#fandom interaction

Back in the day (I'm talking 20 years or so) I was very active in a fandom from where my Tumblr name originates (Edelfan = German expression for passionate, but respectful fan). I was interacting, as a fan, with those celebs on a regular basis, they basically knew who I was.

All of that while enjoying and writing rpf in a safe online environment (LiveJournal days).

I would never even thought about shipping in front of them, no matter how they were acting.

Don't know if you've noticed but there are circa 900/4000 RQG fics that are marked as Explicit and ~350 marked as Mature on Ao3.

Just because something was written a while back doesn't mean it's not still good! There's lots of gorgeous fanfic out there that has made me *cry* with how good it is. Much of it is not only explicit but also explores all sorts of themes and pairings and look. Just go look at the Mushblins tag.

Personally I still write RQG smut. Copious amounts. I don't publish a lot of it because of the lack of engagement! If you want to see more smut in the world: interact with the smut writers! Comment on their work and kudos and give good feedback and maybe the ecosystem will flourish again.

Anyway this is a general point about fan fiction to be honest, but it hit me right in the chest when we once could have and did have it all but the lack of engagement is what really killed things.

My education being in public relations and mass communications and my career in strategic content and communications, I've always been really interested in the intersection of building community, interacting and content creation!

I'm thinking of putting together some surveys to get a sense of folks' feelings/thoughts, and to gather as many different perspectives as possible.

Like Star Wars fandom is really good about reblogging stuff compared to other fandoms I’ve been in and I’m wondering if it’s like a “generation who’s interested in it” related thing? Like I know Star Wars fans span many generations but I think a lot of it skews Millennial and Gen-X’er (or older)…you know the generations that didn’t grow up with IG/Twitter/TikTok, but still had internet access in some capacity…as compared to the other fandom I’m currently fixated on, Pacific Rim, which appears to have a far smaller reblog ratio (mostly just hits the “like” button and moves on) and, from my experience so far, skews younger.

I really want to do a study on this but idk how to go about that hmmm…

For me, my ideal fandom friendship would be someone I can talk to a couple of times a week (at least once? with obvious exceptions lol - holidays, plans, birthdays, trips, etc) give or take, be absolutely unhinged about Sam Wilson with (or John Sheppard or whoever), and can talk about our fics. Someone where we'd read each others fics and comment. A friendship where we encourage each other to update or at least write regularly - a chapter a week, a chapter a month, whatever.

Mutual reading, commenting, squealing, and encouragement.

I don't care if that person writes OC fic as long as they're willing to chat about it and (ideally) read my fics.

For myself, I'll read anything that person writes, regardless of whether it's in my wheelhouse or not, regardless of whether I'm in that fandom or not. And I'll leave comments.

The only caveats are for length (my brain just can't deal with fic longer than around 5k to 6k words per chapter as an average, so I'd need it broken up to read) and certain subject material I'm not comfortable reading.

But I realise that's not what everyone wants in a fandom friendship, nor is it how everyone wants to interact with their friends.

So I got curious.

What's your fandom friendship ideal look like?

I'm currently debating whether or not being blunt in a reply to a comment would be too mean or just honest. (also, this will probably decide how I will respond to empty comments with a "please, don't stop writing" tacked on to it; note: this will not apply to comments that are clearly written by someone trying to express themselves in a language they aren't fluent/comfortable in)

Part of the reply in question: But don't worry about me, I'm never gonna stop writing, at most, I'm just gonna do what other friends of mine have done already, and stop sharing my works publicly in favor of going old school i.e. exchange fanworks with others who create fanwork exclusively to regain what's somewhat missing nowadays