Entry tags:

ao3, author entitlement, bitter so bitter, deep fanfic thoughts, dogpile, everyone entitlement, fandom: the avengers, fanfic, far too complicated, kudos, misplaced anger, reader entitlement

Writing fanfic is totally like running a restaurant.
Taken from a kind anon, with some small changes made.

Ice, an author of some regard in the Avengers fandom, is no stranger to wank. A few months ago, she attached a long author's note to one of her fics that, simplified, requested readers not leave kudos (still needs caps):

"You know what? I am currently in too much fucking pain and under too much fucking stress to give a flying fuck about social conduct.

I had one simple wish — no kudos.

I keep on asking that on every fic and every fucking time on every fucking one of them, there's a person who just... what? Can’t help themselves? Well done. Thanks for reminding me, over and over again, that I must, indeed, not post my stuff and hope for a simple fucking courtesy to respect my fucking wishes."

Fail_Fandomanon and Tumblr got ahold of the story and promptly spammed it with kudos.
Since then, her fics have continued to be subject of kudosing and - in her mind- low comment counts when compared to the rest of the fandom. Thus, she decides to leave the ficdoms in a blaze of glory.

By writing a longform analogy comparing writing fanfic to running a restaurant. (Original link BALEETED, caps HERE.)

This immediately lands on Avengersanon, Fail_Fandomanon and Tumblr, and subsequently her comment pages fill up with snark. (All deleted: page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4, with bonus fic.). There's even podfic! After trying to orphan the piece (since deleted), Ice deleted all of her Avengers fanfic, leaving her table AO3 account empty of Avengers content.

For a bonus treat, be sure to read this gem from the wank report, in which a disgruntled ex-ficwriting mousie pops up to sympathize with Ice and humblebrag about her important profic writing career, eventually declaiming all feedback-denying fanfic readers and non-pro fanfic authors as a "whiny ass bunch of freeloaders" and "doormats," respectively, who may or may not be in an abusive relationship.

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	squeakytoy 2013-02-25 12:15 am UTC (link)
	I would prefer comments - conversation, interaction, specific appreciation! Of course, when all the comments are "I liked it!" or "write more!" then there's no real diff between that and kudos. Nevertheless, kudos are a perfectly acceptable replacement. ("click kudos, damn you! click it! Please? Pleeeeaaaase?") (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

ashinae
2013-02-25 04:56 am UTC (link)

I think everybody would of course prefer comments. Like I said, I've always been perfectly happy with the "I liked it!" comments, but of course the more in-depth ones. My problem is always that I so seldom ever knew how to respond beyond "OMG thank you!" basically--but I'm the kind of person who gets flustered if someone tells me something like "You have pretty hair". I'm a doofus like that.

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squeakytoy
2013-02-25 05:10 am UTC (link)

I guess what I wanted to say is I understand where these people are coming from. They'd like comments, they get little kudos which might mean anything or might mean nothing. Comments require effort, thought, typing, so when someone comments, it's a BIG THING.

And I like holding whole conversation threads in comments. It's a dying art. :)

Kudos might be 'I liked it' or it might be 'I like the pairing' or it might be 'my finger slipped'.

However, I think that Ice's response to kudos is ridiculously disproportionate. And kind of weird. Because I almost certainly get more feedback from the kudos button than I would in comments if there were no kudos option.

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	rosehiptea 2013-02-25 11:55 pm UTC (link)
	I always leave comments and not kudos (or in addition to kudos, though I'm not sure there's any point to that.) But as an author I'm not going to demand that from other people. Kudos are nifty. (I always feel weird and fangirly when I leave comments. I do it, but I worry I sound incredibly immature.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	empy 2013-02-26 07:43 pm UTC (link)
	I have the same problem. :/ (And I'm AWFUL at replying to comments in a timely manner. The longer the lag, the worse I feel.) I appreciate each and every comment I get, so not being good at replying to them sucks, meh. Kudos are a little more impersonal, but damn it, I cherish every single one. <3 (Reply to this)(Parent)

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