daviesroyal's fanfic status update
I debated on whether or not I should make this post, because it's not like my fic writing is well-known or anything, but for the readers I do have I decided it's only fair they hear about it instead of waiting in limbo:
While I currently have no intentions to delete my fics from AO3, as the unrevealed collection is working well, I don't think I'll make them available again for a very long time, if ever. This isn't just about lore.fm (my last update) or Memento Archive, which was recently taken down (apparently from the flood of DMCA takedowns once enough authors realized what it was). Those are just symptoms of a larger problem.
There's a growing part of the fanfic community that feels increasingly entitled to an author's work. I'm not just talking about demanding authors write certain things, or how sites/apps feel perfectly comfortable stealing those works. I'm talking about how, when an author deletes a work (for whatever reason, they're not obligated to share that either), more and more readers will immediately solicit the wider Internet for repostings, downloaded files they never bothered to get when it was available, or any other way to get access to that work again.
I have no problem with downloaded files for personal use. I'm a fanbinder! I enjoy the process of fanbinding. However, the important part of that is that I'm only making it for myself, and I'm asking permission from the author to bind their fic (and offering gift copies, as is the custom in the fanbinding community) for anything I want to post about.
When those downloaded files get passed around in a public community like r/DeletedFanfiction on Reddit, or the fics are stolen and reposted on a site like Memento Archive, it stops being personal use and starts being illegal distribution. And before anyone starts quibbling about the legality of fanfiction, look up US Fair Use laws, and how AO3 got started in the first place, and all the legal cases they've fought to prove (legally!) that fanfic authors have legal copyright to the works they create.
It's also difficult for authors to express their frustration and distress about these methods, because the instant they do, a bunch of others will dogpile sentiments like "but what about the READERS!!" and "well if you didn't want your work to be taken out of your control you shouldn't have put it on the Internet" - all things that make it clear they consider the feelings of the reader (the consumer) more important than the creator of the work who did it for free. It's a terrible attitude to have, and honestly, comments like that have the opposite of their (likely) intended effect on me: any time I see those sentiments, I want to delete my work because I don't want to be part of a community that is increasingly treating artists like content creation machines that can never break, never stop, never take away things that they made, and should make content to their specifications.
I don't write for engagement. I don't even really post for engagement. If I did, I would post on multiple platforms to reach a wider audience. I post because I made something cool, that means a lot to me, and I wanted to share it with others if they thought it was cool too. But I'm not giving it to them. It's not a gift that I can't take back once it's out of my hands. It's never out of my hands, that's the point. It's more like a movie that I made, and all my readers got tickets to if they wanted, and it was also available for download if you want to watch it without going to the theater. But if I decide that movie shouldn't be showing anymore, I can take it down, and no one is entitled to go show it somewhere else, or pass around bootleg copies.
Despite my bitter apathy, I know this isn't the majority of the community. At the very least, I hope it's not. I hope it's just a very vocal minority. But that minority is growing, and as fanfiction becomes more and more mainstream, there are external forces (like lore.fm and Memento Archive and all the bots scraping AO3) that see these people as a market.
And that's terrifying.
That's something I don't want to be part of.
It puts me off not just posting fanfic, but writing it as well.
I hope that one day I'll feel good enough about writing fanfiction to finish the stories I currently have in progress, even if I never post them. I want the community to take a long hard look at this attitude and decide to course-correct, to get better. But right now, I have to take a step back, or all of this might ruin my love for fanfiction completely.
That being said! If you really enjoyed my work, and didn't get a downloaded copy before I put it in the unrevealed collection, please feel free to reach out to me here and I will send you a copy at the email of your choice! (Or if you want a physical copy I'm also more than happy to bind something to send to the physical address of your choice.) The only works I will not be sharing as files are Fate and Choice and Rebuilt Machinery of Our Hearts (the Harry Potter/Criminal Minds crossovers), as they are works I reposted specifically on AO3 with permission from the author. However, you can find them here under the original author's account!
