#creative asks

You know, maybe it’s just the archivist in me that balks at the term ‘content’. Content is a data entry field in the archival system we use at my real-life job: literally speaking, this data entry field is where we put a brief summary of the document attached to that specific archival file. It contains information that tells you the key takeaways of what the document is about, but it will not contain the full text of the document itself. Content is one of the points of access for our archival search: I know what I’m looking for, so I put a few keywords into our search and it pulls up the relevant file. But what do I need, really need, in my line of work? It’s the document itself, not the data entry field. The document tells me the whole story that I need to be able to truly do my job well. The content-field is a cliffnotes edition of that story.

It’s the same way with the art we create in fandom. I’m gonna take myself as an example here, because I create a fair bit! (Shocking, I know. Local Tumblr cryptid sighting, more at 11. 😎) I spend hours writing fic. I spend hours sorting through screencaps before screeching at Photoshop for a lengthy amount of time. I spend days pouring over quotes, books, documents, photographs, tutorials, and other things that will help me create something cool. I apply color theory, art framing/perspective, narrative focus, and many other theories and techniques to my writing and my giffing. If I were to put my finished work or any of my WIPs in that same archive system, it would be the document within the archival file. The tags I use on my posts? Those are markers similar to the content-field. They tell you who my gifset depicts and from which show it is. They tell you which OC of mine my fic is about. My work contains these things I tagged.

But my creative work is not content itself.

Content is marketable, easy access, blurb-y stuff. Content is something you absorb within one minute flat. Content is the highlight reel. It’s what fills a page, something you’ll scroll past in a heartbeat, something that barely stands out in a long long long list of stuff. Content is what you consume on a lazy Sunday afternoon without ever being forced to read lengthy pieces, take in the details of what you see, pause mid-scroll to ponder the meaning of life, whatever else have you. Create content and you create a flash in the pan, a quick laugh maybe, before it fizzles back out again. Create content and it’s here today and gone tomorrow without anyone mourning its absence for too long.

Art should last longer than that, don’t you think? 😉

So when I see people put a fic request in an askbox and it’s phrased like “Speirs x spy!reader fluff” and that very same request makes its way into about ten more askboxes before the fandom starts comparing asks? I might be inclined to classify us all as slot machines. Put an ask in and out rolls a fic. Who cares which slot machine it came from? As long as you’ve got your painstakingly crafted fics that you consume the same way you do actual content, right? We, its writers, are just lucky if we get a pat of acknowledgement on our little slot machine head for our troubles, aren’t we?

When I see an overly detailed summary of what sounds like a full-fledged fic in an askbox and the demand is “write this for me”, I recoil from the screen and go “child, who the hell birthed you, were you raised in a barn?” out loud. If you can tell a story in the space of an askbox, consider asking for help to let that story – a story you own, a story that is more yours that it could ever be mine – grow into what it has the potential to be.

When I see fics and gifsets and other creations get likes but not reblogs, I mutter something about the state of fandom economy these days. We exist in a little fandom bubble. Our bubble can’t expand or blow from place to place without a little help from our friends. And you’re my friends, right? I know the follow-button says follow, guys, believe me, I’m not that far gone, but for me ‘follow’ means ‘friend’. 💚 You’re my buddy now. Suck it up. We’ll share a can of peaches. 🍑

When I see fics and other creations get reblogged without tags or comments attached, I die a little on the inside. I feel like a little Victorian orphan child going “please, reblogger, a little penny of thought for its creator, if it pleases?”. I feel like commentless and/or tagless reblogging is giving me nothing, nothing at all, about who you are.

And I want to get to know you! I want to know who’s in my notes. I want to know who’s scrambling through my MotA gifsets like a fat little raccoon inhaling its third helping of a box of jelly-filled donuts. I want to know who is adopting which character and why. I want to know that it’s your birthday, or that you had a bad day and needed a pick-me-up, or that you are locked in an Ikea at three in the morning reading my blog by the bright lights of countless Solhetta bulbs. I want to know that you love my OC Darlene but that you ain’t sure what the hell my OC Lottie’s got to do with anything. I want to know what tickles you – a turn of phrase I used, a color in a gifset, a little detail I captured that made me go !!!!!! on the inside while I was creating too – and I want to know what moves you.

What reaches into the soil of your being and nourishes you enough to blossom into whichever lovely self you can grow to be? What is precious to you? What comforts you in the dark nights of your soul, when all light feels like it’s faded out? What do you love, truly love? What feeling and thought and idea and love love LOVE do you consume – truly consume, head to tail, no takebacks – and what are you consumed by in turn?

Let me connect with you. Let me know the little internet scraps of you that tell me you’re a DeMarco girlie, or that you’re here for Hoosier only, or that you’re as feral and batty about Speirs as I am, or that you actually really can’t stand the one dude everyone else raves about. Let me know that you like angsty quotes on gifsets – feel free to yell at me for making you schedule an impromptu therapy session – or let me know you saw what I did in my fic there and you’ll be demanding compensation from me while you lie down and wail about it. Let me know you’re very into those lovely blues on a gifset (I know, SO good, right??) or that you are side-eyeing me because that close-up of your fave turned you into a little puddle.

Let me know what moves you, because I created these things with love. I created them because they moved me, too. I created them because I have a story to tell, somehow. I created them because the whole world is a string of stories and I want to pass the heart of them on to you. I created them not because I want to jump on a hypetrain that races past all the episodes and all the alternate universes and all the stories without stopping, but because I want to soak up the sun and point at something and tell you “look, isn’t this beautiful?”. I created them not because I am looking for a quick fix or a distraction or an escape, but because I want to give you something that nourishes you as it has nourished me.

That’s so much more than that quick flash in the pan, yeah? That’s so much more than what content could ever hope to be. That’s something that lasts beyond the clicks and gives you an ever-expanding horizon that leaves you wondering just what in the world is next.

Let me repeat point five: if all a fandom puts out is classified as content, that fandom is going to die. Because content doesn’t sustain you. Connection does. And connection? That happens with meaningful interaction. That happens when you stop getting followers and start getting friends. That happens when you treat all forms of art as something unique that can be precious to someone, rather than something to like today and forget about tomorrow.