Since just how fandom has become mainstream as of late with the Harry Styles pipeline and the content consuming of fandom itself through anything profitable that the original author did not benefit from, it's a mess since the revelation AO3 is backing lore.fm.
I knew since I got AO3 after seeing that I couldn't easily get past the warnings that I had to have an account and got one.
I participated in the fandom by creating fandom blogs and curating reclists. There is no right way to be a fully committed community member.
I love fanfiction. I love anticipating what the author will give. In my upcoming reclist, I went deep into that spiral.
That's the difference. Instead of respecting the author's time and authorship, these modern fans just don't.
They act like these free gift stuff are essentially free for-profit and lack any understanding of nuance or tropes.
Podfics are a thing and essentially dying since there are so few out there. The way these guys are about lore.fm acted more like tech bros and used buzzwords like 'ableist' and 'classist' when they're the ones who are directly profiting from it and didn't have any permission to create an AI system that scraps and make up endings that don't respect anything from the author.
The author makes fanfiction and gifts to the fandom for free. In the fanzine days that aren't expensive, it's dispersed via cheap paper to reach out as much as possible.
They don't care about the author's agency and control over their property in the end.
I have been in the fandom as a lurker primarily for nearly 20 years. I'm so used to waiting for fics to update and often a surprise update is what gets me going. That's why I can wait for a long time for pin makers from samples to ship it to me. As long as it comes from a reliable pin maker that is. But even reliable pin makers can fall from grace like Pin it on Magic whose divorce got to him that his small business shuttered its doors, whose preorders were forgotten in the mess and people just lost money.
Anyway, fandom clout does not matter when it's outsiders profiting from that clout and not the person inside it. There are famous authors in the fandom.
On the other hand, I can be assured my fave fics won't suffer the same fate as Dramione fics. Godoka, I don't care much about Dramione fics since I've seen a lot of them in the pin community.
Even if they are popular fics within that ship's fandom, I don't think they'll be popular enough to be an intro to fanfic.
Fuck, I don't know how to introduce my cousins to fanfics properly if they want to explore it. I can tell which anime or manga to get into. Heck, those in the know how much I love magical girls that someone who hasn't been in the animanga scene for a long time but has an older sister who is into magical girls as I am knows how much I love them.
Barring my Pokemon collection (growing consistently with Mamo alone. Really, I'm considering different ideas for my Dark and Light boards regarding the Mamo pins I have. With the last of the Eevee Fusions coming up, I need to finalize. Candlelight is magnificent and will go well with the rest of the dark designs), my magical girl is consistently growing one way or another through Sailor Saturn, Serenity, PGSM, and other magical girls like CCS, Princess Tutu, and Shugo Chara. If I was somehow finding magical girls, it's my brother who finds harem anime. How else would I know about Zero no Tsukaima to the point that I knew what I was getting into when I saw a Pokemon crossover?
I feel that using fandom as a goldmine for outsiders with the clout of said creation without the creator receiving that clout is pretty bad.
I respect the fanfic writers’ time and space. Certainly, there are comical stories of the varied lifestyle AO3 writers get into on the notes but I’m willing to wait and even if a fic may not be updated in years, context clues and foreshadowing are helpful tools as well as any comments made in any social media or the comment section itself.
How else is it to see that in Icarus’ Dilemma's second half, I just know that Lelouch would succeed as the Viceroy with Nunnally as the Sub-Viceroy? I might not know the finer details but I know based on other works, Lelouch and Nunnally will be as beloved as Princess Diana.
How about Gravity’s Burn where I just know Touya and Keigo are gonna elope?
Again, might not know the finer details but I can guess.
These tourist fans see the fandom with its generous gifts and sharing in the love as profit and content. Demanding authors to finish that Wattpad would punish them under readers’ complaints and using AI to make up their own endings are just one of the many disrespectful things done.
The theft had happened before in fandom but this is just too large scale.
Not helped there is just so much entitlement, puritanical overwhelming simple basics, and poor literary skills all around.
I know there are many different forms of AI that can be helpful but scrapping fandom and stealing it is not the right way. None of these guys aren’t rightfully getting paid or credited or anything.
In the eyes of the big corporate from tech bros to tourist fans, it’s all about money and content. They could care less that these writers write in their free time just as artists who run small businesses have to make it work for them in ways that they can still get money with their art.
I say we gatekeep.
These people should make an effort to go through hoops just to access them. I’d rather they be forced to do things just to get access to the 'content' they desire.
Since I usually engage with the media I get into and the fanfiction that comes from it, I don't see these as content.
Unlike small businesses that are based on art, they have to have new art and run it somehow in long term. It's heavily advised that unless they really want to go into the pinmaking business, understanding customer service and how to make it work for you is best.
Are you just going to make a sticker club? Or sell only stickers? You can even do acrylic charms beyond stickers.
Cara is still not known to the wider public so artists who wish to have new customers, they still have to post on Instagram. From what I have seen, it's not like you can create group chats with customers on Cara. Cara is for artists but less so for actually having customers outside of commissions. Yes, there are community members, but I have yet to see a clean transition to doing similar stuff such as creating groups.
It’s the same on AO3. Despite lore.fm being the head honcho’s idea to assist, the writers having nowhere else to go have to lock their fics.
All these AI folks will use buzzwords to guilt to get their way. The thing is that just because it’s free doesn’t mean they own it. They aren’t owed anything regarding fandom’s free gifts.
Yeah, it would be great for disabled folks but podfics are limited as they are already. Get permission from the author and make that podfic.
It’s better that the author gets the profits.
At least when artists get commissioned to make pin designs (the vectoring is left up to the pin maker and the art proof is up to the manufacturer but always make sure to triple-check everything and I do mean triple-check everything to get everything right. It might even take a while but unless you get a relatively easy file for you to do and them to use, then it's much easier to do from what I heard from Mamo at least. Apparently, Mamo and Nuwa are the best at having the easiest vectors and art-proof approvals), they get a pin version as well as payment.
Though some deserve better than others when a design of theirs. Man on the Moon and Nyxxi’s commissioned artists deserve so much more than one being stuck as an exclusive. At least David J Brunson is making a killing off his Disney pin designs, being an exclusive artist for two very expensive Disney fantasy pin makers.
I know Dalton was and still is the most popular Klaine fic. There were YT read-alouds but I never heard it past going beyond some chapters or completion.
I know some fanmade stuff was sent to the author but I'm not sure if they sold anything to the wider fanbase.
At least they aren't making money off the Weebly.
Outside of the fandom itself, the author does not get the clout. They aren't the ones making a profit from their own fics that they write in their free time.
When authors do make a killing, it's through their own resources such as Patreon that allows them sneak peeks or WIPs of other projects. Sometimes if they are the main mod behind a zine, it will be for-profit.
Again, the Dabihawks one I got was explicitly for profit.
They, in the fandom, have clout when the zine becomes a success either through their clout in the fandom or from the popularity of their fics.
In the fan merch community, they are explicitly open to make anything. I mean I received my Dabihawks pin because of it.
However, these guys are making a profit on their own. They aren't making a profit from another's gains who received that adoration through their hard work of their free writing that they took in their free time.
A fanfic writer is always grateful to have their works have fanart and be discussed among their dedicated following or spread elsewhere. They are fully willing to get into discussions of thought processes why each event happens in their fic. I have seen this happen be it through the comment section, Discord, Twitter, and anywhere they are willing to discuss any questions asked.
Outside of just participating in fandom, whether making a blog of your fave ship, whether it is rare or not, writing, or recommending, you are an active part of the community.
Making a profit off of someone else without permission or collaboration isn't part of the community.
There are different ways to be part of a fandom community but being this selfish enough to make money on someone else's free time spent to freely given gift to the overall fandom is bad.
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