#**fan

And I can see how if you've been raised in a culture where that's normal, you'd see ANY adult interacting with kid-focused content through the lens of, "but how is this adult profiting off these kids and how are they profiting off me? I don't like it."

But also, that's why money and fanfiction don't mix.

Like. I think YouTube Kids or whatever is insidious and horrifying. I think people who share their kids on social media at all are kind of horrifying. I also think that because those kids are real and exist in an actual real situation of material harm.

Fictional people by default don't exist, let alone exist in material harm. So that's where their argument breaks down. But:

The illusion and erosion of "no difference between fiction and reality" that YouTube and social media "stars" perpetuate has totally broken a generation's ability to tell what exists and what doesn't. That's why these kidfluencers and influencers are able to make money at all. Their fake personae and real existence are mushed together until their lives are "narratives," so puriteens see fictional characters with narratives as having... lives. But they don't. Because they don't exist.

If they're exoticizing their Korean-ness and exaggerating their racial features and only writing it because they're Korean, then sure, they have an Asian fetish. But that's a racist thing that needs to be addressed as a racism issue, not a paraphilia. The idea of being into a hot celebrity having sex with other hot celebrities is not a fetish. Being specifically and only into ASIAN celebrities having sex with other ASIAN celebrities is the fetishistic part there.

RPF in itself is not a fetish. That's just being into hot human beings and imagining them fucking. Kpop fans writing RPF is not inherently more harmful than anyone else writing RPF. It's how they treat the basic humanity of their idols that matters, and that's what matters in ALL human behavior -- RPF, media FF, or just being a person who exists on the same planet as other people.

It's not the act of writing RPF itself that is harmful, ever -- it's other behaviors that CAN, but do not INHERENTLY, come along with it, like harassing fellow fans (or celebrities) on social media. And that is a behavior that is endemic to social media as a whole, not just RPF writers.

Hi! Thank you for this message, it's very sweet -- and kind of ironic because I didn't write yesterday, so today my brain is screeching that I NEVER WRITE ANYMORE and I'm desperately trying to tell it, CHILL IT HAS BEEN 24 HOURS. But suffice to say: I feel that feel of it being really hard to motivate yourself to write even when you really, really want to do it.

I struggle a lot with acting on "self-motivated"/"internal" motivation alone (and I'm going to blame the ADHD for that). So even when it quote-unquote "should" be "enough" that I WANT to write, the fact that "it's just me" who wants it makes it hard to actually sit down and do it. That's part of why I'm the world's slowest writer on longfics, too! Only I care whether the story gets finished, so like... who cares? (Besides me, and who'm I? The queen??)

The best thing that I've ever done for my writing habits was to start the drabble project, because even though I rationally KNOW that no one actually cares that much whether I fill their prompt, I can CONVINCE myself that it affects someone else whether I write.

Knowing that I can make someone a little bit happy with my writing by filling their request bumps up my motivation from internal to external -- someone's putting pressure on me/counting on me/waiting for me, and I don't want to let them down. It means a lot to me to think that I can make someone even mildly smile with a contribution that I make to their day, so dangling that opportunity in front of me is enough to kick my butt into finishing my daily drabbles.

I think changing the language for myself from writing being an obligation to being an opportunity also helps -- even though my motivator is external pressure, it's still an opportunity to interact with someone through writing, not an obligation to fulfill. I miss LiveJournal's culture of interaction and discussion in fandom, and if I feel like I can recreate it a little bit by filling prompts, then good. I'm using writing to fill a hole that I have in my nostalgia-heart.

I'm also going to say that IT HELPS SO MUCH NOT TO LIMIT MYSELF TO ONE FANDOM OR PAIRING. I love so many things! I want to write all the things! Sometimes I run out of ideas for my biggest OTPs, and having other options to "recharge" with has been SO helpful. Even though it all depends (for me) on who is being requested at the moment, the breadth of pairings that people gift me the chance to write is a further stretch for my creative muscles, and that helps the drabbles work really well as a "warm-up" for longer writing. That obviously wouldn't work for everyone -- a lot of people genuinely have One True Pairing that they're interested in, and that's totally fine! -- but I've always been a multishipper in my heart and being able to swan around from fandom to fandom and pairing to pairing has been so refreshing and nice.

And honestly, the last helpful advice that I have is less fun and won't sound helpful, but it's the most important part: if you want to write, you just have to do it.

EVEN IF no one cares but you, EVEN IF you're kind of out of ideas, EVEN IF the words are all coming out wrong.

You have to choose whether you want to make writing part of your day-to-day life, and then commit to it if you do. I don't write at the same time every day, but I know a lot of writers who "go to work" at the same time every day and just write whether the creativity is flowing or not.

Writing is a creative muscle, and if you don't exercise it, it will atrophy, just like actual muscles. You can only improve if you do it. Reps and gains, or whatever. If you really don't have it in you to write that day, try to read and study writing craft or outline or research or make a moodboard for your story... anything that will still help that writing muscle flex.

The longer your writing muscle goes without writing, the harder it will be for it to "pull its weight" when you do sit down with the energy and creative flow and motivation, and that's super discouraging. And eventually, you stop sitting down at all. And that's a huge shame! If you love writing, you deserve to get to do it.

That's a big part of why I picked drabbles for my "exercise." They're only 100 words each! Pfft, I can do that! I'm all about endurance, not getting swole.

I would rather write a couple of tiny fics every day and know that I wrote than beat myself up for not working on my longfic every day.

And the BEST benefit of drabbles is that they ARE a good warm-up, so I have worked way more on my longfic in the last year than I would have without drabbles. You can cross-train your writing muscle to be able to work your way up to your Magnum Opus Big Honkin' Masterwerk... you don't have to START there.

So tl;dr, I would MOST suggest finding a way to externalize that motivation. Find a buddy who you can write for, or open up your inbox to prompts. Find the kind of prompts that work best for you -- some people love detailed prompts, but I'm a "one word and a pairing" kinda gal -- and remember that people requested them because you share a love for that fandom/pairing and you both are chasing joy. Even though it's external pressure, if it's stressing you OUT, then retool it. And try to just push through and write as often as you can even without the creativity flowing. Sometimes it's just not gonna, but you can poke around at something anyway and try to get those juices going.

Disclaimer: I can only speak for myself, this is only my personal opinion, other people have different preferences and boundaries, etc.

I think the most basic rule of responding to fanfiction and fanart across the board -- whether it's comments, bookmarks, Tumblr posts, or Tweets -- is that you should never respond in a way that you wouldn't want someone to respond to you, you should always err on the side of being TOO earnest and kind, and you need to remember that you and the writer do not know each other (unless it's someone you do know).

The problem with commenting or bookmarking or tweeting about how [X] fic is a 7/10 is, A, that metric means nothing -- there is no rubric for what it takes to be a good fic, and even if there were, your taste (editorial you) is not subjective -- and B, it's fucking rude. People are sharing their fic, or their fanart, with you because they love a thing you also love and they are communicating with you about that love. Grading them on their love is cruel.

Grading fics, whether on the A/B/C/D/F scale or the 1-10 scale or whatever, is never, ever actually providing feedback. It's just being mean for the sake of being mean. It also suggests that you view fandom and fanfiction as a hierarchy or a competition and not as a community, which is against the whole spirit of the thing.

And even if you (editorial you, not you you-you) are one of the people who looks at my first "guideline" and says, "But I would want people to be honest about my fic's Quality, and it's weak sauce not to be able to take criticism," then here's the thing: "7/10" is not criticism. It tells the author absolutely nothing about your actual response to their work, it just says "this was mediocre, bye." Like... okay? What about it? And why do I care what you think? What are your qualifications to grade my writing?? And do you understand that fanfiction is written, 99.9% of the time, without significant editing or drafting and is pretty much never totally polished?? Because it seems like you don't know that and therefore, again, why should I care what you think??? Rude!

I have genuinely never seen anyone respond to a fic with so-called constructive criticism and actually be saying anything worthwhile about writing craft. Editing is actually incredibly difficult and that's why it is a full-time, highly skilled career that takes a lot of dedication and education to do in a meaningful way. It's also something that happens BEFORE a work is finalized.

For fanfiction, if it's posted, it's finalized. Going in with suggestions, unless they are VERY SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR IN AN AUTHOR'S NOTE, is both pointless -- the story/chapter is done -- and most of the time, frankly just... not helpful, because most people don't know how to respond critically to a work without confusing "literary criticism" with "being critical" and "editorial comments" with either "personal preferences" or, way worse, "prescriptivist grammar policing."

(And that's FINE! Most people don't NEED that skill! I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that anyone shouldn't be allowed to have preferences or suggestions or whatever for the fic that they read, and I'm not bashing people who don't have that skill. It's a niche skill. I can't do long division. That's not even niche.)

IF you ABSOLUTELY MUST give unasked-for critique, then the ONLY thing that you should be concerned with doing is providing actionable feedback that is concerned with the text as it actually exists, not with what you wish it had done or think it should have done or are pretending that it did. But you know what's way better than leaving unasked-for critique that is 100% guaranteed just to bum someone out and ruin their day, and possibly their whole experience in your fandom?

Just find another fic to read and let whatever you didn't like in the first fic roll off your back like water off a duck.

And if you TRULY CANNOT DO THAT, YOU MUST let the writer know that you don't think their pacing was good, or whatever --

You wouldn't walk up to a stranger on the street and say that you didn't like their shirt. You COULD tell your best friend that. If you really want to have an impact on someone's writing and you ABSOLUTELY MUST tell them how to change it to better suit your personal taste, then put on your big-person pants and message them privately about how you love their shoelaces and make a friend. And then, eventually, they will probably ASK for your thoughts on their writing. Because that's what writers do to their friends. But no one ever wants to make friends with, or consider the opinion of, a stranger who just ran up and was rude out of nowhere.

And if you read a fic and you REALLY HATE IT and you CANNOT CONTAIN YOUR HATRED and you HAVE TO LET SOMEONE KNOW HOW MUCH YOU HATED IT -- my pal, my buddy, that is what private conversations are for. That is not the author's business. That is not Twitter's business. That is not Tumblr's business. That is your Salt Friend Susan's business, and you can shit-talk that fic in private to Salty Susan as much as you want. I'm not saying you cannot have fun being salty about fics you hate. I'm saying you absolutely should never do that in any place that the author could conceivably see it.

Like, I have dunked on "reylo fics" as a thing on my blog, but even at my MOST unhinged anti-reylo, I have never publicly shit-talked any specific fic, author, or fan. Because that's just fucking cruel and there is NO purpose to it besides making someone feel bad. And if you are SO INCENSED that you MUST MAKE THE AUTHOR FEEL BAD then not to be glib but you need to close AO3 for an hour and slowly drink a glass of cold water, because no, you do not need to make an author feel bad. There is never a reason to do that.*

*I'm not talking about troll fics that are intentionally tagged incorrectly or that are intentionally racist/transphobic/antisemitic/anti-Black/etc. The only rule for responding to THOSE fics is "block and report, do not personally engage the troll, protect your own self."

And then the flip side: when you're responding kindly and excitedly and squeeing and AFLSLGSKGLSGLSGDSGL; about a fic, the main thing to remember is that you and the author do not know each other (unless you do) and that they can't read your tone over the internet. If you're not sure how your message comes across, make it nicer and kinder, and then send it. Err on the side of being TOO earnest and kind. That's always better than thinking you're sending a squee comment and accidentally ruining someone's day anyway.

Example: a few months ago someone commented on one of my fics, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever read!" And I was like... okay? Did you have to tell me that? I don't need to know that you're saving it to laugh at or something? Fucking rude??? And I think I wrote back, "Fucking rude???" and they wrote back and were like "OMG no I meant that I loved it and laughed so hard!!!" and it was like... just... say that then? I don't know you, I don't know your language patterns, and there's no way to infer tone from a written comment. "This is the stupidest thing I've ever read" does NOT read like "I loved this." Just say "I loved this."

And in terms of responding specifically to smut and thirst asks... idk. *MY* opinion is that I never want anything more detailed than like, "that was Not Gross and I enjoyed it," but I'm also a giant prude and almost never write smut anymore, so my opinion is very different than someone who runs a thirst-ficlet blog, probably. But I feel like the general stance of, "if you wouldn't say it to a stranger on the street, don't say it to a stranger on the internet" is a fair rule of thumb.

I don't want to know that some random person in the movie theater has a boner any more than I want to know that someone wanked to a smut scene. That's not my business.

But again, my opinion is likely to be very different from someone who runs a thirst blog and is intentionally TRYING to elicit physical reactions. But still. One of the worst comments I've ever gotten was like ten years ago someone said that they thought of a scene I'd written while they fucked their husband and I'm like, scarred. I don't know them. I don't know their husband. I didn't write it "for" that. I... ablsa;hdb;lsn;l;

me: *got told 11 years ago by an objective douche in hunger games fandom that talking about your own fic makes you a terrible person, and believed them*

Me to me: Time to write!