Insert Clever Title Here

air travel is a mess? shortage of air traffic controllers - for some mysterious reason

logistics a mess? shortage of truck drivers - for some mysterious reason

public transit can't meet demand? shortage of bus drivers - for some mysterious reason

We even mysteriously have shortages of doctors, nurses, teachers... FOR SOME MYSTERIOUS REASON

Lapis lazuli and gold bead necklace with gold pendant, City or Ur, Mesopotamia, circa 2500-2300 BC

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

As AI-native experiences proliferate, millions of consumers are already encountering unauthorized versions of popular characters across chat, voice, gaming, and content creation platforms. Sixth Wall was created to give creators, rights holders, and partners a trusted framework for bringing characters into these new experiences while preserving authenticity, safety, and commercial rights.

People who hate AI are people who hate it for a lot more reasons than just where the training data comes from, so this announcement isn't going over very well

this was in Colorado in the early '90s, this was "the hate state" era, so everybody was intensely homophobic. there were nice normal families putting homophobic bumper stickers about gay sex on their minivans. but even in that environment this guy stood out, because he wanted to tell everybody about his... brother-in-law? i think? a gay man in his family who he refused to call by his name. let's say that name was Joe. and he would only call that man Auntie Joe. he would tell stories about Auntie Joe just so he could call him that. he had told his kids to call the man that. he thought this was both the sickest burn and the funniest joke imaginable. Auntie Joe! get it! he repeated it every chance he got, with the expected limp wrist gesture and lisp and everything.

anyway i think about that guy every time i see somebody in fandom decide that a slender, fine-featured, pretty, potentially queer man definitely wants to be submissive and penetrated and coddled and have lots of babies, but earnestly claim that's not homophobic or misogynist, no, it's not at all the same thing as demanding gay couples tell you who's the man and who's the woman, it's totally different, it's subversive, you swear.

we're looking to create an AI policy, and when we were talking about this, my boss (older millennial) was genuinely shocked to hear that younger people do not (seem) to view AI positively (a la the recent commencement speakers being booed)

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