to truly get seen by a wider audience.

So that's really it! That's why I encourage these two things at the end of every story I post. Not because I'm trying to be demanding and "make people feel bad" if they don't do it.

I know most other social media sites encourage mindless content consumption and that's just the way of the world nowadays, but I am from a time when community was at the heart of fandom and I just don't want to lose that.

But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.

welcome to the supernatural rec fest!

for a whole month (and beyond?) i want to encourage everyone to praise and celebrate all the works and authors they’ve enjoyed, neatly separated into prompts open to interpretation 💛

info:

schedule and suggestions | guides and faq

happy rereading and compiling 🧡

i think what most people fail to understand is that curating your online experience doesn't just mean blocking and filtering the things you don't like or don't want to see but that it also (and maybe more importantly) means engaging with the things you do like and want to see. if someone creates something that makes your experience better, let them know! tell them! reblog their things! you get to see/share more of what you like and they get to know that someone out there appreciates their work it's a win-win situation for everyone involved

A COMINT !!

the last line hit me like a fuckin sledgehammer

Do folks who are someone’s favorite fic writer, fan artist, etc. know it? Are they aware that their work has made a genuine impact on the lives of other human beings walking the planet? That there are real flesh-and-blood people who have been touched and affected by what they’ve made, and that they are thought of and discussed frequently with affection and gratitude and awe?

I hope they know. They deserve to know.

Tell them.

DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON OLD FICS DONT BE AFRAID TO COMMENT ON FICS IN A FANDOM THE AUTHOR MAY NO LONGER BE ACTIVE IN. IF THE STORY IS STILL UP LET THEM KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS IT MIGHT JUST BE THE REMINDER THAT MAKES THEIR DAY.

SINCERELY SOMEONE WHO JUST GOT A REPLY THAT MADE ME WANNA MAKE THIS POST

op's tags:

Stories don't have expiration dates! AO3 is an Archive specifically so you can still read old stuff!!!

anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful

my dream as a fanfic writer is to write a story which people want to talk to me about and send asks about afterwards and discuss things the characters did and the symbolism and meanings behind certain lines and I'll be all "hehe thanks" but irl I'll be in literal tears because I wrote something that means something to someone

Please give me feedback! :)

I got an AO3 comment once which summarised said, 'I've been reading this fic for years and I keep coming back to it over and over because it's so amazing and I feel guilty that all this time I never commented, so this is me letting you know how much it's meant to me for so long.' And that was incredible, because five minutes before I didn't know that person existed and then they tell me that I've made such an impact on them.

It is never too late to leave a comment - the author will always be thrilled.

me, quietly whispering to the ao3 page of an author who doesn’t even know I exist: I am obsessed with you

me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who hasn’t updated anything in four years: I think about you often and I hope you’re alright

me, whispering to the ao3 page of an author who wrote one life altering banger and nothing else: I hope your pillow is cool and your skin is clear and you find money in a forgotten jeans pocket

me, whispering to every single person on this post: please leave one singular comment saying literally any of that

better than drugs