it's incredibly bleak how many contemporary aspiring writers cut their teeth on fanfiction, a form that actively teaches you to write worse

"but some published writers start with fanfic" yeah EL James and Cassandra Claire--they're fucking terrible

controversial take: low-effort formulaic lowest-common-denominator writing is bad actually

"But fanfic is often queer." Great; but did you know that queer literature exists outside of fanfic? It's a lot more meaningful to read legitimate queer stories than to mash your plastic action figures together.

If anything, the popularity of fanfic has served to erase meaningful queer literature. Queer kids shouldn't learn what it means to be queer by reading recycled Disney IP. You have a lineage. Study it. Honor your ancestors.

IMO arguing that women need fanfiction is profoundly misogynistic. I'm a woman, and I can read and write actual stories. I don't need training wheels.

but hey if any of you actually believed in social justice in publishing, you'd be more concerned with Amazon's working conditions instead of shitting your pants because someone questions the value of your Harry Potter slash https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse

"buh everything is fanfiction because it uses letters and words that existed in previous works of literature" please stop talking

btw if you're gonna use an identity-based argument I'm Puerto Rican diaspora so you're out of luck, sorry

anyway

"Fanfic is collaborative" "it's about community" nah sorry it's all corporate IP. Ultimately, someone else legally owns it, and you are choosing to give a corporate entity your creative energy.

Those of you who claim that fanfic is the only refuge for queer creatives--you were the same ones who tried to drive Isabel Fall to suicide. There are queer writers creating original fiction, but you're actively hostile to them for being too radical.