#transformative works

[souls4polls]

How long have you been writing fanfiction??

Less than 1 year!

For 1 to 5 years!

For 5 to 10 years!

For 10 to 15 years!

For 15 to 20 years!

For 20 to 25 years!

For 25 to 30 years!

For 30 to 35 years!

For 35 to 40 years!

For 40 to 45 years!

For 45 to 50 years!

For 50+ years!

Voting ended onJul 11

Feel free to reblog for other people to vote. DO NOT SEND HATE TO ANYONE FOR WHAT THEY VOTED. This is merely for fun and to see what people genuinely think.

[mokka-cream]

People will say anything

[fandomwithbenefits]

Have you ever wanted to join a fandom event, but all the rules seemed scary? The deadlines were way too close? Maybe you weren't sure if you'd be consistently productive and didn't want to disappoint anyone?

"Fandom with Benefits" allows you to have a low-commitment relationship with our monthly events. There are very few rules, and no deadlines, ever.

Every month an event and its theme/prompts are revealed:

Detailed descriptions will be part of the event's post.

FAQ behind the readmore ↓

How do I post something for the event?

Share your creations on AO3, tumblr, or link to what you've shared on another platform (pillowfort, dreamwidth, etc).

On AO3, add your work—or a bookmark of it—to the event's collection.

On tumblr, use both the general #fandomwithbenefits hashtag, and the specific event's hashtag to make sure people can find your post.

Collection links and hashtags will be included in the monthly event's posts. There's no deadline to post to them; it doesn't have to be in the month or even in the year the event was revealed.

We won't be reblogging works here. This space is to find inspiration, not entertainment :)

What are the rules, precisely?

These events are open to all fandoms, all 'ships, any content and rating, as long as it's allowed to be posted on tumblr/AO3. Keep the platform's TOS in mind and remember to tag your works appropriately! Nobody likes to be jumpscared by something they're not into, and it makes your work findable by those who are into it.

There are no size limits, or requirements for the work to be complete or polished. You decide when to share it.

Every event remains open indefinitely. If you come across a three-year old prompt that gets your creativity going—awesome!

Any medium and form is welcome, too! Let the prompts inspire you not only to fanfic and fanart, but also poetry, nail art, handlettering in a conlang, recipes, mixtapes, memes, knitting guides, dioramas, fake movie posters, home decoration, photos of your figurines' adventures, bookbinding, etc.

Credit: Blog avatar designed with lettering.org Blog banner image by fabianwiktor @ pexels.com all graphics designed with inkscape

[roy-co]

Sometimes, when I'm bored, I open a single fanlore page and read it in full. Then if there's another page linked, I'll move onto that one. If not, I backtrack and keep hopping between pages until I'm in a completely different school. I do not go here, but I'm looking around your campus and classrooms then going "damn this is nice" before walking down the road again. Wonderful time to be alive

[maurildi]

The Paywall Is the Point:

Fanfiction, Patreon, and the Quiet Commercialization of Fandom

I want to start by saying this is not a callout post.

I am not interested in naming individual writers, posting screenshots, or turning anyone’s Patreon page into a public exhibit. That is not the point, and honestly, it would distract from the larger issue.

This is not about one person, one blog, one fic, or one fandom corner being uniquely terrible. It is about a practice that has become visible enough to talk about:

fanfiction being locked behind paywalls.

I am using Jujutsu Kaisen as the main example because that is the fandom space where I have personally noticed it, especially with character x Reader writing. But I doubt this is limited to JJK. Any large fandom with a hungry audience, popular character archetypes, and a strong reader-insert culture is likely to attract this kind of monetization sooner or later.

And I understand the temptation.

Writing takes time. Writing well takes even more time. Fanwriters are not content machines, even when fandom treats them like bottomless vending machines for yearning. Readers can be demanding, entitled, impatient, and sometimes downright weird about access to free work.

It makes sense that writers want support. It makes sense that people want to be compensated for labor that is often emotionally intensive, technically difficult, and publicly consumed.

But there is a difference between supporting a writer and buying access to fanfiction.

That difference matters.

A donation link, in the broadest ethical sense, is usually framed as support for the creator. Someone reads your work for free, enjoys what you do, and chooses to toss a few dollars into the metaphorical hat.

It is not payment for a specific fic. It is not a condition of access. It does not turn the fic itself into the product.

I understand why people are more comfortable with that, even though individual platforms may still have rules against promoting those links in certain fandom spaces.

A paywall is different.

When a writer locks exclusive fanfiction behind Patreon tiers, Ko-fi memberships, or paid posts, the transaction changes. It is no longer “support me if you like what I do.” It becomes “pay me to read this.”

The fanwork itself becomes the thing being sold.

That is where the ground starts to give way.

Fanfiction has always lived in a complicated space. It is creative, transformative, communal, and deeply personal. It can be literary. It can be unserious. It can be healing. It can be horny. It can be all of that before breakfast.

But it also usually relies on characters, settings, names, relationships, and narrative frameworks that belong to someone else.

In Jujutsu Kaisen fandom, a Sukuna x Reader fic is not valuable to its audience only because of the writer’s prose. It is valuable because it invokes Sukuna. The character recognition is part of the appeal. The fandom context is part of the market.

That does not mean fanfiction has no original labor in it. It absolutely does.

Fanwriters build tone, plot, pacing, characterization, emotional stakes, erotic tension, atmosphere, and entire interpretive frameworks out of their own skill. Some fanfiction is more thoughtful about character than official supplemental material. Some fic writers understand emotional continuity with frightening precision.

The labor is real.

But real labor does not automatically settle what the labor produces.

That is the uncomfortable part, and I want to sit in it rather than rush past it. Skill and effort are real. They are just not the same thing as ownership, and they do not by themselves answer whether the finished work is yours to sell.

A fic can be the best writing in the tag and still be built, at its foundation, around a character that is not yours.

This is why “but writers deserve to be paid” is not a complete argument.

Yes, writers deserve support. Yes, creative labor is labor. Yes, fandom often survives on unpaid work from people who are overextended, underappreciated, and expected to produce indefinitely.

But the question is not whether writing has value.

The question is whether monetizing access to fanfiction built on someone else’s characters is the same thing as monetizing original work.

I do not think it is.

There is also a difference between original commissions and fanfic commissions.

If someone offers paid custom writing using original characters, original worlds, or broad trope prompts, that is one thing. “Write me a dark romance scene with a possessive immortal king” is not the same as “write me Sukuna x Reader.”

The first may be trope-based original writing.

The second is a paid custom fanwork using a recognizable copyrighted character as the selling point.

That distinction holds even if the paid post itself is labeled vaguely.

One pattern that is worth talking about, without naming anyone, is the way explicit fandom language can disappear once a work is monetized. A fic may be promoted elsewhere as a specific character x Reader piece, while the paid post uses a vague title, a generic description, or no clear IP markers at all.

That does not automatically prove bad intent, and I am not interested in pretending I can read anyone’s mind. But structurally, it creates a strange kind of plausible deniability.

The work needs to be recognizable enough for the fandom audience to want it, but vague enough on the payment platform to look less directly tied to the source material.

That vagueness does not make the issue vanish.

If the audience understands what they are paying for because of off-platform promotion, fandom context, tags, previews, Discord posts, Tumblr posts, or prior branding, then the character name disappearing from the Patreon title is not a moral cleansing ritual.

It is just a curtain.

Maybe a very pretty curtain.

But still a curtain.

The paywall is the point.

Some people will say this is no different from fanartists taking commissions. The comparison comes up constantly, and I understand why.

Artist alleys exist. People sell prints, charms, stickers, zines, commissions. Some rights holders tolerate it, some do not, and enforcement is inconsistent either way.

So let me be honest about something, because pretending otherwise would weaken everything I have already said:

I cannot draw a perfectly clean copyright-based line between a paid Sukuna fic and a paid Sukuna drawing.

The character is the selling point in both. The skill is real in both.

But that is exactly why I do not think copyright alone is the whole argument.

The real line is older and stranger than copyright, and it lives in culture, not abstraction.

Fanfiction grew up especially attached to noncommercial gift culture. Not because fic writers deserve support less than artists do, but because fic communities have survived for decades by insisting the work is transformative, unofficial, and not sold as a substitute for the original.

That posture is not decoration.

It is part of what has kept fic legally breathable.

“Transformative and noncommercial” has been one of the major pillars of the fair-use posture fandom has long relied on.

Which is why this is not only about one writer’s vibe.

When a fic gets locked behind a paywall, the writer is not just changing their own relationship to their work. They are wearing down one of the cultural shields that has helped protect everybody — including every free fic in the same tag, written by people who never charged a cent.

The noncommercial part of that posture gets harder to point to when fanwork about copyrighted characters starts moving as gated content.

The person paywalling their Toji fic is, in a small and probably unintended way, making the rest of us more visible to precisely the kind of attention fandom has spent years trying not to attract.

That is my real answer to “who is it hurting.”

Not a corporation’s feelings.

Us.

The whole weird campfire.

This is the deeper cost.

The fic becomes gated content. The reader becomes a customer. The character becomes part of the sales pitch. The fandom becomes a market.

And once fandom becomes a market, the norms shift.

That is already visible in the language around paid fanfiction. People talk about tiers, exclusives, previews, early access, monthly drops, locked posts, custom requests, and premium content.

Those are not gift-culture terms.

Those are subscription economy terms.

That does not make everyone using them evil, but it does mean we should be honest about what is happening.

This is commercialization.

Not in the abstract sense. Not in the “everything online is capitalism, so nothing matters” sense.

In the plain sense:

access to fanwork is being exchanged for money.

That is where I think the line should be drawn.

A general tip jar is one thing. A reader saying “I like your writing and want to support you” is one thing. A writer offering original commissions is one thing.

But locking Jujutsu Kaisen fanfiction behind Patreon or Ko-fi memberships is another thing entirely.

Charging for custom Sukuna x Reader, Gojo x Reader, Toji x Reader, Nanami x Reader, or any other recognizable character fic is not just “supporting a creator.”

It is selling a fanwork.

I already said the harm is diffuse, and I want to be fair about how diffuse.

Maybe no rights holder ever notices. Maybe no account ever gets taken down. Maybe the shield never actually gets tested. Maybe readers are happy to pay. Maybe the writer needs the income. Maybe everyone involved feels fine about it.

But fandom ethics are not only about whether a corporation notices.

They are also about what kind of culture we are building.

Are we building a culture where fanfiction circulates as shared creative play, or one where the best work disappears into subscription silos?

Are we building a space where readers support writers voluntarily, or one where fandom desire is treated as a revenue stream?

Are we comfortable with turning access to fan-created stories about copyrighted characters into paid content while still benefiting from the protective language of “it’s just fanwork”?

I am not saying every fanwriter with a Ko-fi link is a villain.

I am not saying people who accept donations are destroying fandom.

I am not saying writers should be shamed for wanting support.

I am definitely not saying readers are entitled to unlimited free labor from strangers.

What I am saying is that there is a meaningful difference between appreciation and transaction.

There is a meaningful difference between “support me if you want” and “pay to unlock this fic.”

There is a meaningful difference between original writing commissions and paid custom fanfiction using someone else’s characters.

And there is a meaningful difference between a fandom gift economy that allows voluntary support around the edges and a subscription model that turns fanfiction itself into gated merchandise.

That difference is worth defending.

Because once the line disappears, it does not disappear neutrally.

It disappears in favor of the marketplace.

It disappears in favor of tiers, exclusives, locked posts, and customer access.

It disappears in favor of the people most willing or able to monetize communal desire.

It disappears in a way that makes fandom feel less like an archive, less like a conversation, less like a campfire of shared obsession, and more like another storefront.

I do not want fanfiction to become another storefront.

I want writers to be supported. I want readers to be generous. I want fandom to value creative labor without pretending copyright does not exist.

I want people to understand that “I worked hard on this” and “I have the right to sell this” are not the same sentence.

Fanfiction can be valuable without being a product.

Maybe that is the heart of it.

The work matters. The labor matters. The writers matter.

But the moment access to fic about someone else’s characters is locked behind payment, the ethical equation changes.

Pretending otherwise does not protect fanwriters.

It just makes the conversation harder to have honestly.

Support writers.

Tip writers, where appropriate.

Commission original work.

Respect the labor.

But paywalled fanfiction is not just fandom with a donation button attached.

It is monetized access to a derivative fanwork, and we should be willing to say that without needing to turn it into a witch hunt.

—

Further reading / context

These are not here as a magic “I win” button, but they are useful context for why fandom has historically been careful about commercial promotion and monetized access.

Archive of Our Own, Terms of Service FAQ AO3’s own explanation of its Terms of Service, including rules around commercial activity. https://archiveofourown.org/tos_faq

Organization for Transformative Works, “TOS Spotlight: Commercial Promotion” OTW’s explanation of why commercial promotion is restricted on AO3. https://www.transformativeworks.org/tos-spotlight-commercial-promotion/

U.S. Copyright Office, “Fair Use” A general overview of fair use and its factors under U.S. copyright law. https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/

[littlecakeclub]

What Makes a Story Original? ✧Reading Alchemised Beyond Its Past✧

I’ve seen so much polarized discourse online about this book, mostly about its fanfiction origins and whether it “should” exist. I just wanted to add my two cents to the discussion

Well, I’ve actually started reading it, and honestly? It’s fascinating to see how much the story has grown into its own world. People forget that Harry Potter itself is built on a set of deeply familiar archetypes : a magical school or institute, a tortured hero MC, the “good order vs bad order” duality, a slightly caricatural villain, a prophecy. The originality of the HP world was never in inventing new archetypes, but in how those tropes were combined and exploited.

That’s why I find Alchemised so interesting: it shows how you can take the same building block and completely reinterpret them into something new.

I was deep into the HP fandom back in the day (fanfiction.net, Drarry, Dramione, Lily/James…) all of it. But over the years, I really outgrew that fandom, especially as J.K. Rowling became more and more openly transphobic. Even though I’d heard a lot about Manacled, I never felt like returning to that world. So I’m genuinely glad Alchemised exists because it offers a whole new universe to explore, detached from that space.

A lot of people say it’s “impossible” to separate a story from its source when it begins as a fic, especially because of characterisation. But I think that’s false. Many fanfictions don’t follow canon at all : they reinterpret it. Take Dramione fics, for example: so many portray Ron as possessive or manipulative, which is clearly not the canon version. And that’s exactly what makes fanfiction compelling : it’s not imitation, it’s transformation.

If we accept that, then yes, it’s absolutely possible to take archetypal figures and rewrite them through your own lens until the story becomes fully yours.

What makes Alchemised stand out, to me, is that Sen Lin Yu actually rebuilt their entire world. They didn’t just rename characters, they transformed the foundation. They’re also a trans author who’s been very clear about wanting to move away from the HP sphere, asking people not to circulate their old fic illegally and that deserves respect.

When people mention the “fanfic-to-publication pipeline,” they often stop at Fifty Shades of Grey or After but there are so many others. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram… all started as fics before finding their way to bookshelves. Some of them barely resemble their origins anymore.

So why is Alchemised getting so much backlash, especially on TikTok? I can’t help but feel there’s a layer of transphobia in how people talk about Sen Lin Yu : the intensity, the moral outrage, the refusal to let them move on from their fandom past. It’s not just about “ethics in publishing” anymore... it’s about who we allow to reinvent themselves and who we don’t.

I know the fanfic-to-publishing pipeline raises complex questions about access, privilege, monetising fandom work and creative ownership and I’m not pretending to have all the answers. I understand that it can encourage a view of fanfiction as just a “pre-published draft,” changing the fandom culture from gift-sharing to profit-seeking and potentially shrinking the space for free creative play.​ But I also think it’s a space of transformation, where writers who’ve honed their craft in fandom can step fully into authorship.

That’s partly why I’m writing this, not to take a definitive stance, but to stay curious, to understand more, and to keep the conversation open.

So I’ll be reading Alchemised as its own book, on its own terms.

Not “the Manacled rewrite.” Just Alchemised.

[s-t-y-x]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to hold or voice such a view but I love the creativity of the TWST OC community. I love seeing all the Disney media and/or folk tales that people draw inspo from for their characters. I especially love seeing multiple OCs based off of the same character or concept and yet still unique. I love seeing people look at the same template and take it in countless different directions. Give me all the Greek God OCs. Give me all the expies from the terrible-yet-great direct-to-video sequels and the underrated television series spinoffs. Give me the expies from 'it's technically owned by Disney' media. Give me the expies of inanimate objects I never would've thought of. Give me your fan schools, your fan dorms, your fan countries and cultures. I love seeing the sheer endless potential of all the creators working within the same sandbox.