Posting what we write on websites dedicated to writing seems obvious, but do you post your fic on websites that are not dedicated to writing, like social medias? Or do you keep the full fic on its fic site but still post about it elsewhere?
I personally have trouble posting about my writing, it always feels like it’s not the right place for that. Like all the people interested in reading fanfic are already checking fanfic sites and it would just be annoying to most users of other sites to see posts about it. And while I’m sure part of it is just personal history with social medias, I’m unsure how much of it has basis in reality, because it’s true that I almost never see fanfic-related posts where I lurk.
What’s your opinion on that?
Given how AO3 is currently optimized for text and only text, I suppose it can count, yeah ^^
Brain do be like that, very much yes. If you feel comfortable answering, did you stop posting updates to twitter and tumblr because of personal awkwardness, lack of reactions…? (Or just because the sites are a mess and a half, that works too x’) ) Back when I still was on twitter I tried posting links to my fics but I never got any reaction at all so I stopped after a while.
I spent years on tumblr, and was semi-lurking in some fandom spaces (reblogging, sometimes commenting, almost never posting). I don’t remember seeing posts about fanfic or fanfic links except from maybe one user? Then I got “active” (still semi-lurking style) on twitter, and I don’t think I ever saw anything fanfic in the fandom tags I checked. Oh wait no, sometimes there was a post about a big bang or other event that included art and writing, but I think that’s all. Now I’m on pillowfort, still never seeing fanfic stuff. The only writing I see is original NSFW in the teratophilia community. And for the last year I’ve also been on mastodon, I’m clearly outside of fandom spaces there (first 6+ months I was really in no mood to seek them out) so can’t really judge, but in the fandom tags I’ve been following for the last few months I’m the only one posting fanfic. So in short: except for mastodon, I’ve always found fandom spaces, but these spaces have always been fanart, memes, headcanons (and too often, infighting), but no fanfic. Which is why I was curious to see if my experience was shared or if I somehow stumbled upon non representative subsets of all these sites x’)
Lack of reactions do not stop me. Lack of reactions makes me feel more comfortable in posting because it means less purity police bullshit. Twitter I dropped for the reasons I dropped Reddit. Everything else is ADHD+Depression+Anxiety.
So with tumblr and twitter it is VERY dependent on your fandom. Some have hashtags I didn’t even know and others… no hashtags at all. You just had to luckily stumble upon them (likely because they wanted to avoid drama-seeking people).
As for places like Pillowfort and Mastrodon, these are VERY small sites and largely new. This is also where we get into the issue of self-fulfilled prophecy. Most people want to post in places where they will get interactions (nothing wrong with that and understandable), so they instinctively seek places where there is already a crowd. Even when there are sites that are designed to be fandom friendly like Pillowfort if the community isn’t already there, they tend to not move unless extreme circumstances request it (and, sadly, isn’t deemed too inconvenient).
Honestly, no different than what inspires most people into writing the stories they write. I remember seeing so many comments on r/fanfiction from people who wouldn’t write stories for fandoms because they were seemingly dead or non-existent. Not to say if everyone actually posted they would get rewarded. Because most people are only going to go to places they know, which they were advertised to, etc.
I’ve only posted a handful of art on Mastrodon right now. I do have a Pillowfort I keep meaning to fix up. Such things take time, for better or worse.
It’s true that no reaction also means no negative reaction. Though when I get exactly zero like/boost/answer AND zero click to my fic, it just feels useless. I tried for almost one full year before deciding I was losing my time for absolutely nothing.
I’ve been on Pillowfort for more than 5 years now so I wouldn’t say it’s exactly new xD And I’m well aware of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect, which is why I keep posting on Mastodon despite it almost giving me an anxiety attack each and every time, and also why I’m here, and also why I’ve been posting, alone, on two Lemmy/Kbin communities since July. But on the other hand when you repeatedly ask people what they want to see, get ignored, post about fanfic to try, get ignored, and the low effort not funny meme after you gets immediate attention, you can’t help but feel that the people currently present have a preference even if they’re not able to put it into words =')
But to add a more positive note to what I fear is a quite negative message on my part… if you ever have questions about Pillowfort, I might be able to help or at least know where to point you =) Don’t hesitate to ask if you ever feel the need ♥
We are social creatures, it is in one’s nature to want attention! There is nothing wrong with being upset when your are proud of something and not getting the reaction you are hoping for. (but I must say, purity police aren’t really “reacting” to works. They look for victims that seemingly have the right elements that they know outsiders who have done no research will believe because it sure sounds bad.)
That said, I am that person who will draw/write things expecting no views. When a game that came out in 2008 didn’t get any fanfic until I decided to in 2021, I expected 0 views. Not to say that I wasn’t thrilled when it started getting some (even if they were 100% from curious peers lol)! But for me the goal of creating those works was simply about needing more. Even if those pieces stayed at 0 I would not consider them a waste of time.
lol true! Pillowfort isn’t new by a general internet sense. However, when you compare the amount of users on it to Tumblr, it’s community-space is barely in it’s infancy.
As for the “my hard work gets no attention but my bullshit doodle gets 1k likes” is something that happens everywhere and has always been an issue even before internet. That very thing has made feel feel like quitting art at times. Sadly the issue I said about convenience? It applies here too. People are more likely to engage with something that looks like it isn’t going to ask for much thought. The artwork that took 6-something months to finish? Outside of my peer circle, nothing. That stupid meme I did years ago? Still fucking circulates at a particular time of year!
Which in general is also not a bad thing! The other meta-issue comes with the timeline we live in. Our modern times we are surrounded by “art” that is purely made for profit and most people do not get a basic education on how art mediums work. I dearly love Pokémon, but fuck, the amount of people who praised Scarlet+Violet’s story despite the massive amount of plotholes is depressing. The amount of people in that fandom who cannot tell the differences between genre of realism and grimdark is funny, but painful. (just because my main characters don’t have plot-armour doesn’t mean my fanwork is grimdark or horror! AAAA)
Oh! Thank you! I honestly cannot say why I’ve been hesitating on building up my Pillowfort aside from it happened at the same time of me migrating from many other places. I cannot begin to explain how much I loved the original reddit design and format so my brain jumped on kbin easier than it has to other locations. (again, that convenience issue)
Oh, I’m also someone who creates just because I want to write these stories, I don’t care if there are no views/likes/whatever. But there is a difference for me between posting the story thinking “if no one reads, fine, if people like it, I’m happy for them”, and putting actual effort (because for me it’s way more difficult to post a single tweet-sized message on social medias than writing a full fanfic) into something that has no other function than pointing at an already existing story. Posting a story I would have written anyway is a no-loss-maybe-gain thing (and I feel more secure knowing it’s archived ^^), posting about it on social medias starts with a loss and I would be fine with accepting it if there was any gain but in my experience there has never been one, so why would I do it?
(As an aside, I’ve been miraculously avoiding the purity police for years, because seriously, I had some of them leaving adoring comments on some of my fics while my previous and next fics were both so obviously full of everything they use to attack people, I’ve been wondering how much time it would take for one of them to actually look up what I write in general lol. Well, I got my first attack yesterday, and it was not even the fics that have been out in the open for years. I’m trying to take it as a “well, I leveled up as an author!” moment.)
And you’re right to mention convenience/low effort in interaction! I think it’s correct to point this out as at least one of the causes for the lower… attention, let’s say, fanfic gets on non writing sites compared to images. But that was kinda my point here actually: my personal experience is that there are so few people willing to put in the effort that fanfic has no place at all on most social medias, but I wanted to know if other people’s experienced it the same way or if there are corners where enough people are interested in fanfic that fanfic posters can see that interest existing.
(Your fanwork might not be grimdark or horror, but this anecdote is a little bit horrifying in itself ;p Joke aside though, I feel that. I want to scream a lot, and I do mean a lot, at how some people cannot even read text, nevermind subtext. Even in communities of writers! You’re supposed to be interested in words, why can you not read? I’m so confused sometimes…)
Yeah, moving places for several sites at once is such a chaotic mess… I moved to Pillowfort to replace Tumblr and it was the only change for me at this point, which is clearly why I have a better time understanding that platform than I do Kbin. Reddit has always been an enigma to me so I’m here totally clueless and there are too many other things I’m juggling at the same time and it makes me want to scream into a cushion just a little bit =')
Ahhh, I think I see what you are saying! In that case if it causes such grief to do in the first place, I’d honestly stop doing it (I did for some sites before I learned of how nasty they were getting). It’s not worth trying to build up when it causes that much dread.
(Oh goodness! Good perspective to have, but do make sure to protect yourself if they start trying to dig into your personal life! Good luck!)
Yeah. As you saw, one of the fandoms I am in is one of the biggest and thus very easy to find even in non-fandom friendly sites. But most works I am into are not even 1/5k the size of it and thus I wouldn’t find anyone to connect to even on sites meant for fandom interaction. So in spades your experience is very much shared!
(So much! I may get mocked for my language skills at times but at least I try!)
Kbin has a lot differences than Reddit despite sharing an inspirational point. I find myself confused about multiple things here despite being able to draw from a similar UI experience. But I have been enjoying the many differences! Being able to do microblogs that don’t bog down the main threads is a great way to throw a casual mention of working on stuff without feeling like you are putting a spotlight upon yourself. (If you have a question, I’ll do my best to answer!)
(Don’t worry, so far it’s just one (1) idiot anon on AO3 posting on one (1) fic, I deleted the comment, they didn’t insist, I doubt it’ll go farther. But I’ll stay vigilant =) )
I’m not even on Kbin, I’m on Lemmy, and we don’t have the microblogging thing here so it doesn’t federate given we have no way to display it (and thus I can’t post that kind of thing either). I was confused about the voting culture on Reddit but honestly here with the fact that the votes do NOT federate in the same way on every instance I’m not even bothering to think about it, I consider it’s just a broken feature and the only thing it can do is prove at least one person saw a message and absolutely nothing else x’) I’ll keep your offer in mind if a clearer question than a vague “wtf am I doing” comes to me, thank you ♥
(ah! good to know it hasn’t snowballed into anything more!)
Whoops! Sorry for the assumption. Another thing I love about these federations that other places don’t have- the ability to talk to others on entirely different sites!
(Sorry if all of this reads a bit harsh by the way, I tried to avoid that as it’s not my intention but I’m not at my best right now so I might have slipped. Hopefully not too much =/ )
(Didn’t read harsh at all! But my ability to read tone in non-narrative text is really bad so I am not the best judge. If it seems like I misunderstood anything, do correct me!)