Fandom Is Not An Obligation.

Fandom is not an obligation.

It is not a job. It is not school. It is not a contract. Participation in fandom is voluntary and it is not binding (commissions and paid work aside).

Yes, within fandom you should be bound by some sense of ethics or general decency: don’t steal art and fic, don’t willfully deceive people, don’t be a jerk or a garbage human, and so on and so forth. But everything else? The writing fic and the doing and the participation? It is voluntary.

So if you are writing a fic and you’re seven chapters in and you have eight chapters to go and you’re just tired and you don’t want to do it any more? You can stop. If you’ve been running a blog and writing about every single episode of every new anime show that’s come out and you can’t for three weeks? Don’t. If you told your 5 billion followers you were gonna post a piece of fanart and you’re just sick of it and you don’t want to do it any more? Give it up.

Sure, people will be disappointed and upset and some will complain. But life is disappointing and upsetting sometimes, and it goes on, and no one can sue you for not finishing a fic that they were enjoying the hell out of for free. No one can accuse you of not living up to the terms of your contract when you don’t post that fanart you mentioned three weeks ago. Because fandom is voluntary. It’s something that you participate in because it’s fun or fulfilling or important to you, and when it stops being those things, you should stop, too.

You are not bound by the asks in your inbox. You are not bound by comments on a fic or a piece of art. You are not bound, in fandom, by other people’s disappointments or their expectations.

Fandom is voluntary. Don’t let people pressure you into thinking that it is anything else.

More Posts from Chickabot and Others

chickabot

3 years ago

well then. shall we? my dear consort, eternal.

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chickabot

3 years ago

look on my works, ye mighty, and despair

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chickabot

2 years ago

equal rights for women will never truly be achieved until we have more female noir detectives

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chickabot

3 years ago

the thing is, i think horror needs to have a little love. it needs to have an obsession. does the parasite in your body love you? it raises you from the dead, it sustains you. this is its body. this is your body. does the haunted house feel intruded upon? is it hungry? what is hatred but adoration?

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chickabot

2 years ago

The_Eret

[close ups]

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chickabot

2 years ago

WHAT IS UP WITH ARO/ACE PEOPLE BEING NOTICED IN THE LAST WEEK??? WHAT THE FUCK I'M GOING TO CRY/pos

WHAT IS UP WITH ARO/ACE PEOPLE BEING NOTICED IN THE LAST WEEK??? WHAT THE FUCK I'M GOING TO CRY/pos

Technodad is such a wonderful human being, I hope only the best for him.

2K notes View Post

chickabot

3 years ago

okay but jaskier fucking whiplashing himself for the first month of being at kaer morhen bc the other witchers don’t just let him manhandle them the way geralt does, and jaskier didn’t FULLY realize exactly how pliable geralt was until he goes to playfully hip check eskel and bounces off into the fucking WALL

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chickabot

2 years ago

Urban ghillie suit (it would probably work in the wilderness, with all the shit laying around...)

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chickabot

2 years ago

stray was really really good 📺🌱✨

69K notes View Post

chickabot

2 years ago

I think there’s something so inherently human about the reaction to Techno’s death. We cried, we sat in disbelief, and then we created. There’s so much art already out there, barely 24 hours after the announcement, celebrating everything he did for us and telling him to rest easy, saying so long in our own little way be that drawing or writing stupid little posts like this one. And supporting each other. Telling other people in the fandom that it’s okay, their grief is valid, we’ll get through this hand in loveable hand. We’re collectively mourning and in a sad little way I think that’s beautiful. That 12 million people around the world can mourn the same man, in millions of different ways from millions of different places, because of how much he mattered. I think that’s what mourning is. People coming together to say goodbye, to say rest easy and so long and I hope god did hesitate and the universe said I love you in as many different ways as we know to articulate.

12K notes View Post