rehlia:

tically:

There’s a fanfic I read in like 2002

It wasn’t even on FF.net, yet. KP Duty. The author did an ambitious set of fics called Temenos showing the realistic recovery of a character dealing with rape. It took them a long time (writing does), and I was long out of fandom by the time they either finished or abandoned it, in 2013.

Point is: it was still there, today. I still remember this fic and my interest in seeing where the story went and am going back to the library that is FF.net to finally read it.

There is SO much amazing content for Undertale that I don’t have nearly enough hours in the day to consume it all. There’s a backlog of fic that might take me years to chew through, and that’s not touching other creative media.

But things are different. People don’t publish creative work, anymore. They post it. Posts are viewed as transient, to be measured in worth by the positive feedback of likes/comments, and deleted when the author starts to feel “cringey” about it. Or, to be deleted when they simply lose interest.

And that’s a real shame. Not just for me, but anyone who came into the game late. They miss out by showing up late.

There are some people who compulsively save fanwork, for this reason. “No repost” is a new concept for me. I used to find art through chan-boards, and it was a good day when someone had the coveted source—everyone always wanted to know the source of the good shit. That’s what baffles me about everyone’s vehement feelings about cross-posting. The audience wants the originals. And the artists have a habit of hating their work and deleting it.

Everything you post on the internet is permanent in some fashion. You forfeit the absolute assurance of control over your content the moment you hit send. So, why treat things you make like they are disposable?

A fan fiction archive should be a library. Your dead blogs should be monuments.

I have strong feelings about this. I usually don’t join discussions like these but boy are my feelings strong. 

I too compulsively save fanfiction because I worry it will vanish. It has happened to me often in different fandoms and it has already happened to me multiple times in the Undertale fandom. I’m in favour of saving things. I’m even in favour of letting people who are lamenting that something vanished know you have the thing and sharing it with them. 

If that’s your platform then watch me stand next to you and join. 

But reposting… 

The thing is, yes, internet culture has changed a lot. I started out in fandom way back in 1998/1999 and yeah, having original sources for cool content back then was more often than not like having currency, because centralised archives were rare to nonexistent. 

Nowadays though, a lot of people don’t ask for sources anymore. And the people who repost also don’t always make it clear anymore that their repost is just that. Plagiarism is rampant with reposting. As is making changes to the original and then acting that the changes have always been part of the original. There have been cases where the original creators were accused of being the plagiarisers, and harassed about it for months. 

And that’s not the only negative effect reposting can have:

No credit for the actual creators, with the added potential to be regarded and harassed as the plagiariser. 

No feedback, which for many authors has little to do with perceived worth, and everything to do not wanting to feel like nobody cares about the content at all. (Also not everyone can write just for the joy of writing, and that’s valid. Can we perhaps not implicitly shame people who already have low self worth for trying to find a scarce source of validation for themselves)

No possibility to interact with the people who leave comments on the repost, to see their reactions and enjoy their excitement, joy, confusion, pain, or even receiving the ultimate validation of “you have inspired me.”

No knowledge about what’s being said about the work. Analysing the characters, the setup, the plot, guessing where it will all go – none of it. 

No ability to stop it when the reposter misrepresents the reposted work. 

No ability to stop it when the reposter is being a shithead in general making readers/viewers think that if they encounter the content on a different (original) platform, they are in the right when they’re rude to the original creator (because they will assume it’s the shithead). 

And finally: no ability to take the work down when there’s doxxing to/discovery by family/friends/coworkers involved, in which case it might become a question of safety and livelihood. “Don’t post what you can’t stand others to see” is not good advice when so many of us are writing to exercise our own demons, especially in the case taken as an example here, rape fic. Writing about sensitive sexual matter can be incredibly relieving as a survivor, but it’s definitely not something you necessarily to show your boss. That’s why pseudonymity is a thing. That’s why we don’t write under our real names for the most part. 

Yes, everything on the internet should be assumed to be permanent in some way, but it’s important to be able to at least cut your ties to it and create plausible deniability. If people would only ever write what’s acceptable in their social and work circles, fandom would be even poorer than it already is from having worse deleted for cringe. 

Or let’s think about people who are depressed or have other mental health issues who wish to take down their work because doing so helps them emotionally/mentally, something which they couldn’t have anticipated before they posted. “Cringe” may just fall under that.

To assume that every case of deletion is for petty, selfish, superficial reasons is incredibly naive and not a very kind thing to do, sorry to say. We never know what ultimately motivated a creator to delete their work. We can’t know, and it’s not for us to judge or to decide that we can just ignore concerns of creators who don’t want their work reposted. 

Discovering a fanwork has vanished is sad, but reposting, especially not how it’s currently handled, isn’t a good solution to this issue. 

(Reposting 101: Ask. ALWAYS. ALWAYS. If the creator says no, then don’t do it. If they say yes, follow their wishes regarding credit/limits/whatever. Be polite when handling the work of someone else.)