welcometotheravenclawcommonroom:

mazarin221b:

not-close-to-straight:

raakxhyr:

mysupernaturalfics:

meganbagels:

cullenstairshenanigans:

emotionalmorphine:

Somewhere along the way fanart become worth more than fanfic to fandom.

Artists have Patreon accounts where people pay real money to view their art early or to access special pictures like scraps or tutorials.

Whereas writers are expected to produce more and more, faster, for nothing in return. No one wants to see our “scraps” and writers who do provide Tips and Tricks often get crap for “policing” how people write.

And it falls into the prevailing notion that somehow writing is something easy, something anyone can do.

This isn’t an attack on fanartists. You deserve to receive some sort of compensation and accolades for your work. And so do fanauthors.

Writing fic is hard work. Yes, anyone can type out a story, same as anyone can pick up a pencil to draw, but what makes the difference, what makes a good piece is the experience and talent of an author. It’s all the stories no one saw, it’s all the writing books we’ve read, it’s the classes we have attended, all rolled into a package that works weeks, months, years to bring the fandom their fic. Yes we write for ourselves but we also write to contribute to fandom – just like artists do.

We’re just the same – artists and authors – and we deserve the same respect for our work.

Thank you so much, OP. And thank you to everyone who remembered us on Fic Writers Appreciation Day.

Let’s be clear, writing takes for-fucking-ever to do and it’s hard, lonely, strange, isolating, exhausting work. There is no art that is easy to make. NONE. All art is hard and deserves recognition if it has made you feel something or you enjoyed it. 

Allll of this

As both an artist and writer, I have to say that I’ve been struggling and asked to write fanfic faster than I can produce, and I’ve been producing more art than fanfics because it is faster and easier to produce and more people come in. It drove me away from writing and honestly it does help when both sides are appreciated. As everyone else said, both take really long to create, and all should be deserved of recognition.

I can say writing is a lot more exhausting than drawing, but that’s my personal opinion.

^^^^^ this for days

I’m not saying artists have it easier, you guys legit blow my mind and I worship the ground you walk on
But people pay for fan art while (most) people still don’t consider writing fan fiction to even be a skill.
I’ve STOPPED telling people I write fan fiction because they just roll their eyes and ask if I write anything real.

Like, sorry if my 50k, heavily researched fan fiction with an original plot and excellent dialogue isn’t as “real” as the original six page story you wrote in tenth grade

A GODDAMN MEN. I’m so glad you wrote this OP. Something similar has been pinging around my brainspace for ages and ages and I couldn’t figure out how to say it. It’s like, here, take my soul and my heart and my ideas and my creativity and just *have it*, for nothing. Because I want to talk to you, because I want to connect with you, because we share the same fandom language. And somehow, in the last 3 years or so, Fan Authors have become the strange little hobbyists in the world of fandom, quality doesn’t matter, care doesn’t matter, research and talent and learning about writing doesn’t matter. 

Which – if a writer writes a story and no one reads it, does it exist in the fandom? One wonders, and it makes it hard to continue screaming into the void if all you get back is the echo of your own voice, sometimes. 

This is the greatest post ever. It is so true though- I’m a shitty artist but I write fanfic and pour my heart and soul into it. I also write original stories. Both are hard. Art is hard. All three involve talent, creativity, and a lot of goddamned work. And then you look comparatively at a beautiful piece of art and an equally beautiful piece of fanfic? The art almost always has more likes. It almost always has more comments. Let’s take fics on ao3, for example. The hit ratio to kudos- I’ve had fics with hundreds of hits, no comments, and two kudos. Like, I get if you hit something, read a bit, and decide it’s not for you. That happens with every fic, and it doesn’t mean it’s bad- people just have different tastes. Some people also hit something so they can mark it for later and haven’t read it yet. That’s cool too- thanks for considering my work interesting enough to want to get to at some point. But I KNOW that that wasn’t the case for all 298 of 300 people that read my fic and DID NOT EVEN LEAVE KUDOS!!! I’m not trying to sound vain here, but I KNOW that fic was good. I’ve been writing for years and have extensive training. Sure, there might be some typos, but that’s just because my brain snags on an idea at weird times and flows really quickly and I’m rushing to get all the ideas down. I will go back and edit at some point, but haven’t yet had the timing or motivation (also, I’m majoring in a second language, so some of the minor grammatical issues might be simply because my brain is kinda frazzled from switching back and forth constantly and studying literature and semantics in a language I wasn’t raised speaking). Anyway, I know that I deserve more than two kudos. Kudos is literally the BARE MINIMUM you can do for something that has provided you with at least some level of entertainment. And comments- you don’t have to write a book (although on the occasions I do receive such a comment, I’m literally on cloud nine for a long time and reread it every day and glow all over), but anything that has at least something nice (ie, constructive criticism is appreciated, but also say something you liked so there’s a balance) is amazing and we love it. I know some people don’t like to comment because they feel they don’t have anything profound to say and don’t wanna ‘annoy’ us with ‘redundant’ comments like “this is good” or “nice chapter!” But I promise you, we could never be annoyed by nice comments. Even something as small as a smiley face is like pure heroin (without the negative effects obvs). Since I’ve started posting my fics, I’ve made a point not only to leave kudos on a fic that I even marginally liked but also to comment, even if it is just with a smiley face and I can’t think of anything to say besides *heart eyes*, because they deserve that. PLEASE APPRECIATE ALL ARTISTS BECAUSE WE ALL WORK HARD AND ALL OUR WORK HAS VALUE!!!!