Danna Banana

i feel like everything important about the zc situation has been said by people who have put it way better than i ever could, but it feels like the right moment to thank some people.

thank you to everyone who writes fics for huge ships, even if it feels like there‘s an abundance of stories already. thank you to everyone who writes fics for rarepairs, even if the pool of potential readers is incredibly small. thank you to everyone who creates fanart, whether it‘s a quick sketch in procreate or a really elaborate piece you spent hours on.

thank you to people creating heartbreaking web weaves. thank you to people creating gifs and f1 incorrect quotes and moodboards and memes and edits. thank you to people sharing their thoughts and headcanons and prompts.

thank you to everyone who (respectfully!) comments, sends in asks or reblogs and leaves some encouring words in the tags and thus motivates others to keep creating. you are just as essential to the fandom as the people creating the things you engage with.

thank you to everyone who adheres to rpf etiquette and archive locks their fics on ao3, posts about ships only on tumblr, ao3 and private discord servers and refrains from sharing fics or even refering to the ships outside of fandom spaces.

unfortunately, f1a can only go so far to promote these girls careers. teams and brands will sponsor these girls as they go through f1a but as soon as they complete their two years there or win the championship, they are thrown away and dropped by these teams. they're careers are left to drown and they have no support going on.

yes, we have f1a. that is a huge step in the right direction. but we need these teams to be held more accountable and still let these girls go on past f1a with the equal opportunities of their male counterparts.

we don't just want an all women junior series. we want to see women in the top of their sport. we want to see them get to places they have not been allowed to go in. we want to see them make it to f1 (of wtv other category they chose for that matter. whether it be imsa, wec, motogp, indycar, etc..)

so as a message to all of these teams: give these women, these professional athletes who have given up so much and have had to work even harder, who have the same abilities and ambitions as they men, an opportunity. give them a chance. and no not just one lousy chance. a good full on chance. let her succeed. let her win. let her inspire all the young and old women watching them do all of this.

This situation is not exclusive to rpf. I have watched this happen in pretty much every single major fandom. Klance Byler Mcyt, ect, they have all had a fic go extremely viral which then results in a downward spiral where fandom etiquette is thrown out the window and the author inevitably ends up pulling their fic from the internet and stepping away all together.

To be honest with you I am not surprised that this has happened again. I have been noticing for a while that the way people have been treating Rose and her fics has been absolutely terrible. Even people who were well meaning let their excitement about her fics cloud their judgement and cause them to be quite rude to her and disrespectful of fandom and rpf etiquette.

Therefore I would like to give some reminders to everyone about fandom etiquette. Because it's not just "keep all rpf discussion to ao3 and tumblr." those are important and those rules being broken certainly played a role in this particular scenario, but there's a lot more to it then that and as a fan you need to be more aware of how you interact with content.

Authors are not celebrities. They did not sign up for having an audience to deliver things to. They are fellow fans and creatives who are passionate about what they do. Because of this, I urge you, no matter how good a fic is, no matter how much you love it, you cannot treat it like a grand monolith for the fandom. When that happens the fic gets pulled out of its intended context and the author will inevitably be put under extreme strain and scrutiny. If you love a fic the best thing you can do for it is keep your interactions with and discussion of it purely to the ao3 comments and the authors askbox. I understand that creating a separate fandom for someone's works is done out of love and admiration but I have never ever seen it end well. When you create a fandom for a fic you are inviting typical fandom problems in and pushing them onto an author who did not ask for this.

You also need to stop treating authors like they are gods or something. I know this is usually done with the intentions of being complimentary. But an author is a real human being who deserves compassion and kindness. When you treat them like something to be worshipped you are inevitably dehumanizing them and making people feel more comfortable saying horrific shit to them or just generally being disrespectful. While it is also bad to get too parasocial and act like an author is your close personal friend, going towards the other extreme is also harmful. It is also just uncomfortable in general to have people act like you are not just a normal average person existing in the world. Authors are amazingly talented of course and that should be appreciated, but that does not rank above the fact that they are a normal person who would just like to interact online like anyone else.

The most important thing to remember is respect above all else. Because authors are human beings who deserve it. Being talented at something should not exclude them from that right. I ask that you take the time to reflect on the way you talk to/about authors and double check that you aren't accidentally forgetting about that.

Finally finished it!!! ^^

Fanart cover of my favourite fanfiction to date:

Family Matters by @evilgustofwind <3

sketch v final <3

We might be busy and take a while to get to it (we are human, after all) but I'd rather you ask me instead of running to AI

they're together now! 💝

read zero cycle & its sequel a life in the sun on ao3!