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*collective fandom sigh* ya bud, we know

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— March 17, 1915 / Franz Kafka diaries

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In honor of the Ides of March, my favorite Tiktok

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merry ides of march

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Not what I expected coming from John Green

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When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

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Barney, snoozing on a hilltop, in the summer of 2009. 

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photography was invented to take pictures of cats

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I'm glad that people are still having fun on tumblr even after we found out about the frightening ghoul that reblogs posts but doesn't say anything

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"There's no way in hell there was an actual supervillain who actually called themselves-"

"No, no, not officially - we came up with the name when we were assigned to find them, and we were kind of taking the piss, but it's still a good name. It was before your time - they had the power to-"

"I don't want to know what their power was."

"No, listen - their power was that they could summon a pie and throw it at someone."

"Oh. Oh, well, okay - that's the greatest supervillain you've ever fought? Doesn't sound like much."

"But that was the thing. They could throw a pie at someone and it would never miss. So long as they could see their target they'd hit them. We eventually found out they could throw a pie at someone who was on live broadcast, miles away."

"Jesus. Okay, I think I see the issue. But it was still, like. Pies, right?"

"Oh, for sure, it was never poison pies, and they could only summon a pie every 15 seconds so they couldn't drown someone in meringue. But - do you remember Murgatroyd Bentley?"

"Sort of, he was president when I was a little kid - something, something superhuman rights, and he was the guy who nuked Saskatchewan, right?"

"That's the guy. We found out about this guy after the Humboldt Crisis, because after that, whenever there was a live broadcast with the president - the state of the union, addressing congress, the Christmas tree lighting - a pie would splatter across his face every fifteen seconds."

"…Is that it?"

"Hon, it was everything. You haven't lived until you've seen the president try to talk about dignity while being smacked in the face with a banana cream. By the end of term, he refused to show his face in public, and he resigned in quiet disgrace. There were a few other pieings for a few years, but nowhere near the amount that took place when Bentley was president, and eventually they stopped. We never found out who or even where this person was.

"And that - more than anything - makes them the greatest supervillain I've ever had to deal with. Because they didn't do much, but they did it loudly, they did it consistently, and we never caught them."

"...How hard were you trying to catch them?"

"Not very."

"And you decided to call them Dr. Creampie?"

"We were young. The president had just bombed Saskatchewan. It was a weird time. Honestly we took what we could get for laughs."

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I was reading this post over on the Ao3 subreddit this evening and I think it brings up a lot of good points about how fandom, as a community, has been shifting in its treatment towards fanfic writers.

Fanfic is more popular than ever, which means there are more works "competing" for the readers' attention, who take on a passive approach that treats fanworks not as a means to talk to people with similar interests, but as content, as products. [...] Gift cultures thrive not on monetary exchanges, but on the expectation that the gifts freely given will be returned in an unspecified future through emotional and relational means. This used to set fandom apart, but it's slowly being absorbed into the mainstream way capitalism operates. Where does that leave us?

And it's demotivating to see the responses authors get when expressing their grievances with this state of affairs, or how they feel underappreciated. Being called entitled, told to write for themselves, or to promote their work as if writing and posting isn't enough. I write for myself, I post for the community. There are things I want to say about the source material and characters, and I do through storytelling. And I'm grateful about each of the comments I got, no matter how short. It's just that it doesn't feel like there's a community out there when no one talks back. Writers aren't just expected to write, but to do it for the "right reasons", and to also be as pleasant about it as possible, lest they'll be criticized by more people than the amount that's offering them support.

I've seen posts going around on tumblr that have approached this topic as well--that fanworks (particularly fanfic) should be created from the perspective of a perfect vessel that can pour, pour, pour out and never needs to be poured into. You should do it for the "right reasons" and not complain because "no one owes you interaction". But what is fandom if not interaction?

Writing fanfic is one of the most time-consuming labors of love that makes up a fandom. (That's not to say other fanworks aren't labors, time-consuming, or made with love. We're talking about fanfic). Your 300k+ enemies to lovers slowburn porn-with-plot fic that has reshaped the entire way you approach a specific pairing or media has been made with time, effort, for free, with the intention to be shared with you.

And in the state of current fandom, it has been made with the expectation to receive nothing back. Is that fair? Maybe. Silent readers exist and a kudos on Ao3 is at least an acknowledgment that some people read and enjoyed. But does it hurt to leave a comment? Even a heart emoji or an "I loved this, thank you for sharing!" is enough to at least start a dialogue, a conversation, form a connection.

That's not even to mention the isolation of fandom interactions to private Discords; time after time I've heard from fanfic authors who found out that there have been discord servers or twitter groupchats where their fanfic has been discussed, loved, and lauded at length--but never once was the author told this! Ao3 has comments for a reason. Many authors link their tumblr profiles or emails in their bio for people to reach out to them.

It's just a sorry state to see it go.

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The San Francisco Examiner, California, June 30, 1932

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(in the one of pedro pascal’s “you should know this too” clip) my favourite empty-reacue headcanon is that when cas comes back sam reacts first (like in the episode they get out of the high security prison) and rushes to hug cas and cas looks over his shoulder and dean is standing there vibrating out of his skin

like that

idk man i thought you’d enjoy that

I do enjoy it

he's so excited for his turn :D