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Lost | 1.12 'Whatever the Case May Be'

Fandom is not an obligation.

It is not a job. It is not school. It is not a contract. Participation in fandom is voluntary and it is not binding (commissions and paid work aside).

Yes, within fandom you should be bound by some sense of ethics or general decency: don’t steal art and fic, don’t willfully deceive people, don’t be a jerk or a garbage human, and so on and so forth. But everything else? The writing fic and the doing and the participation? It is voluntary.

So if you are writing a fic and you’re seven chapters in and you have eight chapters to go and you’re just tired and you don’t want to do it any more? You can stop. If you’ve been running a blog and writing about every single episode of every new anime show that’s come out and you can’t for three weeks? Don’t. If you told your 5 billion followers you were gonna post a piece of fanart and you’re just sick of it and you don’t want to do it any more? Give it up.

Sure, people will be disappointed and upset and some will complain. But life is disappointing and upsetting sometimes, and it goes on, and no one can sue you for not finishing a fic that they were enjoying the hell out of for free. No one can accuse you of not living up to the terms of your contract when you don’t post that fanart you mentioned three weeks ago. Because fandom is voluntary. It’s something that you participate in because it’s fun or fulfilling or important to you, and when it stops being those things, you should stop, too.

You are not bound by the asks in your inbox. You are not bound by comments on a fic or a piece of art. You are not bound, in fandom, by other people’s disappointments or their expectations.

Fandom is voluntary. Don’t let people pressure you into thinking that it is anything else.

#this is me rn