okay PSA TO EVERYONE LISTENING:
when I got into fanfic, I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I just knew it was fun and I was passionate about it. I didn’t have any friends in fandom, I barely knew how to use ao3 (I watched a useless YouTube video and taught myself everything I needed to know) and basically had to learn how everything worked by myself, but I was ELATED when I posted my first fic and people were reading it. It was mind blowing to me becuase back then, I had never posted anything of my own for people to see. I didn’t have a tumblr, I didn’t post anything on Pinterest, hell Pinterest was the closest thing I had on my phone to any sort of “social media”. So as you can infer, I was very happy when my fic was read by like ten people. It was just such an unnecessarily encouraging space full of nice commenters and people—I could go on a long rant about how GOOD a space ao3 is and how the people there are legitimately some of the best people ever as long as you’re curating your experience well but I digress—and I was Loving It.
a big game changer was when one of my fics kind of blew up. Idk, I guess people were yearning for some time travel (maybe it helped that it was my first fic over 80k) but point is that I got regular commenters commenting on every chapter I posted, and it was So Fucking Awesome to realize that the fic I had spent a year writing, expecting 50 people to read it at most, meant something to these people—meant enough for these people to come back got each of those twelve chapters and leave a nice note at the plot I had spent months dreaming up out of nothing but my own inspiration and enjoyment. It’s fucking crazy, you know? The realization that something you were doing just for your own happiness can make others happy. That a hobby you started just becuase you liked a character could spread until people stayed up till 2 am reading your words and offering their kudos and thanks and opinions and excitement in return.
I am passionate about the relationships within fandom and how fanfiction feeds the fans, which leads to fans feeding the fanfiction in a beautiful cycle of support and thankfulness. Sure, there are always going to be those assholes that tear apart rather than truly critique, or the people that think your opinions render you trash, or who think your favorite character is shit or your writing is useless. There are always going to be those people and there’s nothing we can fucking do abkut it becuase it’s human nature to contain division and antagonists and differences in opinion. But those people—they make the rest of it all the more beautiful for their presence. It makes you realize just how kind a community this is. Guys, I would never have found my love for writing—any kind of writing—without fanfiction and the encouragement of every well-articulated comment citing their favorite sentences in my fics and each comment that just says “OMG AHHHHHHH”. Each one is special and each one I treasure becuase it lets me know that people are happy because of me. And not just in a “man I’m a people pleaser” way but in a “this community is beautiful” way.
I still remember quite fondly times when their were trolls in my comments or people being rude about choices I made in my fics, and other commenters came to my defense—telling them to shut up, that they were wrong or that they could just not read if they weren’t enjoying it. It made me so happy to see that people were kind enough to defend me from the people that came into my comments just to make a racket or hurt my feelings.
the point of this overly long rant, besides the fact that I just wanted to talk about how much I love fandom, is that the glue of this community is the support we give each other and the encouragement which we offer to young writers and people who feel insecure in their skill, wether that skill had been hardened by years of work or a single day of writing. The fuel of fandom is the good vibes we, the fans, are willing to put out there, and it always will be.
so. In ALL of my blogs, my ao3 comments, my dms, wherever the fuck you feel safest doing it—you allow always allowed to run fic ideas, opinions, Headcanons, thoughts, ANYTHING by me. Becuase it makes me fucking elated to know that my encouragement helps turn the fandom wheel, and it makes my day brighter to know that someone might be writing a fic or discovering a new favorite character or spending time doing something they enjoy because I offered my kudos and thanks to them.
t’all are always, always allowed to ramble and rant and word-vomit wherever the fuck yku want in my blog, no apologies necessary. In fact, apologize and I’ll berate you for it. I am in fandom TO hear these rambles, and I treasure each one because they mean that someone trusts me to give them an honest, kind and encouraging opinion on something they spent their time doing—whether that be art, writing, Headcanons, anything.
