#on fandom

[queerofthedagger]

yeah yeah having a crush is embarassing but have you ever watched yourself develop a new category 5 character obsession in real time. agonizingly humiliating shit

[knucklecurve]

filthy, filthy read

[its-not-fate-its-destiny]

Fandoms stopped being a fun escape from reality when people started spreading the belief that you should prioritize purity over pleasure and the art you create must be a reflection of your moral standards at all times.

[mikanseinic]

“how to recognize AI in fanfic” — hey so this is another not-gentle reminder that AI stole from us. it’s using OUR words and OUR sentences and OUR styles.

writing “long” paragraphs is not a sign of AI — it’s a common narrative choice many writers make both in fanfiction and in traditionally published novels, and AI stole it from us.

using an em dash is not a sign of AI. it’s a stylistic sentence choice that’s been an option in place of commas and semicolons for a very long time, and AI stole it from us.

long sentence structures are not a sign of AI, but are yet another stylistic choice writers often make to create a cadence and tone that mimics the flow of poetry, and AI stole it from us.

“YA narrative breaks”? i don’t even know what the fuck this means, but i can guarantee that AI stole it from us.

italics are once again a stylistic choice that many writers love to use to create emphasis, and it’s a more stylistically acceptable and traditional form of emphasis than bold or underline text. oh, and just to be extra clear: AI STOLE IT FROM US.

stop creating fandom witch hunts over AI when you know fuck all about what it means to sit and write a story, and to spend hours fiddling with sentence structure and dialogue to get the exact right tone. writers will stop writing out of fear that their work “sounds like AI” — IT DOESNT! AI STOLE FROM US! AI SOUNDS LIKE US! — and after a while, all that will be available on AO3 is shitty AI-generated fanfiction.

because yeah, people are going to continue to use AI to write fanfiction whether you “call them out” or not. but making a laughable thread on X that uses asinine criteria is not going to fix that problem. it will just push the real writers out because people will accuse them of using AI when they haven’t, and they will (rightfully) stop writing for spaces that attack them.

anyway. fuck ai.

[thisliminalspacedaydreams]

Fanfic is a free hobby.

It's one of the last few things we can have as a society that's free. You can engage, for free. People give you things (art, stories, etc), for free.

Don't buy into the consummerism just because it's everywhere else.

You don't have to consume everything you interact with. You don't have to use things, just because they exist.

You're allowed (still, for now), to have things that are enjoyable for free.

Do you realise how insane the world is? We don't have many places where we can just be, for free anymore, but ao3 is. Did you notice we don't have ads in ao3? We don't have pop ups? Where ELSE do we not have that?

Where else can you just go and not have to wait for a commercial to be over or for ads to be on the sidelines?

I don't think the younger people understand, but the whole of internet used to be like this. YouTubers would do Youtube for free, just because. You couldn't monetise your internet presence before.

Ao3 is like a little preserved corner of the internet where the old internet used to be, and it's being attacked by people who do not understand that free things are allowed to exist without judgment.

Please don't ruin this for us.

Some of us need it.

[the-pen-pot]

I like to think that AO3 and fanfiction are a bastion against dead internet theory. Sure, there's the AI and the bots, but at its heart fandom is still a community of passionate people going "LOOK AT WHAT I MADE" and having people go "THAT'S SO COOL" right back.

So yeah. You wanna beat the bots? Make things. Comment. The internet's not dead as long as you're still here making noise.

[luvwich]

hi just a quick PSA / request from me, your friend luvwich

please don't feel guilty about your fandom engagement!

don't feel bad if you haven't been able to keep up with tumblr or discord!

don't feel guilty for not reading or commenting on a fic, and especially not for being "late"!

don't fret if you haven't responded to a tag or ask game! these are not homework assignments, they are playdate invitations and you don't need to make it to all of them!!

don't feel compelled to maintain the same amount or type of activity consistently!

you aren't delinquent

i won't forget about you

i will always be happy to see you again

thanks for your time!!