holyangelstudentuniverse
Matheau (AFABGenderfluid|Demifluid) {He/Him|They/Them} Book&Music Lover/Marvel&DC Fan/Coffee/Hallowe'en/The Hobbit&LOTR/Stranger Things/Star Trek
204 posts
Latest Posts by holyangelstudentuniverse
idk if this is a young fan thing or new fandom culture but some of yall think fics are abandoned way too quickly. a few months or a year or two is not unusual to go without a fic update. sometimes fics take longer to write, other times writers have rl events, or maybe there's multiple fics and one gets more priority. there are tons of reasons for fics not to be updated every week or every month. it also isn't uncommon for people to come back and update fics after a number of years—ive read updates that took five, or ten years. people's lives change, but they still want to tell their stories. personally, i never consider a fic abandoned unless the author has said so; though if it's been a few years i manage my expectations. but a last update being a year ago is... generally not a sign that a writer has abandoned their fic
Happy Stitch Day, everyone donate to the NICWA out of apology that we let the reboot gain any kind of traction
The National Indian Child Welfare Association is an organization working to protect indigenous children and families through education and advocacy on child welfare and kinship rights. Nobody gets left behind.
If possible, for that smut prompt list: Stargent with number 8?
Prompt #8: oops, we were just hiding in this closet, but then the close proximity get us too turned on not to fuck
So, in utterly unprecedented events, I posted two fics on AO3 in one day?! I can't believe I wrote this in one afternoon, within like 12 hours of getting your prompt, especially after spending the morning finishing and posting a different one.
Thanks for sending me the prompt!
It (once again) ended up over 3k, so I'm just going to share the AO3 link instead of posting the whole thing here. I really hope you enjoy it!
You can read the fic on AO3 HERE!
Aegosexual
Almost too late!!!!!!!
Aegosexual: I only feel sexual attraction in fantasy. When it gets real/happening with me… yuck 😦
Idk, it’s like I’m daydreaming: “woah, it would be so cool to kiss someone I love”, but then I start thinking too hard about it, and it gets too “palpable”, and I get grossed out just like that.
Bro, two tongues full of germs pushing each other, mixing saliva and breathing on each other’s nose… it’s just too anti hygienic for me. Imagine doing more?!??!? JUST HOW 😵
“We’re in a fanfic drought” Tell the writers you like their work.
“All Tumblr ever does is write oneshots now” Tell the writers that you’d love to see them write longer things.
“Nobody updates their fics anymore” Tell the writers you love the fic and want to see more of it.
Tell the writers.
Actor Jonathan Joss was just murdered for being gay and married to a trans man. On the first day of pride 2025. He was best known for playing John Redcorn on King of the Hill.
I had no idea he was gay but he was married to a man named Tristan Kern de Gonzales (on valentines day 2025!)
They lived in San Antonio Texas where his family is from and he grew up. He was 59.
In Janurary 2025 his home was burned down which made news. It killed some of his beloved dogs. He didnt elaborate beyond he believed it was arson (gofundme is still up and i suggest donating to help his funeral costs and his husband
Update: de Gonzales says hes fine he just wants justice but i still think its nice)
Now we know he and his husband had been threatened by several neighbors for being queer. They told pigs, pigs being pigs did nothing before or after it happened.
Yesterday Joss and his husband went to check their mailbox wherein they found one of their dogs skulls (statement from his husband
)
As they weeped and mourned in shock, a neighbor, Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja, came out and aimed at de Gonzales…but Joss jumped in front of the bullet and was instantly killed.
Ceja, homophobia murdering coward, tried to take off but de Gonzales had called pigs who vaguely tried to do something. He was arrested and his bail set for $200k. Or as my sister said who the fuck sets bail for a murderer?
San Antonio.
De Gonzales is clearly mourning, posting pics on Hoss’ fb page. This one really struck me
This is why we need pride people, and not rainbow capitalism. Please donate to the gofundme and let san antonio cops knows what you think. De Gonzales said multiple neighbors had threatened them…id like to see those people investigated for arson.
Go into pride with rage and knowing. Have joy, kiss puppies, dont bow to homophobes. And maybe enjoy a little king of the hill.
UPDATE
Jonathan Joss’ husband Tristan kern de Gonzales identifies as trans on his facebook page.
Which explains the ramp up of hate and why the murderer shot at de Gonzales (Joss pushed him out of the way). So this is also a transphobia related murder
For @kymera219 who wanted something happy. (I hope this is enough fluff)
Young Mischief followed the big kid with silent tears streaming down his cheeks. He was having a not good day today. First, his mommy left him all alone in this new school, then there was this kid who wanted to be his friend until he realized that Mischief wasn't going to respond to him like everyone else who thinks he's the 'coolest kid in the whole school', and THEN he dropped his super special sandwich (It was shaped like the Bat symbol!!) on the ground!!
Later, his mommy is late picking him up, but when this big kid came to pick his sister up, he said that Mischief was going home with them for the day, so now he has to ride with Creepy Cora. He doesn't know why the other kids call her creepy though, sure she's tougher than the other kids and not scared of the dark or anything, but that doesn't mean she's creepy, if anything, it means— Thwack!! A soft noise escapes as Mischief rubs the side of his face. He forgot to watch where he was going, but now that he's paying attention, he peers around to see Cora, her big brother, and an even bigger kid all staring at him.
He blinks back a couple times, then finally notices the books!! There's got to be at least 100 of them!! Cora's brother, who is apparently named Derek, starts to tell the bigger kid that Mischief is supposed to ride with them today, who just makes the same sound that his dad makes when he's left his toys all over the floor or spilled the juice from the carton. Derek and Cora roll their eyes at the same time, then get sent off to 'get Laura and put their shit in the car', which leaves Mischief alone with the bigger kid.
They stare each other down for a few moments, before the older boy speaks, "You must be Mieczysław."
Mischief nods his head. "Do you know why you're coming with us today?" A shake of the head gets an annoyed mutter about parents being dumb before the older kid sighs, "Well, you're staying with us for the day because your mother has an appointment, the sheriff is working all night and neither of them could get another babysitter, so they called my sister."
The younger boy, face falling briefly at the news his dad is working all night again, nods along.
"But since my niblings didn't introduce us, I'm Peter," Mischief gives a little wave at that, then a shrug when asked, "You don't talk much, do you?"
Peter watches him with a calculated look, "I'm not going to ask what I assume everyone does, so instead my question is this: Do you like to read?"
Peter nearly caught off guard when the younger boy nods so vigorously, it almost seemed his head would fall off.
The teen opens his mouth to say something else, when Derek reappears and says that Laura said to 'get their asses in the car before she tells Mom about Peter's secret stash!!' at which the teen boy lets out a growl and begins to drag the younger boys out to a sleek black car.
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
Claudia Stilinski parks her slightly dinged up blue jeep in the long driveway of the Hale house, heading to the front door once she climbs out of her seat.
The door opens seemingly before she even knocks, but she pays no mind to it once she notices what's going on in the front room. There are several kids scattered about doing various activities like homework and playing with toys, but what draws her attention is her precious Mieczysław seated on one of the sofas next to Talia Hale's young brother, Peter. The 15 year old is rocking a baby(Must be Talia and Michael's youngest) to sleep while looking at a book with her son and patiently explaining things to him.
A sudden yell near her left followed by a screech and high pitched giggles makes her turn just in time to avoid two other kids(One the same age as her boy, the other a few years older) as they chase each other out the door and into the yard.
"Mrs. Stilinski, I presume?" And there's Talia, coming down the stairs.
"Oh, yes, I'm here to pick up my little Mischief. I hope he hasn't been too much to handle."
The Hale matriarch waves away her concern with a flash of lavender colored nails, "No worries, he was an angel!! Between you and me, Peter has actually gotten quite attached to your son, none of my kids who are old enough to read really share the same interests as he and the rest are too young, so the two of them have gone through almost half the books in the living room alone!!" "Yea, that's my Mischief. He'll read anything he can get his hands on, even if he doesn't always understand what it's about."
Both women turn to watch their sons for a moment before Talia calls out to them, letting Mieczysław know his mother is here.
There's a rush to gather his school stuff and a flurry of body parts as all the kids decide they want to wish them goodbye, but before the Stilinskis are in the Jeep and about to leave, Peter pops up at window offers to watch Mischief again whenever they need a sitter, citing experience from watching over his many niblings.
Claudia turns to the back seat where Mischief is strapped in, "Well, what do you think? Would you like Peter to come watch you sometime?"
Mischief glances from his mother to Peter, who's trying to hide the hopeful look on his face, then opens his mouth and says, "Wes, I want Pether to come read wit' me all da time!! Foreder!!"
Peter grins and runs back inside once Claudia gives him confirmation that she'd call with more details tomorrow, a slightly stunned look on her face as she pulls out of the driveway.
÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷÷
Later that night, after Mieczysław has been put to bed, Claudia calls the sheriff's station to speak with Deputy Noah Stilinski.
"Dia, everything alright? How'd the doctor's appointment go?"
Pulling her legs up underneath her on the sofa, Claudia smiles at her husband's constant worrying, "Everything seems to be fine, Love, they said it's safe to try again in a few weeks, but Noah, I have to tell you something about Mischief."
Across town at the sheriff's station, Noah Stilinski is relieved to hear that his wife's appointment went well, but this news about his son is starting to worry him the longer Claudia holds back, "Dia, just tell me, what did he do this time?,.."
"No, nothing bad happened and he seems to have gotten really attached to Peter Hale, Talia's younger brother, but Honey,.. as we were leaving, Peter stopped us and offered to watch Mischief whenever we needed and then he- Noah, he spoke!! Our little Mischief spoke!!"
The deputy almost dropped his phone when he heard that, "D-did I hear that right?! Did you just say that our son, our son who has never spoken once, has finally said something and it was to a freaking Hale?!"
A teary laugh gasps out of Claudia, "Yes!! He spoke!! He finally spoke!! And he only stopped talking once we got back home and even then, it was because he fell asleep!!"
Needless to say, the Stilinskis had no idea what awaited them now that Mieczysław 'Mischief' Stilinski started speaking.
generative AI literally makes me feel like a boomer. people start talking about how it can be good to help you brainstorm ideas and i’m like oh you’re letting a computer do the hard work and thinking for you???
Gravity Falls AU where a young Derek and Cora have to stay with their weird uncle Peter for the summer.
Shenanigans and antics ensue.
A crazy, other-dimensional being that goes by Stiles decides to join in the fun.
Until something happens and his bad side comes about to play, then the Hales have to save Beacon Hills from the Void.
If you’re european and can vote please sign!
In any case, share as much as you can
Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.
So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.
Lurkers really are great, tho
I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.
Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.
The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.
Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.
There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.
I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available.
I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.
I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.
So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.
But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.
I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.
Should we gatekeep fandom?
I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--
A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.
That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.
See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.
So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.
The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.
And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”
Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.
Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.
And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.
However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community.
I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.
And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company?
And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)
But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.
Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.
Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.
Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists.
While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:
[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom
OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]
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“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.
I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.
It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits.
So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.
And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.
So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.
Think of it like a garden gate
When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.
The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people.
Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it.
Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.
My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.
But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.
I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.
Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.
And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.
Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.
Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.
There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.
Platonic Steter(Or aged up) Iron Giant AU where Stiles befriends a feral Peter who slowly gains/regains humanity and ends up saving the entire town of Beacon Hills.
Guest starring Gerard Argent as Kent Mansley.
Tumblr Code.
PSA
Just a heads up, there are bots going around on AO3 accusing people of using AI. Considering the timing, this is likely AI bros' retaliation for AO3 users calling them out for scraping their work. Examples of what you might be sent:
Screenshots from here.
If you get a comment like this, just report for spam and delete.
This petition has until 14th July 2025.
If you live in the UK, please sign it.
If not, please share it so it can reach more people :]
Hey just a general PSA from someone officially diagnosed and documented:
Now is not the time to seek out an autism diagnosis.
RFK's plans have been made very clear and any diagnosis you do get will get you put on this "national disease registry" they're proposing.
Trust me when I say I completely understand the need for accommodations and a better understanding of yourself, but if you have gone this long without being diagnosed, you will be better off waiting.
Furthermore, listen to and advocate for folks who are diagnosed, especially folks with higher support needs. They'll be the first ones targeted for whatever bullshit "experimental treatments" the government tries to push.
Stay safe and look out for your neighbor.
Uhhhhhhhh that seems bad
Ive come up with the phrase "blorbo-in-law" which is a fictional character who isn't, like, YOUR blorbo from YOUR shows but it is your mutual's blorbo who you nevertheless have developed strong opinions about due to long term dash exposure
With more and more Ao3 authors restricting their works to the archive (due to AI scraping), they're going to be losing guest interaction. And probably generally feeling down because. You know. AI is stealing their hard work.
So! Now is a great time to stop by your favorite authors/stories and drop them some comments! They really appreciate it!
crazy that in the 1970s they were like, "fine, women can play sports. but because they're innately less athletic than men, only in a special ghettoized League For The Frail And Delicate where they get paid less 😊". And not only is that still the system in 2023, but viciously lashing out at the smallest challenges to that system gets framed as Feminist Praxis
Hello! Ao3 has been part of an unauthorized data scrape for GenAI purposes. If your fic has an ID number between 1 and 63200000, it may be a part of the data set and you can file a DMCA copyright infringement notice on the American sites it was uploaded to. Each of you will need to request a takedown.
Here’s a link to the information.
It is a reddit link, but it has the other links you’ll need in one place.
(Tagging with as many medias as I can remember so it gets to more fandoms)
Shout out to everyone on my dashboard who is enthusiastically talking about whatever the fuck theyre into that I don't recognise. Love your enthusiasm, keep going, I don't know what's happening but i support u
Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL
“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”
