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[avianscribe]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[avianscribe]

You should get an AO3 account

With the rise of AI and the well known epidemic of AI companies scraping Ao3 for training data most authors on Ao3 have locked down their fics to logged in users only. This is unfortunate for authors and readers. As an author I've noticed a steep drop in readership on fics restricted to logged in users and when recommending fics to my friends I've noticed that the folks without an account can't find the fics. The logged in users only toggle, not only keeps people without an account from reading a fic, but also from seeing its listing at all. More than 50% of fics I come across have this setting turned on. So, you should get an AO3 account. I know this seems daunting and unfair because it's an invite only system but, you can invite yourself through the homepage if you don't already have one, and in the past few years I've never heard of someone who requested an invitation through this method, not getting one. And for those of you who are hesitant because you don't write, that's okay. It's not weird at all to click on a commenter username and find that they have 0 works and 10,000 bookmarks. It might take a week for the invitation to actually show up, but I can almost guarantee you will get one, just keep an eye on your email. It's free to join and donations are optional. You'll have more to read if you have an account and maybe give your favorite author the chance to protect their work from AI without a loss of readership and feedback.

[avianscribe]

Chapter 36 of Civil Hands is out now! || Start from the beginning.

Prompto doesn’t need the chancellor’s crooked finger to prompt his lines. “Until the day a peace treaty is signed, I intend to remain in Insomnia, if Your Majesty is willing to host me.” There is a long, considering silence. “We will speak plainly,” the king says. “You would surrender yourself as hostage to Lucis against further Niflheim aggression?” The chancellor smiles before turning back to the king, and there is little Prompto can do to calm his racing heart. “It will be an easy thing, should Your Majesty hold fast to your honor.” — Or:  When the Prince of Niflheim surrenders himself as a political hostage, Noctis’s curiosity turns into something unexpected.

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FINALLY the last image for my Brotherhood story collection! Prompto and Noctis overlooking Insomnia at night, listening to the strains of someone's radio playing a song...

This illustration is for Lyrics, which is part of my Brotherhood-era collection of stories. I'm pulling a bunch of shorts into a collection that I'll make available as a PDF!

Soon!

[avianscribe]

Chapter 35 of Civil Hands is out now! || Start from the beginning.

Prompto doesn’t need the chancellor’s crooked finger to prompt his lines. “Until the day a peace treaty is signed, I intend to remain in Insomnia, if Your Majesty is willing to host me.” There is a long, considering silence. “We will speak plainly,” the king says. “You would surrender yourself as hostage to Lucis against further Niflheim aggression?” The chancellor smiles before turning back to the king, and there is little Prompto can do to calm his racing heart. “It will be an easy thing, should Your Majesty hold fast to your honor.” — Or:  When the Prince of Niflheim surrenders himself as a political hostage, Noctis’s curiosity turns into something unexpected.

[avianscribe]

Ardyn Izunia, looking rather dapper with his hair tied back, wearing a red suit.

I didn't draw this for any particular reason, but at one point in esama's fic "Oh, where to we begin?" Ardyn gussies up in a bright red suit to crash a gala ball at the Citadel. As you do. And the idea of Ardyn pulling his hair back and wearing a red suit appealed. I gave him a vibrant canteloupe-colored scarf, because he deserves it.

[avianscribe]

I assure you: somebody, somewhere, is on the exact same wavelength as you are.

[avianscribe]

@questions-of-science WAIT WAIT forgot one! Which I APPARENTLY had not bookmarked!! (I have fixed that~)

What Fades Away by chasingfigments

Deliciously angsty retelling of Orpheus and Euridice, with Ignis trading his memories to find Noctis in the underworld (Pitioss).

Re: your recent comic... do you have any angsty Ignoct recs??

I DO!

Truth to say, I'm coming to ignoct so late that I can't guarantee that any of them will be new to you, but...! Here are some I have enjoyed. Some have happy endings, some have angsty endings...!

(really wishing the link preview would work for AO3 links; not sure what the problem is!)

A Complicated Courtship, by starrynoctsky

Ignis is surprised when he's assigned to file Noct's official paperwork requesting the court to allow him to begin formal courtship. He didn't know Noctis was interested in anyone, and the paperwork doesn't say who, but he's resigned himself that this was an eventuality he would have to face.

All that was good, all that was fair by Mementomoryo

An art! Beautifully angsty. (Based on a fic I have yet to read!)

Now by greenjudy

Unique because of the first person/second person perspective. An economy of words, and a lot of emotion.

Pink Slips by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Six times young Ignis expects to be fired, because he's failing at his duties.

A quiet sort of happiness by ladyzeia

After the dawn, Lucas wakes up with no memory of who he really is, or where he comes from--and then people show up who call him "Noct". Unfinished, but exquisite!

Curse by saisei

Noct speaks; Ignis obeys.

Magical manipulation. Definitely angst. This one is technically one-sided. Disturbing. Mind the tags.

I keep thinking there are others I've read that I like, but I didn't bookmark them, apparently. So! Enjoy--and let me know what you think!

[avianscribe]

Re: your recent comic... do you have any angsty Ignoct recs??

I DO!

Truth to say, I'm coming to ignoct so late that I can't guarantee that any of them will be new to you, but...! Here are some I have enjoyed. Some have happy endings, some have angsty endings...!

(really wishing the link preview would work for AO3 links; not sure what the problem is!)

A Complicated Courtship, by starrynoctsky

Ignis is surprised when he's assigned to file Noct's official paperwork requesting the court to allow him to begin formal courtship. He didn't know Noctis was interested in anyone, and the paperwork doesn't say who, but he's resigned himself that this was an eventuality he would have to face.

All that was good, all that was fair by Mementomoryo

An art! Beautifully angsty. (Based on a fic I have yet to read!)

Now by greenjudy

Unique because of the first person/second person perspective. An economy of words, and a lot of emotion.

Pink Slips by Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-

Six times young Ignis expects to be fired, because he's failing at his duties.

A quiet sort of happiness by ladyzeia

After the dawn, Lucas wakes up with no memory of who he really is, or where he comes from--and then people show up who call him "Noct". Unfinished, but exquisite!

Curse by saisei

Noct speaks; Ignis obeys.

Magical manipulation. Definitely angst. This one is technically one-sided. Disturbing. Mind the tags.

I keep thinking there are others I've read that I like, but I didn't bookmark them, apparently. So! Enjoy--and let me know what you think!

[avianscribe]

Yes it is June, but I actually felt some creativity stirring again and finished this up so please enjoy my favorite idiots in a haunted house❤️

[avianscribe]

the most disorienting thing thats ever happened to me was when a linguistics major stopped in the middle of our conversation, looked me in the eye, and said, "you have a very interesting vernacular. were you on tumblr in 2014?" and i had to just stand there and process that one for a good ten seconds

[avianscribe]

This is a comic about discovering what a ship is about. I'm the one on the left. That's me. Yeah I had less than kind thoughts about ships that I thought were impossible (that I hope I mostly kept to myself, but I'm afraid it may have slipped out now and then).

Now I'm reading a LOT of fics in that very ship. [flips a table] At least we learn sometimes.

The idea for this comic came to me at midnight and I couldn't sleep until I sketched it out and I set aside all the stuff I was supposed to do today so I could draw a pair of little guys. Most of it was wrestling with speech bubbles, because I haven't used the program for this kind of thing in years.

Anyway. [throws this at the internet]

[avianscribe]

Reblog to give prev the power to write their fanfiction

[avianscribe]

!!!!

I bought @avianscribe's typeset, Road Trip, into a book!

It's quarto size, bound with recycled fabric, 28lb paper, and scrapbook paper. The typeset is a collection of FF15 short fanfics with illustrations, and it can be found here.

During the past month, I carried this project with me to work, into the ER, against my body in a severe thunderstorm, and finally into my new home. It was an emotional experience. I can't think of a more fitting time to have had the bros so close to me.

[avianscribe]

i just saw a post on reddit titled "the writer is cooking but the food doesn't agree with me" and it was about OP clicking off a fic because they don't like the direction it's going in. slightly different context but can we all be more like this reddit OP. i think "the writer is cooking but the food doesn't agree with me" should be the new "don't like don't read." dead doves may give you diarrhea but don't make that everyone else's problem.

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More illustrations for my fan binding project! Gladio with his noodles, and a campsite by a lake!

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