venomnyx

[venomnyx]

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.

[venomnyx]

Babe come back the kids miss you😭😭😭

im DEAAAAD yall im so sorry i got caught up because i just started streaming and posting on tiktok im so sorry LMAOO

[venomnyx]

liking popular characters is so embarrassing Yeah here's spiderman bet you've never heard of him,Whatever kicks a rock

[venomnyx]

hii! i wanted to say that when u first posted house in nebraska i genuinely fell in love with the story and how u wrote logan it’s everything and i’m wondering if a part two will still happen ofc this isn’t a demand sorry if i sound rude but i was curious <33

No worries lovely!! I DID start a part two for that series-- sort of flashback events to the readers canon timeline with Logan. I really really want to finish it too and I promise as soon as I'm done with this semester I'll be opening that scrivener app and writing my butt off

[venomnyx]

I've read every piece of Josh x reader writing on AO3 and i've been going through major withdrawals so ive migrated to tumblr. i missed my baby girl, my absolute favorite scene that people insert the reader into is the shed scene with him, chris, and mike. sadly, they're arent a lot of works out there with the reader in said scene tho. That and longer fics but honestly who doesn't love those. I was honestly wondering what kinds of Josh fics/media are your favorite.

Honestly, the Until Dawn fics that I generally gravitate towards are anything that happens before the events of the game. I love getting to know Beth and Hannah more personally, and I am an absolute sucker for the best friends older brother trope (if you couldn't tell, considering that's all I write for Josh).

Longer fics will always hold a special place in my heart, too!! But I love a cheeky 1k short fic too, it just always leaves me yearning for more!

I will say that I find it hard to read any fics that are set during the timeline of the game, but I don't necessarily avoid them. I think it's very easy to miss the mark on the complexity of Josh's illness, but I can appreciate that romanticising the horrors of the game sort of comes naturally to the "x reader" genre, so it can't be helped, it's just not my cup of tea! But, naturally, my favourite Josh media to consume is edits. I have an entire folder on my tiktok and I think it has upward of 400 videos or something silly lol

Thank you for taking the time to ask!! :3

[venomnyx]

Absolutely ELATED to hear the extended length of the Josh fic!! Love u bb keep up what ur doing and take ur time!!

Thank you my sweet sweet angel! My last assignment is due next week and then I’ll get cracking on it I promise!

[venomnyx]

Hey! Just recently found your blog and I'm in LOVE with your Josh fics and the way you write him!! I grew a crush on Rami Malek, especially Josh, and your content just fills me with joy!

Seeing that youre going to write a 10k worth of words of angsty Josh? 👀 I cant WAIT!! However, take all the rest and time you need to heal <3 keep up the good work! ❣🖤

Hi lovely!! Thank you so much for your kind words!

That work currently has around 8k words and I definitely overestimated my ability to crunch it down to 10k, so we’re looking at 15-20k tbh! I finish Uni soon and my love for Josh Washington hasn’t gone away so I am absolutely determined to complete it.

Thank you thank you for reaching out and sharing your words with me, it means a lot!

[venomnyx]

gang is this the real Josh Washington???

[venomnyx]

off to London for a few days!! going to watch Rami Malek in theatre and I am so excited :33

[venomnyx]

Hi same anon as before, But i am a system !! I was moreso asking for self indulgence hahaha thank you so much for being so kind and respectful <333

No worries!! I completely understand wanting a more self-reflective reader insert. Nothing wrong with that!

[venomnyx]

Would you ever be comfortable writing a josh/ reader fic where josh has DID ?

Potentially!

I’ve actually done masses and masses of research on DID for the book that I’m writing, so I am comfortable exploring it

Howeverrrr putting this in a fanfiction would potentially be romanticising it and I’d be very wary to not cross that line. I suppose it depends on the context!

[venomnyx]

Stg angels serenade me with a chorus of the choir whenever u post 😭😭😭

BESTIE THIS IS THE NICESY THING IVE EVER READ

I promise I’m gonna lock in to update those fics I swear I swear I swear

[venomnyx]

you play marvel rivals OMG? who do you main?? are you ranked ?

hi lovely!

yess unfortunately that game has me hooked but considering how much of an overwatch fan I was I should’ve seen it coming!!

right now i main invisible woman and adam warlock for support, which is usually the role I have to fill, but I LOVE playing winter soldier and moonknight for dps. I gave spider-man a go but his assassin play style is just not for me even though I love him to bits

Ranked wise— ive only clocked in about 19 hours this season and im currently at GM II :3

[venomnyx]

hope you're doing okay <3

thank you bestie. im still around i promise !

lately ive only had the energy to rot on marvel rivals and do much of nothing else, but ive received some of the cutest requests for josh and ughh it’s pulling me back i swear

[venomnyx]

i think if someone stole a fic of mine to use for a shit ass c.ai bot i would find their address go to their house and break their bones one by one. idk thats just me tho

[venomnyx]

Same person from before, just wanted to say you are so strong and beautiful, I have so much sympathy for your loss and I’m so sorry you’re going through that. Take your time angel 💞

thank you so much! <33

[venomnyx]

PLEASE make that long ass Josh fic you were asking about I will literally grovel

Hello gorgeous!! I want nothing more than to work on this fic!! Unfortunately my lovely nanny passed away a few days ago, so I’m dealing with that at the moment. I’m also on new tablets that drain the life out of me and leave me sleeping for 14+ hours a day. The past few months have been SO busy for me.

Regardless, I miss tumblr and writing every single day. I have every intention of finishing this fic— I think I got up to 10k words last I opened the document, so there’s not much left to do other than the smut scene and some minor tweaks/polishing I believe.

Thank you for hanging around for me, it means a lot!!