Re: fandom commenting, what I have also seen (and sorry if you have already talked about this but you've got so many asks lol) is that many people who don't engage in other people's stories is not because they're shy or don't know what to say, but because, genuinely, there is a lack of understanding on how this community works. Not because they're necessarily a younger generation (although that sadly also plays a part), but because they don't *feel* like fandom *should be* a community where engagement can lead to the development of friendships. Whether because they don't care about that (friendships) or because that's what they have been told by social media big corporations. This impersonality, distancing the reader from fanwork creators, is a recent phenomenon. From what I have seen about studies, back in the day zines and fandom were a group of niched people getting together (and, yes, making friends) around common interests. So if I understand that some people don't share that wish, I also say that fandom *is* the space where you can run to with your blorbos and find other weirdos like you (us) with same shared passions. I don't know but, to me, being a part of fandom is intrinsically related to being a part of a community that cares for one another - and that reflects itself in, yes, commenting on works of people you like not for obligation, but because you have naturally developed a relationship with these people, and you genuinely want to keep doing that. But that will only occur if there's engagement in the first place. Anyway, those were my five cents lol (also sorry, English is not my first language so sometimes I can sound a little incoherent!)
Thank you! LOL yes, I've honestly been a bit swamped by the number of asks 🥲🥲🥲 but tyvm for sharing your thoughts!! I do understand where you're coming from re. fandom as community and I respect that approach - and tbh, I think we agree on the big key tenets - however I want to offer a couple of mild counter-perspectives because I think you're making a couple of judgements in here that are a little bit unfair and which, I think, more empathy and curiosity could afford some greater insight into why people don't approach fandom as a community for engagement and friendships in the same way necessarily?
I'm putting it under the cut bc it got very long, sorry!!!!
Firstly, I want to push back against the assumption that there is "one" kind of fandom. I think there are multiple "kinds" of fandom, of which AO3 based fandom, descended from anglophone LJ fandom, is one kind. I stress anglophone, because there are many assumptions around what is and is not appropriate kinds of behaviour within a "community" that are inherited from this fandom - which as some people have pointed out, is a very white and middle class fandom - that is not necessarily shared (an easy example is the difference in what is and isn't "appropriate" levels of criticality in comments between German/Eastern European fandoms and anglophone fandom descending from LJ).
Building on this, I also do think that people have different ideas about what they're getting out of fandom, even within AO3 based fandom, which is something you rightly observe! I don't think this is a new phenomenon. What I think is different is that this difference is visible. That is, we are encountering these clashes in expectations and we are talking about it - and that act of speaking seems to represent a problem that is new. I went on Fanlore the other day to look up a wank I remember taking place around 2015 re. criticism in fic comments and instead ended up reading through a history of fans complaining consistently about the decline in feedback from 1980 onwards. Some of these comments even represent the same criticisms being levvied today - x technology / platform is killing feedback (comment made in 1991 about the internet at large), people see creators as impersonal content vending machines (comment made in 2001), a move towards passive media consumption (comment made in 1984), fans don't know community norms and traditions (comment made in 1984), fandom is stratified (1984), lack of comments is demoralising authors (1980, 1985), not commenting is not paying back (1980), growing fandom inactivity (1988).
I take this dive into history not because I want to be obnoxious, but because I think it should make us reconsider our analytical position as, er, amateur social scientists. I'm not sure that it can simultaneously be true that there was a halcyon golden age of fandom back in the days of zines and that fandom has been declining nearly out the gate since the fanfiction emergence in 1974! If that was the case, then that gives us exactly 6 years in which fandom was really good and we have been fighting the long defeat ever since - which seems like an unnecessarily depressing view of fandom, you know?
The sheer volume of shared complaints across times, mediums and varying subcultures suggests that 1) this problem is distinctly not new and 2) that either the problem has been seriously overstated or that there are some analytical tools that are not being employed in getting to the bottom of this "problem". I think the simplest possible explanation for this unity across time, space and medium is that this is a problem that is 1) nostalgia-driven, 2) this nostalgia is propelled by certain unspoken expectations that are not being met and 3) this failure to meet these unspoken expectations is what is propelling a conversation that is decades old, yet manages to consistently reinvent itself as a constant crisis.
"Community" is one of these unspoken expectations, which you've outlined! For some people, community is not only about engaging with and commenting on fic. It could very simply be the act of parallel play in relation to a shared passion. It could be that their engagement and conversation comes through meta and fan discussions about the canon itself, rather than reading and discussing fic. It could be that community for them comes from other sources and that fandom feeds other needs and desires - they read fic to get off, they read fic to imagine their faves in situations, they read fic to think differently about the canon (and then discuss those thoughts on other platforms). It could also be that people who write fic may not read it, or people who write fic for a character may not read fic as expected for them (again for a whole range of reasons ranging from their own particular tastes to a desire not to absorb fanon).
There are so many ways of being in fandom and all of these, to an extent, present a series of competing access needs within fandom - and I understand these posts about "fandom as community" and "fandom as gift economy" as a means of establishing a singular, orthodox definition of fandom, and as a rhetorical strategy, according to a group of people who are most vocal about their lack of comments. I don't think they speak for everyone in fandom and I don't think they should. I think it should be true that multiple competing definitions of fandom get to exist - simply because it is impossible to control how everyone thinks of themselves in fandom as a community. We can encourage people to engage; but we cannot force them to internalise a particular set of norms. People are unruly and can't be corralled, and especially not in a hobbyist space bringing together people across multiple, international backgrounds. The best you can do - at the very most - is create a space that explicitly institutes these rules of engagement & as terms of membership, in order to have people who engage on those terms specifically, rather than having a whole bunch of unspoken expectations and needs about community floating around. These needs and expectations being unspoken are more likely to cause grief than bring anyone any happiness. Articulating them as requests within fandom will also not actually get people to obey and cannot deliver the happiness desired. I realise this sounds very harsh, but its an unfortunate truth abt the nature of human behaviour across multiple situations, not just fandom.
Which brings me to my second point - connecting to the fact that this is a problem that has been articulated across time, space and medium. I think what the links I've added above & the summarised comments indicate is that these are not new problems. The difference is the range of shifting targets on which to blame these problems, with a few standards like youth.
Not because they're necessarily a younger generation (although that sadly also plays a part), but because they don't feel like fandom should be a community where engagement can lead to the development of friendships. Whether because they don't care about that (friendships) or because that's what they have been told by social media big corporations. This impersonality, distancing the reader from fanwork creators, is a recent phenomenon.
And I want to push back against the bolded claim, because I see it circulate frequently and every time my reaction is: what is the evidence for this statement? Has there been a systemic and rigorous social study been done of fandom across time, space and medium that can demonstrate causal links between different technologies and their engagement with or alienation from fic authors? Have people spoken to lurkers and non-commenters about why they don't comment? Have any of them mentioned social media? Have any of them mentioned any of these attitudes that get brought up in alleging that fandom is falling apart because people aren't leaving enough comments? Have people looked at commenting trends across fandoms in a way that accounts for the ways in which fandoms go through cycles of activity, or sometimes even peak and fade, in which trends and tastes change? Are comments really disappearing, or are they moving from your (general you) fandom, to other younger and different fandoms? How has social media changed people's relationship to commenting, once you account for all kinds of confounding variables such as hits not being representative of actual readers, kudos not necessarily being representative of potential commenters and the proportion of lurkers to readers? What is the alleged messaging that is taking place? What is the alleged cultural shift? How do we quantify this cultural shift and demonstrate that it is significantly different, say, from the same allegations which have been made about the shift from zines to the internet; from mailing lists to LJ; from LJ to tumblr and AO3; from tumblr to twitter; from twitter to tiktok and discord? I'm not saying this to be a pedantic asshole, but because I am curious about the answer - I want to know if a "feeling" has material basis, or if its a feeling generated entirely from "nostalgia"; and if the latter, where exactly does the nostalgia come from, what purpose does it serve?
I'm not sure what studies you're referencing, because to my knowledge there's been exactly one done, which was on Tolkien fandom, where the survey results more or less backs up the observations made by anon in this ask re. diffidence, general inarticulacy and not knowing what to say: and therefore has remained stable between 2017 - 2025. The analysis of a decline in comments on one person's fics over time is simply not a representative sample, which is what the rest of the study digs into - especially when the post that inspired this study has someone pushing back against the assertion that feedback has declined with their feedback patterns. You cannot infer anything about fandom commenting in relation to this, because, as I mention here, there are any number of reasons why a person may experience a shift in the kind of feedback they get even while writing within the same fandom. There's just too many confounding variables that I'd want to eliminate before I could definitively say that "yes engagement has decreased" you know?
being a part of a community that cares for one another - and that reflects itself in, yes, commenting on works of people you like not for obligation, but because you have naturally developed a relationship with these people, and you genuinely want to keep doing that
This is the part where hmmm. I have to say something that may read unpleasantly, so I really hope you will bear with me here (and I might be misreading you, so pls also bear w me on that front, bc I think we're in agreement on the broader sentiments re. forming friendships and doing things out of genuine love not duty). Sometimes its possible to make friends with people on tumblr because you really enjoy their thoughts about a particular aspect of the shared canon you enjoy - and it is possible for their tastes in fic to be diametrically opposite to yours. I know that because I am human and fallible, if I push myself to engage with their fic - no matter how much I love the person with my whole damn heart and would do literally anything for them in terms of emotional and physical support (and have done) - I will end up avoiding the friendship entirely because of the resistance to reading something I don't want to read. I think this can make things really complicated and emotionally fraught and I prefer to be straightforward, because this is really a me problem.
I also - and this is entirely just anecdotal observation, so take with appropriate pinches of salt - have noticed people get burned out because of this disjuncture between their taste & the feeling of being compelled to comment on their friends' fics. I think it makes everything unnecessarily high stakes and also damaging to friendships that could otherwise blossom if everyone recognised that they don't align 100% on everything. No one does! We're humans! We're all individually different and idiosyncratic! We get tired of things we used to love, suddenly develop a taste for other things, venture out, come back in - and it affects how we engage with fandom! To expect the same level of engagement all the time as proof of a desire to be within community, I think, creates unnecessary rules & ups the stakes!
I'm VERY much in agreement that its great to encourage people to comment and to think of commenting as a low stakes entry into a conversation about blorbo! I think its a great way to make an initial step into community, but it a) cannot be treated as the best proof and b) a sign of one's commitment to community as an ideal. I think that puts a lot of pressure on what should be a low stakes, casual engagement in what is, first and foremost, a hobby space. I agree that its great to keep doing stuff you genuinely want to for the friends you care about - I just am not sure that comments are the best way to gauge that sense of care, because I think there are a lot of ways to care for fandom friends outside of this. Some of my closest friends started out as fandom friends, where we've diverged into different fandoms, and remained close friends because we support each other in different ways. And ideally, I would love for people to have that freeing experience in fandom, rather than feel like comments have to be paid in, or it demonstrates that they don't care about their friends? I know that sounds like, weird and intense to say, but I have seen people communicate in such fashion within this fandom and in other spaces, and that puts a lot of pressure on something that is so trivial in the bigger picture of things that matter.
Anyway, thank you for sending me your thoughts!! I hope my ramble made sense and I hope it clarifies my position (and also why I end up pushing back against this discourse so much)! I'm happy to continue this discussion but atp would love for it to be over DMs bc I think the asks are getting a little overwhelming for me to handle 😬😬😬
Hello, my friend! Now that you are caught in the net of smutty writers, can you please answer these ones?
1. Share your philosophy of smut. Why do you write it, and what does it mean to you?
2. What was the first smut fic you ever read?
Hiii! Thanks for the ask, friend.
To be totally honest, it's quite hilarious (in a great way) for me to get this. Mostly because I consider myself quite inept at writing smut. I got super inspired by @silmsmutweek to step out of the box in that way, and even still, I feel like I cheated the smut part a bit 😂 But to your questions.
I read and write fiction primarily for the characters. They draw me in, they make me stay, they occupy my mind space. They are like living people whose story is laid bare for me to read and dissect, and challenge me to put myself in a situation I might have not otherwise considered. And sexuality is a big part of that. What characters feel, what brings them pleasure (or not), what they are willing to do, and how their sexuality (and sensuality) expresses itself helps me see a character, to know them.
Ultimately, I guess, sexuality is about relationships. A relationship with one's self, with other people, and so when I choose to write it, is a tool to get me to the underlying emotion of that character. I think the latest Against His Wisdom is a great example of that. I dove right into the core of Fingon and Fingolfin, their complicated relationship with one another, and Fëanor and Maedhros, their sense of leadership and duty, but also responsibility and guilt. It all manifested itself through the smut in a way (I hope).
The first smut work in the Silmarillion fandom I read was Come of Age by @fadesintothewest. It's the fic that got me to AO3 in fact. Beautiful Russingon story exploring sexuality in Aman, full of Falmari world-building, and great smut in chapter 8. This story is still dear to me.
Thanks for the ask and for inspiring me to step away from my usual!
Perfect opportunity to ask you a Fëanor/Fingolfin + 38 for the kissing prompt list 😁❤️
Warning: those two are half-brother (better safe than sorry.)
Fëanor x Fingolfin - because they’re running out of time.
Ñolofinwë froze—he had finally been called forth to return to the realm of the living and yet, hesitation rooted him to the ground.
The thought of abandoning the one he had followed to the ends of the world and beyond seemed inconceivable.
Fëanáro's mouth curled into a wavering moue of sardonic dismissal, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists.
Tearing himself from freedom's subtle draw like a fly escaping a spider's web, Ñolofinwë plunged back into the darkness to cup his brother's tense jaw and press a kiss—the first, the last, the only one—on that poisonous, lethal mouth.
Summary: When Míriel’s body is found in Lórien, Estë goes to talk with her fëa in the Halls of Mandos. They enter Míriel’s dreams together, to find healing and spend time with each other.
