how about we talk about fandom etiquette?
lately, i’ve been seeing tags getting clogged with various complaints. the one that comes back the most is, “omg you pervert, why can’t you write fluff? i’m looking for it and all i see is smut.” another one was, “omg i keep seeing stupid smau instead of fluff or angst fic!”
yes, this is how you sound in my brain. fucking stupid.
ㅤ ㅤwhy do authors write more smut than fluff?
the best answer is because they write what they want. most people on this website, putting out things for free—just another reminder—write things for themselves. it’s the same reason they write for a certain body type and other things.
and so what if we’re fucking horny? deal with it.
the second best answer is the clear lack of interaction anything other than smut gets—i’ll put examples later on. it’s the truth: most people on this website, on ao3 or any other, like to read smut. people are more likely to interact with smut fic because people will always love to read it. it’s a fact. even if you put 10k of world building and 2k of smut, people usually remember the smut or comment on it. and it’s okay.
ㅤ ㅤis there a real difference between fluff and smut?
just to show you the clear difference between smut and fluff, i did an advent calendar event where 12 fics were fluff and 12 fics were smut, and guess what? most of the fluff got less than 200 notes of interaction, some even less than 150. not to brag, but this blog had over 4.5k followers when it started. and they were from really active fandoms—you can see for yourself.
ㅤ ㅤ✦ fluff notes
ㅤ ㅤ✦ smut notes
you see the major difference?
and this was a particular context where fics were getting posted every day, so some might not shine more than others, and it’s okay. but the difference is there, and it’s big enough to comment on it. i spent about a month and a half writing all 24 fics, and the lack of interaction got to me eventually, even when you write for yourself first.
now imagine: you’re a new writer, and you spend weeks or months writing your first ever fic, and it’s good. really good. long, fluffy, and angsty, exactly like people are begging for. then what? you get no interaction, and you see smut posted hours after you, with not even 1k words, getting more than a fucking thousand notes. what are you going to do? you’re going to write smut.
because even if we write for ourself, when we share our works we want people to love it or we would be keeping them to ourself. but how can we know you love it if you don't interact?
the only person to blame in this situation is the reader. and i’m sorry if you’re not going to be happy about it. the clear downgrade of comments and reblogs is the reason people aren’t writing fluff anymore.
ㅤ ㅤwhat can you do to have more fluff fic?
comment or reblog on your fav fic. not “part 2?”, not “can i be tagged?” express yourself. what did you like? what did it make you feel? send asks saying how you cannot forget the fic hours later. be respectful of the work you read—for free—and express all of it!
send requests if the author has them open. what’s better than supporting someone’s work than asking them for a fic—respectfully, of course.
write them yourself. at the end of the day, no one will do what you want better than yourself. it doesn’t have to be perfect. it doesn’t even have to be posted anywhere. you can just write for yourself, and share if you want to.
ㅤ ㅤnow about the smau.
again, people will always write and create what makes them happy. and i know for a fact that smau—for me at least—are super fun to write, and they make me giggle. they’re super short to do, and a great way of posting something without it taking days, while still working on a fic to post next.
and again, smau have such big interaction stats. and i’m not even kidding you.
and most of those are less than a month old and got to 1k notes in less than 24h.
why? because they are quick to read, and most of the time they’re funny. people don’t always—most of the time, never—want to read over a 15k fic. and i know that because i do write big ass fics.
so at the end of the day, what is making fluff fics and fandom in general die is the lack of interaction from you reading this. i am not blaming you, i was once just a reader, and i barely interacted with writers because i was too shy to. even on the internet.
but i never complained, clogging the x reader tags with my never-ending and always-the-same complaint that what i want to read doesn’t exist.
because what i wanted didn’t. nobody wrote chubby reader five years ago. so what did i do? i put my big girl pants on and did it myself.
and if i did, so can you.
ps: i’m not talking about the censorship and conservative ideas going around against dark themes, because i do not write for this—and so i’m not really the one to talk about it—but if you have a problem with an author or a particular theme: block it.
