Graviticphotons, here. I decided I needed a side blog to post my fic in. No reblogs except fic, no asks/answers, mostly my fic. Published stuff, teaser excerpts, headcanons, whatever.
OC Ask Game ✨
Send an emoji and I’ll answer about my OCs!
🎀 — Tell me a fact about them
🔥 — Something they’re passionate about
😨 — Their biggest fear
🥀 — A memory that still hurts
💗 — Someone they care about deeply
🛏️ — How they act when they’re tired
🎧 — A song that fits them
🍓 — Something they love
⚔️ — What would they fight for?
🌙 — What they’re like at night
☕ — A small everyday detail about them
🧸 — How they comfort someone they love
🙃 — A weird little habit they have
🌧️ — What makes them cry
💋 — How they show affection
antigrav_vector is such an amazingly creative writer when it comes to explicit monster fics, and I couldn't love them more for that. They come up with tons of fantastic concepts, and I especially love how they explore xeno-biology in a lot of their work. If you're looking for some excellent monster smut, you've come to the right place!
Here's some of their work that I think you should check out:
Summary: This is utterly self-indulgent trashy supernatural romance fic with trashy smut. You've been warned.
Reasons why I love it:
The modern day Romeo and Juliet, except it's werewolves and vampires. I love how Steve indulges Tony in what he needs - or rather what they both need in the end. And I especially loved the tidbits about what their relationship means for them in the socio-political context. This fic is wonderful, and you should definitely read it!
Summary: The Avengers came across some weird glowing plants during one of their missions, and that has consequences no one expects. Steve, Tony, and Bruce got exposed, but only two of them are showing any kind of symptoms. Such as they are.
Pepper doesn't know how to react at first, when she finally finds out exactly what these symptoms are.
Both her lovers have tentacles, all of a sudden.
They're also doing their best to seduce her.
Reasons why I love it:
Pepper is really having the time of her life here. I love tentacles in all shape or form, and this version of tentacle anatomy is super intriguing. Especially the fact that Steve and Tony both kept their genitals. Definitely check this one out, it's great!
Tap (that) Root
Pairing: Steve/Bucky
Rating: E
Words: 3,735
Tags: Plant Hybrid Steve, Sex Pollen, Dom/Sub
Summary: Things go very awry on a mission, but oddly enough Bucky's enjoying every minute.
Reasons why I love it:
Bucky being so turned on by the fact that Steve is restraining him with his own body is really fucking hot. The whole fic had me fanning myself, there are so many great lines. I hope you give this one a shot, because antigrav_vector and Quarra did a fantastic job!
Submersive Tactics
Pairing: Steve/Bucky/Tony
Rating: E
Words: 6,112
Tags: Bucky and the Winter Soldier as Separate People, Consentacles, Synaesthesia
Summary: Steve and Bucky have more or less managed to calm James down, and Tony's done with his upgrades. That means experimenting with Bucky and James' new ability to gain temporary octopus arms.
Reasons why I love it:
Being able to taste emotions through your tentacles is such a kick-ass concept! I love the differing points of view, especially the descriptions of how Bucky and James perceive Steve and Tony's tastes through their newly gained senses. This fic is super fun and hot as hell, and you should definitely read it!
He Followed Me Home (Can I Keep Him?)
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Rating: E
Words: 7,748
Tags: Mer-Steve, Fluff and Smut, Telepathy
Summary: Tony was hot on the trail of the Xi'an'du daggers with Pepper and Jarvis at his side, when another startling discovery left him feeling like he got slapped in the face with a fish.
Merfolk, it turned out, weren't as mythical as he'd always thought.
Really, in retrospect, he probably should have known better than to think that, after all his experiences with magical creatures and artifacts, but, well, he's not perfect.
Reasons why I love it:
I love the merman lore in this fic, it really raises the stakes for the smut at the end to know why Steve approached Tony in the first place. And the whole telepathic aspect is super fun too. This fic is great, and you should definitely read it!
Such lovely compliments! I hadn't thought about those relatively old works in a while, tbh, but it's great to know that people still read and enjoy them.
Sometimes you fall down a fandom hole so deep that you end up in the weirdest rarepair hell. So uh, Dooku/Sifo Dyas with a little casual Jaster Mereel specifically based on @antigrav-vector and @quarra ‘s incredible fic:
The 212th Attack Battalion’s Guide to Staging Rescues
Don't mind me while I send about a week just staring at this for hours. They're so cute omg. I can't even with their expressions (the visible fondness is on point and wonderful) and the casual cuddles (guh). Not to mention the ridiculously handsome faces you gave them. Oh I definitely spotted that collar of Sy's, yes I did. That's straight out of those visual references we linked, which is 👌 chef's kiss. And Jaster in the background just looking like he's storing away the sight for later...
For the made up fic title thing: there isn’t a flag I haven’t waved
Oooooooo I like this one!! Mercenary AU for sure.
Obi-Wan’s not exactly Fallen but he struggles with the Dark a LOT after Qui-Gon never comes back to Melida/Daan. He’s unable to reach the council to request mediation (for whatever reason, tho I am pro-Council so I’m gonna assume it’s either Dooku or Qui-Gon being a bastard), and after Cerasi’s death the Young get wiped out and war consumes the planet yet again.
Obi-Wan and a few survivors manage to escape, tho any older kids who managed to survive blame him for not doing enough and the group eventually splinters, with Obi-Wan taking care of the youngest children alone in the galaxy at age 13. Obi-Wan keeps them all alive and healthy but at great cost to himself, and eventually starts killing people for money because he doesn’t have any other marketable skills (besides the Force, which would only get him enslaved).
The kids are all fiercely loyal to him and eventually insist on helping him once they grow old enough. They’re all veterans of Melida/Daan despite Obi-Wan’s efforts to shelter them and so they’re excellent guerrilla fighters, with Obi-Wan as their leader and strategist.
They have a reputation for being brutal, tight lipped, and effective, but they REALLY rocket into infamy when they run afoul of the Bando Gora and dismantle them from the inside, posing as slaves to do it because no one expects a bunch of teenage mercenaries. (They wear masks when they’re not on the job so most people assume they’re older than they actually are.)
Obi-Wan kills Komari Vosa himself and takes her lightsabers. Jango is PISSED someone stole his bounty. (And feeling some type of way about this mercenary band with morals, like the True Mandalorians, with a leader who’s so young but sometimes acts so much like Jaster.) Dooku is searching frantically for this mysterious mercenary who he wants to be the template for his clone army. The Jedi are on the hunt for this possible Sith who’s going around taking down gangs, crime syndicates, and various extremist splinter groups with twin red sabers.
Obi-Wan is in his 20s, in charge of a large group of violent and unruly teenagers because he keeps accidentally adopting more and more, and trying his best. Anakin Skywalker grows up hearing stories about the Faceless, who always make sure to free the slaves of their targets and sometimes even take them in to train as warriors. And if he sometimes wishes he could have joined them instead of the Jedi, well. They’re probably just legends. It’s not like he’s ever gonna MEET them, nor their mysterious leader with hair as red as his blades.
Eventually Dooku gives up on finding this guy, because he’s become something of a folk hero so everyone has a story about their friend’s brother’s cousin meeting him and so there’s not a lot of substantiated sightings. He goes ahead and clones Jango, but he makes it clear that he was a second choice. Jango’s happy to have a son but pissed that he’s being treated like anything less than The Best, but he’s also got Baggage about idealistic mercenary leaders so he doesn’t go out of his way to beat Obi-Wan’s ass either. The clone army is made and Jango is perhaps even more of a prick to them because he wants them to prove his genetics ARE the best choice for an army.
The Republic hasn’t exactly banned mercenary work but it’s frowned upon, and it doesn’t help that the Faceless often take jobs to fuck over the goals of the Senate. (The kids are bitter about Melida/Daan and Obi-Wan isn’t feeling especially charitable either.) But hey, credits are credits, and the Geonosians have plenty to burn. The Faceless get hired to guard their droid foundries. It’s boring, but it pays, and it’s not like they’re particularly involved in galactic politics when most of them are in their early 20s and beat on people for a living.
That is, until their leader finds a Padawan and a Senator fucking around in the factory and realizes “oh fuck Jinn is here????”
But he’s also hella mad about Melida/Daan and more loyal to his mercenaries than to the Republic at this point, so he still brings them in because this is a steady job and he figures the Separatists aren’t stupid enough to harm 2 Jedi and a Senator. That’s an act of war! And hey they are trespassing.
Then he runs into Jango Fett and Dooku. He has barely any idea who Jango is other than “Boba’s dad” because Boba incessantly pesters his younger mercenaries for war stories and weapons training. Dooku he vaguely remembers as a guy who left the Jedi voluntarily, like he sort of did. Dooku sees this mercenary he’s been hunting for years who the Geonosians apparently hired as a SECURITY GUARD and kind of loses his shit internally, but resolves to take him as his apprentice ASAP. But first he has to get this public execution over with.
“The what,” says Obi-Wan, who is realizing that the Separatists really are about to declare war via a technical war crime because none of these people got a fair trial. Also, that’s his asshole ex-dad! You can’t just kill him!!
So Obi-Wan jumps down into the arena and frees all three of them with his twin red sabers.
Anakin: HOLY SHIT MY CHILDHOOD HERO
Qui-Gon: HOLY SHIT A SITH
Padmé: HOLY SHIT GUYS GET IT TOGETHER
Then the Geonosians try to kill him, and his murder children take exception and start fighting back, and then the Jedi arrive and ALSO decide to fight Obi-Wan because he’s a Sith!!! (Even if he doesn’t feel that dark but w/e Qui-Gon’s the Sith expert here.)
Obi-Wan’s mask gets cracked when Jango headbutts him. Qui-Gon promptly loses his shit because HIS FORMER PADAWAN HE QUITE WISELY ABANDONED AS A CHILD FOR CARING ABOUT OTHER CHILDREN STUCK IN AN ACTIVE WARZONE HAS FALLEN JUST LIKE XANATOS AND IS CLEARLY HERE FOR VENGEANCE, OH THE HUMANITY
Dooku’s like that’s my grandkid??? Fuck off Qui-Gon he’s mine now. Anakin’s like that’s my disowned older brother??? And also my childhood hero???? And a Sith???? Much to think about. Obi-Wan’s like okay pack it up kids we’re leaving, whoops Boba’s dad got decapitated we gotta adopt him now, whoops here’s a few wounded/unconscious clones gotta take them too, whoops we’ve technically declared war on both sides that’s not good.
So once they’ve escaped and Obi-Wan’s gently freaking out about being a public enemy one of his kids is like “we could always take advantage of the chaos of galactic war to take over a planet. Our home planet, preferably. Considering they killed all the kids who would’ve been of fighting age by now we could totally take over really easily by killing all the old people” and Obi-Wan’s like “now there’s an idea” and Boba is still feral but feral with direction because now he’s in the care of adults who get it and he has brothers to teach how to have rights.
So they start taking jobs to raise the funds to take over a planet and keep running afoul of the GAR and the CIS and Hondo Ohnaka’s gang and Hutts and Sith and just. So many goddamn Jedi.
Next thing you know, they’ve taken over Melida/Daan. One of the first orders of action? Renaming the planet something else. (Melidan, perhaps?) They don’t advertise the take-over, but they’re not exactly hiding it, either - and with a full-scale galactic war taking place, they figure that they’re going to be. Rather low priority.
(This may or may not be the case.)
Either way, Obi-Wan finds himself, quite coincidentally, now the elected leader of an entire planet, which has. Political repercussions. Namely, both the CIS and the Republic are trying to ‘woo’ Melidan to their side, while the Jedi are trying to arrest Obi-Wan (No Jedi Allowed is one of the cardinal rules of both the Faceless and the newly established Melidan government), but Obi-Wan is a planetary leader so they can’t just arrest him. And Obi-Wan just doesn’t have time for this - he has a planet to revitalize, he has a government to set up, an entire culture to shift away from a centuries-long war footing, he is not going to put up with this.
Obi-Wan et al declare for the Council of Neutral Systems. They’re just too busy for all this bleep.
I’m cackling at the idea that this is how Obi-Wan and Satine meet in this AU. He was a violent mercenary who just conquered a planet via mass murder of the child murderers in charge of it, she was a pacifist (and kind of a colonizer tbh) trying to force a planet to change their entire culture, can I make it any more obvious?
And you know they totally “hate” each other but his planet’s reputation as a bunch of violent bastards makes the Neutral Systems’ position a LOT more secure. Plus he’s hot and she’s hot so they definitely have amazing “hate” sex because Obi-Wan’s not really concerned with avoiding attachment. Meanwhile Qui-Gon (who was her protector in Obi-Wan’s absence) is just blowing up her commlink trying to grill her for information on the ~dangerous Sith~ she’s banging (who really just wants to be left well enough alone, good lord.)
You know that Obi-Wan’s ‘kids’ are going to be rooting for them.
*cackles* What is - well, as you said, Obi-Wan’s planet (which I will be referring to as ‘Melidan’ because it saves space) has a reputation for being violent, viciously effective ‘ex’-mercenaries. And Mandalore - well, even if Satine has been instituting sweeping changes and pushing pacifism on everyone, Mandalore has a long-standing reputation of being violent, occasionally mercenary warriors.
What I’m trying to say is, at meetings of the Council of Neutral Systems, they keep getting pushed together because ‘you have so much in common!’
(She and Obi-Wan keep getting into spirited debates - read, high-volume arguments - about colonialism and cultural eradication and making other people’s choices for them.)
Can you imagine how they deal with Maul trying to take over? He gets bodied by the duchess’s favorite booty call who’s NOT EVEN A REAL SITH. Maul has no idea who he is so whenever he sees him afterward he just screams YOU and points at him like Phoenix Wright.
If the Faceless are liberating slaves and fighting the good fight, all these myths and stories about slaves, freedom, justice for the oppressed a merciless end for the masters and can you think about the stories that are out there?
The Living Flame descended from the stars and everything was on fire, the masters, the buildings, the collars, but I walked among the flames and did not burn
CAN ANYONE SAY CULT LEVEL FOLLOWING??
ALSO
lets not even mention that the non-pacifist Mandalorians are like………this very violent, very competent person has raised A GREAY MANY CHILDREN INTO EQUALLY VIOLENT, EQUALLY COMPETENT PEOPLE.
…
oohh, look he and the pacifist duchess have a thing…maybe we can use this?
no wait, why does THE NON-VIOLENT DUCHESS GET THIS VERY VIOLENT PERSON?? SHE DOES NOT APPRECIATE HIM, WE WOULD!
cue almost every single Mandalorian who is even remotely attracted by violence and competence low key like, if she doesn’t raise warriors with him, we will
So how long does it take for Obi-Wan to “mysteriously” start collecting clone battalions? I mean, sure he has a planet to run and revitalize and a rival-with-benefits to woo properly, but he still has to make money somehow.
So like, hypothetically, if they took a job that happened to have them cross paths with Krell and his not-yet-destroyed battalion… well they’re already essentially at war with both sides anyway so what’s stealing a battalion gonna hurt?
So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.
Lurkers really are great, tho
I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.
Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.
The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.
Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.
There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.
I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available.
I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.
I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.
So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.
But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.
I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.
Should we gatekeep fandom?
I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--
A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.
That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.
See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.
So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.
The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.
And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”
Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.
Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.
And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.
However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community.
I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.
And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company?
And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)
But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.
Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.
Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.
Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists.
While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:
[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom
OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]
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“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.
I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.
It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits.
So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.
And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.
So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.
Think of it like a garden gate
When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.
The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people.
Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it.
Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.
My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.
But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.
I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.
Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.
And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.
Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.
There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.
This is very well said and while I'm not sure I 100% agree, I'm definitely at about 90% or maybe more. As a longtime lurker myself for many of the same reasons, I've also had many of these same experiences.
I'm not sure if I want to lock my ao3 account but I have definitely considered it. I'm not interested in people stealing my work or AI doing much the same.
Rex wasn't sure who'd come up with the idea or when the joke had burst into being. He just knew that Cody's batch was a group of chaotic shabuir'e and it was hilarious. Case in point: one of their running gags was trying to annoy the living kriff out of Cody by comming him at random intervals and pretending to be holo-marketers.
They were always careful to do it when Cody couldn't fire back at them, and not to abuse priority comm codes for it. No telling when they'd have an emergency, after all.
The consequence was that Cody usually hung up on them within the first five seconds or so of the call. He'd wait just long enough to confirm that it was a prank, and then cut the line.
The rest of the batch had also gotten into the habit of archiving those calls, so that they could laugh together over the aggravated faces Cody made. And so Rex got to see them, too.
He'd even joined in the chaos once.
(But only once. He worked directly with Cody too often on the front lines to risk more than that, and once was enough to prove to the rest of Cody's batch that Rex wasn't playing favourites.)
Rex's personal favourite performance to watch was Gree's. That Vod had a flair for the dramatic and had done his level best to disguise himself by making his voice an octave higher, pretending to be feminine. Fox's cleverness came in a close second, though. Cody had fumed about that comm call for almost a week, infuriated by the fact that the holo-commercial Fox had recorded and simply played into the comm had gotten stuck in his head.
The Corrie command staff had made comments on that clip, too, which also made Rex laugh every time he reread them.
Thorn: odds that he's going to try to reach through his comms and strangle you next time?
Fox: meh, depends on how pissed off he is, that day. Cody secretly loves me
Thire: pffffffffft pull the other leg
The clips were a karking welcome note of levity in a war that was doing its best to grind them all into dust. Rex was definitely eyeing their new mission brief with a healthy dose of skepticism. Cody and Kenobi were being sent to Utapau, and that promised to be a clusterkriff. Something about just felt... off, but Rex couldn't pin down what.
"Promise me you'll be careful, ori'vod," he demanded, unashamed to take advantage of the fact that he knew Cody still felt somewhat responsible for him. It was a remnant of their years on Kamino, but that didn't mean it wasn't still helpful or useful.
"I can't promise that, and you know it, vod'ika," Cody answered with a sigh underlying his words. "My General doesn't know when to just let sleeping nexu lie."
Rex couldn't help is answering snort. "You're not wrong. But I mean it. Something about this is making my instincts scream at me. Don't go marching far away just yet."
"Don't worry, Rex," Cody said, and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, over his pauldron. "I'll keep an eye out for anything suspicious."
Well aware that that was the best he was likely to get, Rex swallowed hard and nodded. "K'oyacyi, Kote."
Jedi Padawans have the classic sitcom bag-of-flour baby assignment to ensure they're prepared to look after young ones in emergency situations
this assessment is not one of the many canceled or postponed during the war
which means that when Ahsoka is abruptly deployed dirtside along with her Master, Grandmaster, and the 501st, she had to scramble to find an appropriate babysitter for her sack of flour
desperate, she tossed it to Commander Cody, who was staying aboard the Negotiator to oversee the campaign, with only a frantic list of the required steps to take care of it while she was gone
when she returns several days later, Cody has painted the sack 212th gold and constructed a sling to carry it around on his front while he keeps his hands free for work
judging by the rank pins attached to the front, the sack of flour is now a lieutenant
once Obi-Wan's heart eyes abate enough, though, it becomes clear to him that Cody and the 212th troopers have not understood that the sack of flour is not, in fact, a literal Jedi tubie
and none of the Jedi or their siblings in the 501st have the heart to correct them, so they let them keep the thing, stomping on the feet of anyone who tries to ask too many questions about their new mascot
once the war ends, Obi-Wan discreetly replaces the sack with a Jedi chrecheling in the middle of the night, having resigned himself to raising another too-young-Padawan
Reva, for her part, is all to happy to gleefully coat herself in flour for the occasion
Can you imagine how excited the 212th must be that their Jedi Tubie hatched, and at the rank of Major (having been promoted a few times). They are all so proud.
The first thing that popped into my head was a meme. See above. Lbr though. The troopers are plenty smart. They're not fooled by the bag of flour. Not really. No. It's more likely that the Vod'e are just ??????ing over this bizarre natborn custom and rolling with it in a way that they can (very subtly) make fun of it. So when they suddenly get a real tubie out of the deal, they're ecstatic and (more or less rightly) decide this is a (karking bizarre, natborns wtf?) way of making sure a potential partner is capable of taking care of a tubie, without actually risking one. But hey, the commander passed with flying colours, apparently, so hooray. But it's not just him who got to take care of the "baby". So does that mean they're ALL being offered a tubie? It kind of has to. And if they're collectively being offered a Jedi tubie by their general... does that mean he's marrying the whole company? Hmmmm.
Pfft, I'm pretty sure she did. It was just among the troopers rather than from her instructor. Sure, there are now Rumours circulating about Kenobi and the 212th (Rumours which drive Anakin a little bit batty and make Mace crack up laughing because this is a classic Kenobi disaster. That flirt was bound to get himself into a Fox like this at some point...) but nothing confirmed has reached the Temple.
On the other hand, Ghost is basically drawing straws for whose turn it is to help out with the tube that week and whose turn it is to flirt back at their General. Well. Whose turn it is besides Cody's, anyway. Cody's basically got that locked in permanently.
This has the same energy as a writer desperately trying to make their insanely cool but devastatingly off the wall plot point work with the rest of the story
Jedi Padawans have the classic sitcom bag-of-flour baby assignment to ensure they're prepared to look after young ones in emergency situations
this assessment is not one of the many canceled or postponed during the war
which means that when Ahsoka is abruptly deployed dirtside along with her Master, Grandmaster, and the 501st, she had to scramble to find an appropriate babysitter for her sack of flour
desperate, she tossed it to Commander Cody, who was staying aboard the Negotiator to oversee the campaign, with only a frantic list of the required steps to take care of it while she was gone
when she returns several days later, Cody has painted the sack 212th gold and constructed a sling to carry it around on his front while he keeps his hands free for work
judging by the rank pins attached to the front, the sack of flour is now a lieutenant
once Obi-Wan's heart eyes abate enough, though, it becomes clear to him that Cody and the 212th troopers have not understood that the sack of flour is not, in fact, a literal Jedi tubie
and none of the Jedi or their siblings in the 501st have the heart to correct them, so they let them keep the thing, stomping on the feet of anyone who tries to ask too many questions about their new mascot
once the war ends, Obi-Wan discreetly replaces the sack with a Jedi chrecheling in the middle of the night, having resigned himself to raising another too-young-Padawan
Reva, for her part, is all to happy to gleefully coat herself in flour for the occasion
Can you imagine how excited the 212th must be that their Jedi Tubie hatched, and at the rank of Major (having been promoted a few times). They are all so proud.
The first thing that popped into my head was a meme. See above. Lbr though. The troopers are plenty smart. They're not fooled by the bag of flour. Not really. No. It's more likely that the Vod'e are just ??????ing over this bizarre natborn custom and rolling with it in a way that they can (very subtly) make fun of it. So when they suddenly get a real tubie out of the deal, they're ecstatic and (more or less rightly) decide this is a (karking bizarre, natborns wtf?) way of making sure a potential partner is capable of taking care of a tubie, without actually risking one. But hey, the commander passed with flying colours, apparently, so hooray. But it's not just him who got to take care of the "baby". So does that mean they're ALL being offered a tubie? It kind of has to. And if they're collectively being offered a Jedi tubie by their general... does that mean he's marrying the whole company? Hmmmm.
I just read ur legally blonde Jedi au fic in like. 3 hours and it’s SO good holy shit!!! I’m a bit new to Star Wars (I’m scared to watch the movies bc my brain has just made up it’s own universe based on the fics I’ve read and I don’t want the movies to contradict that just yet hfndhdhd) and this was my first long fic with Maul in it and just. AUHG!! The way you wrote him is beautiful. It hurt but in a bittersweet way, learning abt his backstory and I’m so glad he has obi wan and anakin now. I love mag btw, it made me so happy when obi saved him and then to realize that it was maul threatening that senator. get fuckin dunked on, creep! he doesn’t realize how lucky he was that maul didn’t kill him. I can’t wait for the next chapter!!!
(PS: YESS two strikes is on ur fic Rec post, GOD that series is fucking AMAZING. I haven’t found anyone else on tumblr who likes it so it made me rlly excited to see that)
I'm so glad that you're having fun with the legally blonde universe! Maul has like... one of the saddest if not THE saddest backstory, imo. I love him??? And there's never enough good content out there that's Maul!centric!! I wanted to make a fic that centered my two favorite aspects of the prequels/clone-wars universe: the clones and Maul. There's a lot of parallels there that don't tend to get explored. Obi-Wan is somewhat... incidental? To that? adfjfjkfhlkj honestly, he is the medium via which I am giving canon a good thrashing.
[DEEP INHALE] I LOVE THE TWO STRIKES SERIES I FUCKING LOVE IT WITH MY WHOLE ASS AND HEART AND BALLS!!!! I found out that @quarra follows me the other day and just about pissed myself so that was Cool (mommy? sorry. mommy? sorry moment). The clone-culture that exists in the Two Strikes universe is like... PEAK clone culture in my humble opinion. Sometimes when I need a jolt of inspiration to start writing, I like to revisit my favorites, and I consistently go back to Two Strikes in order to recapture the magic of writing in the Clone Wars era. It has ALL THE VIBES. We love the fics that make you see canon through a different lense... Two Strikes does that for me beautifully.
If you haven't given it a look, I HIGHLY recommend it: Two Strikes series on AO3
Ahahaha @quarra has already spoilered the origins of the series for me, so, I guess I can't do that on my own but pfft oh well. I'm more the opposite kind of brain to yours though, and when I'm actively writing I read almost no fic at all, but I'm really pleased to hear that our fic helps inspire you. We both had a toooooooonnnn of fun writing the Two Strikes 'verse and I'll miss it once it's done and dusted.
