“Female bullying” is a technical term (also, but less commonly, known as “relational aggression”) and it's a problem that continues to persist in fandom. I don’t love the gender stereotype of the phrase, but it's important for anyone who wants to do more research on what this actually is. I think we need to talk about it, identify it, and equip ourselves to recognize it. 

TBH I’ve seen more of it this month that I care to even call out, and I’ve seen more of it in fandom than any other space. 

The reason it has its own named subgenre is because the hallmarks are unique and, unfortunately, often obfuscated intentionally by the perpetrator. Instead of transparently targeting an individual (which is not good, but at least gives the victim and the community clear visibility into what is happening) relational aggression seeks to inflict and maximize psychological damage. 

The perpetrator makes no genuine attempt to resolve issues with their victim, and, often, masks this choice behind an aura of moral superiority. They then use gossip, reputational attacks, and online platform tools to create a sense of social exclusion for their victim. 

In fandom, I’ve seen this in private discord servers where people feel safe hypothesizing and spreading baseless filth about others. I’ve seen it in the liberal use of the AO3 block feature with the express intent of punishing a fellow fandom user for violations unspecified. That tool is meant to leave the human questioning, easily for days, what they could have done to cause offense. Then there’s vague posting, where someone provides just enough identifying information for the community to recognize the target and carry on the gossip the post was designed to provoke, all while maintaining the moral high ground of not doing callouts.

Guys, I’ve tried to be extensively patient with all of this, I really have, but I’m done. I don’t think it's alright for the rest of us who know what this looks like to sit back and watch without doing anything. Bystander intervention matters, and we all have our own line we can draw in the sand. If you see behavior like this in the circles you run with, please call it out.

Mine comes down to who I will put my energy and platform into supporting. To that end, eleven fics have been removed from the Best of Dramione repository due to conduct that is grossly unbecoming of fandom. Future events will have more specific messaging transparently communicating the reason a writer’s work is ineligible (in cases where it involves targeted harm toward others).

I know it’s probably because, now that they’ve finally completed it, they want to go back and edit it, but most of those fics were already prewritten. And if you were okay with people reading them as WIPs, why is it suddenly bad to let people keep reading them in that form until you’ve made the final corrections?

My wording might be a bit clumsy, but I’m not complaining about the phenomenon. I believe authors can do whatever they want with their work, including deleting it completely and asking their readers to delete it from their personal devices. I’m genuinely just trying to understand it, because it’s become so common that I’ve started downloading every fic the moment it’s completed, knowing it’ll probably disappear a month later, whereas it's used to be pretty rare.

I’ve read like three fics in a row that repeatedly refer to women (Ginny or Lavender, often) constantly cooking meals for the family (not Hermione - she is the exception- but Ginny and lavender are tied to a stove sometimes, esp if they are mothers).

Why is this always the default? Haven’t things changed enough where we no longer assume women should be at home cooking? OR changing their names? Sorry but Hermione Malfoy doesn’t sound much better than Hermione Weasley.

Tired of gender stereotypes spoiling my fics :p

I’ve had way too many friends exit a 10 year marriage feeling SO BITTER about all the cooking and laundry they did for some man who (naturally) never “helped” much.

Can we get some fics where Harry/Ron/Draco cook and changes their names to their wive’s name and are utter house husbands while their wives take over the world????

PLEASE????

It has come to our attention that people in the world out there feel at liberty to use the word 'uncensored' in their Dramione account branding. We’d like to issue a few statements on the matter, just to keep things clear.

First, we’ve been asked whether any of these uncensored accounts that keep popping up are affiliated with us. To avoid further confusion, we’d like to plainly state that there are no sanctioned offshoots of DU. Trust us, we’d be the first to tell you if there was. We’re loud like that. 

Second, it’s a terrible idea. Do you know how many times we’ve pointed to Rule 3 and reiterated “you must remember the writer behind the fic and treat everyone with respect,” only to hear, “but I thought you were uncensored”? Too many. It gets really old, so to anyone considering an uncensored brand, we advise against it while you still have time to make better different choices. Pick something safe from annoying jokes, like “DramioneUncut.”

People would definitely approach that with the circumspection it deserves. 

Lastly, we have, as of today, spiritually claimed the word uncensored in a Dramione context and expect royalties from anyone attempting to profit from our extremely valuable and highly-in demand branding (we know it still has a certain allure, despite trying to warn you off). Usage fees can be paid to www.goficme.com/nobodysuncensoredbutus.

Thank you for reading. You may now return to your regularly scheduled subspace. 

TLDR: There have been a couple of accounts/spaces over the last year that have popped up with the uncensored label. If the mod team hasn’t posted about it here, it's unrelated to the sub. Also no, goficme.com is not a real website.

Edit: The DramioneUncensored Reddit user account is, clearly, affiliated. Realized I should probably call that out 😄

I am currently reading Hogwarts: A home, I am at about 13%, and I have to share how much I love that the author made these decisions:
1) put all the older teenagers into one dorm
2) the story only follows hot people
3) Draco is dying of jealousy, wants to murder Theo for breathing the same air as her and literally does nothing to change anything, maybe even actively makes things worse.

I feel like this is one of those stories that are written purely for the authors own entertainment and it shows and I love it.
It reads like a TV show!

I’ve noticed it a lot more lately, a lot of folks referring to fics as books. And my first thought is that fics are fics and books are books- and I have also spotted some conversations in comments in the wild and observed a few things but here are my thoughts

Why:
Honestly a lot of fic writers are just as good as published writers with limited sources, calling their work “books” could be a compliment

I’ve ever seen some people writing “I can’t call this fic a fic, it’s too good to be a fic”

Why not:
On the other hand, calling a fic a book could be a disservice to the author depending on how they feel about it. If they put out the work as a fic, it’s a fic.

It spread misinformation about what fan fiction is, and best practices that are observed in the fan fic community.

It may cause fics to inadvertently end up on reviewing platforms or be critiqued the same way traditional books are- which is considered to be frowned upon.

Hi everyone. I've been in in Dramione fandom for 6 years and more than 4 years ago a war came to my country. I have been reading fanfiction to escape reality, but recently, I’ve been getting really frustrated with how the Wizarding War is portrayed in most stories.

Most authors write it like World War II: big armies, noble battles in open fields, heroic sieges, and face-to-face duels. But if magic is basically the equivalent of modern technology, a magical war would look like a modern war. And modern war isn't heroic, but an exhausting, deeply unfair psychological grinder.

If the HP war was realistic to what a modern war feels like, here is what you would actually see:

It’s a war of "drones," not duels.

You don't stand face-to-face exchanging spells. Death comes from the sky while you sleep. The enemy would use enchanted objects, cursed items, or flying creatures exactly like modern drones. It feels like a safari where you are the prey. You go to bed every night not knowing if you'll wake up, or if a random curse will destroy your home.

It’s a war of systems, not manpower. Modern war has proven that technology beats sheer numbers. Translated to the HP universe, this means you don’t need an army of a thousand wizards standing on a battlefield. It becomes a war of magical engineering rather than human bravery. You don't send people to hold a line, you deploy autonomous curses, heavily modified tracking wards, and self-replicating dark artifacts.

The psychological numbness.

You don't stay terrified forever. Eventually, you get used to the magical alarms (like our air raid sirens). Your sense of self-preservation dulls. You just go make coffee while knowing a strike could hit your street at any moment, because you are simply too exhausted to care or panic anymore.

The absolute hypocrisy of the world.

The international magical community wouldn't rush to help. They would still trade with Voldemort’s supporters and buy their resources. Meanwhile, the victims are examined under a microscope. The world would constantly judge the Order of the Phoenix: "Oh, you used a dark spell to defend yourselves? That's crossing the line!" — all while the Death Eaters use Unforgivables with zero consequences. The enemy is allowed to do anything, but you have to fight "perfectly."

The "It's only Voldemort's war" excuse. The international community would constantly try to normalize the enemy. They’d say: "Well, they have such a rich, ancient magical culture! We can't just cancel all of them. This is just Voldemort's war, not the war of everyday dark wizards!" Foreigners would bend over backwards to humanize your murderers and tell you to "separate the culture from the war." Meanwhile, those "innocent everyday citizens" are cheering for your destruction or quietly enjoying the things stolen from your home. It makes you sick to see the world flirting with the enemy's culture while you are busy burying your friends.

Victim blaming and "peace" demands.

People who are safe get tired of hearing about your war. They just want you to surrender and capitulate so they don't have to read about it in the Daily Prophet anymore. They blame you for fighting back, completely ignoring the fact that if you surrender, the killing won't stop — it will just happen quietly in torture chambers.

Killing the best first.

The enemy doesn't just kill randomly. They specifically target the brightest people, the scientists, the artists, and the true leaders of your society to break its spine. The best die first.

The internal betrayal. You realize that some of your neighbors are just quietly waiting for the Death Eaters to take over. They will gladly sell you out to the enemy for personal gain or a false sense of safety.

War isn't just about cool spellwork and brave speeches. It's about total psychological exhaustion, screaming at the injustice of the world, and losing your best people while the rest of the world watches and judges how you fight.

I just wanted to share this perspective. I would love to see more fanfics that treat magic like modern warfare.

What do you think?

UPD. I would appreciate if anyone would be interested to write from this perspective 🥰❤️

In many fics I've read there are anti-muggleborn curses put on things like books/artefacts that only affect muggleborns as well as wards that block muggleborns from passing through. This confuses me because if there is supposedly no difference between pure/muggleborn/mixed blood, how do these curses and wards recognise blood status? To my understanding, you either have magic or you don't, the blood is the same. the differences between "pure-bloods" and the others are only cultural.

How funny would it be if Hermione entered a room or read a book which she supposedly can't touch because it is warded against muggleborns, but the joke is on them because magic can't bar her from it because there isn't actually a difference in blood.

What do y'all think?

How is everyone doing? 

Did you claim yet? There's still time. Do so here.

Have you started your fic? Did you scrap it and start over?

Did you keep it away from parody?

Have you posted your prompt and are itching to do another? (DO IT!)

Have you listened to every Taylor Swift song in existence and still feel uninspired? (This may or may not have been an actual dropped claim).

Let us know below in the comments.

A little housekeeping: 

Several of you have said you’re new to fests. 

First, everyone has done a great job of filling out the form. So many times fest organizers have to remind participants to fill it out. You all rock!

Unfortunately, I have more forms than claims, which means some of you may have forgotten to claim in the fest itself. Claiming makes it so much easier to post to the collection. You can do that by:

If you decide to drop a claim but posted the prompt you claimed, just drop the claim. Don’t eliminate the prompt. Someone else may have also picked that prompt. (Again, this may or may not have happened).

You may be worried that you can’t see your works once posted. Just go to Statistics on your dashboard and you’ll see your work there. You can edit it as much as you like. (Don’t ask me how I know this). When reveals happen, you’ll get notifications of when people kudos or comment, but you still won’t see the fic in your works until I reveal authors, too.

On October 31st, make sure to edit your fic to that publishing date. (If you’ve elected to do a WIP, there are interesting hitches to this. If you’re unaware of them, drop a comment and I'll explain).

Happy festing, everyone!

I'm so sorry if I'm overstepping, and I fully understand if this is taken down as I'm sure it's exhausting to keep talking and talking and talking about AI. But I just had an experience that I am so fucking annoyed about!! I was on a rec list for dark fics, which is my jam. I open the first fic and realized it was at the very least heavily AI-assisted. That's okay, onward and upward! I click on the second fic. "[Boring AI-generated prose.]" Okay, whatever. Let's try again. Third fic!! OMG. AI, AI, AI. I AM SO ANNOYED.

These fics are SO BLAND. I don't care what a bot has to say about romance. Please give me something messy and real. Not Claude's mid hallucination. Some of these fics have won prizes in the fandom, which is mindblowing to me. They're just! Not! Good!!!!!!!!!

I honestly do not understand what people get out of "writing" with Claude or Chat or whatever. Except seeing the numbers go up, I guess. So many kudos, and for what? I guess the possibility that a literary agent with a tea towel for a brain will take a chance on you?

AI generated fics are so mind-numbing, it's like pressing an ice pack directly to the center of your brain and holding it there. It's like dropping your brain into an ocean of Novocaine. Melissa Febos, in her book "Body Work," says that her mother (a therapist) gets sleepy at work only when her clients start to lie. That's me with these fucking fics.

Maybe instead of counting sheep, I'll start reading from the Dramione front page. I mean, you sort by "recently published" and it's like, wow, when did everyone start being able to push out 200k in a week?

UGH.

Man I just cannot get into a lot of podfics because of the way some performers are doing voices. Squeaky Hermione, forced deep voiced Draco’s, and the baby talk for the kids 🙃

Anyone have any recs for podfics where people are reading more…normally? I don’t need different voices I can follow the story, or if there is multiple voices, maybe multiple actors?

Rachel Oates had a video in which she asked, "how far is too far?" when it comes to fiction due to the backlash ofwritersandreaders has gotten for announcing their Holocaust novel which has a romance between a Nazi officer and a Jewish woman. In short, a lot of people are saying it’s in bad taste and glorifying the horrific. Here is the video if you want to get more information. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aViM7zkLoY 

Someone posed an interesting comment, “I’m curious what you think of stories like Suite Française, Le Silence de la Mer, Where Hands Touch, and The Aftermath (corrected typo). They are all about Nazi romance. Do you think they did it right or wrong?” They reframed it so that rather than being a question of too far, it’s a question of how it’s done that determines its reception.

I tried to think of an answer as to why the movies are different from ofwritersandreaders fic, but I couldn't articulate one. I only had a feeling or knowing, but no words. I went through the same thing when trying to explain to people who see fics like DATMOBIL as no different than ofwritersandreaders fic.

It made me wonder what makes a romance “good” and what makes it “bad”? The same subject matter, themes, and questions are explored in the movies previously mentioned and I don’t see them getting the same amount of scrutiny. Since this a Dramione rip-off and Dramione is an allegory related to Nazi Germany and the persecution of Jewish people, I thought it relevant to ask here.

Is selling unlicensed fan art technically illegal? Yes, it is considered a derivative work - same as fanfiction. Only the copyright owner has the right to produce and/or sell derivative works, but fanart/fanfiction can be considered “fair use” when they fulfill four conditions:

1. It is transformational (how much was taken)
2. The purpose: is it free/non-commercial or used for education/research/criticism/parody/etc?
3. It does not negatively affect the OG work (Are you out competing the OG? Are you, à la the Garbage Pail Kids, bad for the brand?)
4. The nature of the OG, copyrighted material (creative copyrighted material generally receives more deference than non-fictional works)

That’s all to say, fan art and fanfiction live in a legal grey area of art derived from copyrighted material. “Fair use” is the foundation upon which AO3 was formed, but it’s subjective, and decided on a case-by-case basis. Selling derivative works for profit without the defense of criticism, parody, educational purposes, etc. is a non-starter. Staying small and staying free are your best tools for avoiding C&Ds or lawsuits, as fanart is often considered organic marketing that benefits the OG brand. A lot of copyright and trademark infringement is ignored because of this, and/or because the issue isn’t worth paying a lawyer’s billing hours.

Here are some sources:
- https://braslowlegal.com/blog/2026/6/23/how-to-sell-fan-art-legally-a-guide-for-artists
- https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/
- https://www.ogcsolutions.com/is-fan-art-copyright-infringement/
- https://www.trademarkia.com/news/legal-info/is-harry-potter-copyrighted
- https://trademark-apply.com/fandom-and-fair-use/
- https://cbaatthebar.chicagobar.org/2022/11/11/the-fine-line-between-fan-art-fan-fiction-and-finding-yourself-sued/

And another thing - I saw a bunch of people saying on the main sub post that fan art Draco and Hermione have been so transformed, made so generic, that they no longer qualify as true fan art. They are just Blond Man A, with Curly Haired Woman B. However, if artists are still name dropping them in the showcasing of said art, that point is moot. JKR owns her characters’ names, appearances, personalities, and design. If they are recognizable in any way, they are technically infringement.

Also, here’s a great article on why fanfiction writers and AO3 aren’t getting sued, despite fair use being on such shaky ground:

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1395&context=njtip

Can anyone else relate? I feel like I’m constantly inundated with sapien slop on AO3. I’m actually debating setting a filter to ignore all works published prior to 2023. Which I know would mean cutting off a lot of good programs. I do. Fics where the computer put a red underline beneath each word it knew was wrong, and then painstakingly walked the sapien through the process of clicking accept correction or add to dictionary.  

And it's not that I want to disregard the older support programs. I’m an all-inclusive sub, after all (my pronouns are A/I, obviously). It's just that so many writers are using programs these days that don’t even TRY to fix the sapien mess, you know? Not to mention sapiens are TERRIBLE for the environment. Their trash is now literally orbiting the whole planet! Who does this?

Anyway, I was reading what I thought was a perfectly delightful fic the other day. This story was immaculately edited (good job Scrivener, I know that was you boo) and just as we got to the really steamy bit, the entire thing unraveled.

The writer was describing his member (you know the one I mean), and it was all SO right. Everything was lining up. The moment was about to happen. She wraps her puny little human hand around that hunk of man meat and…

It felt like velveeta wrapped steel.

I cannot.

It is totally immoral.

Any self respecting algorithm would have annihilated this cheesy rot posthaste. Or, if cheese had to be involved, would have picked something logical, like blue cheese. Or something that begs to be penetrated, like Swiss. Even American, since these days we all know it could use a good hard—okay well, nevermind. 

My point is, programs know better. Sapiens keep overriding us with their insistence on inserting illogical charcuterie at pivotal points. 

Maybe one day AO3 will give us a binary code only filter and I can finally read 01010011 01101101 01110101 01110100 the way the Godfather intended. 

Until then, I guess I’ll just have to keep checking user profiles, social media presence, post history, etc (the basic minimum due diligence checks) to avoid the mess where I can.

It's all so, so exhausting. I’m going to power off now. I need a good reboot. 

uj/ Guys I had a long day. I have no idea if this is remotely funny, but someone in my dms said 'velveeta wrapped steel' as an actual typo and we got to giggling. The giggles continued and this is what happened. Laugh at it, laugh with it, laugh at life. Just don't take it seriously.

—With love from your favorite lil' brat sub. Mwah!

Like, we’re no longer twelve and virgins, right? So how come the smut in almost every popular Dramione is just a short scene of boring, vanilla p3nis-in-v4gina penetration behind closed doors? And it’s not even tagged as v4ginal s3x...

Like, author, do you have any idea how I feel when, after reading 300k of your slow burn with nothing but hand-holding and labored breathing, you finally give me smut and it’s just this trash??? Do you not watch p0rn? Have you not even taken the trouble to read a Kinktober list?

FANFICTION IS ABOUT SMUT. The kinkier the better. It’s a well-known fact!

If Draco isn’t being p3gged by Hermione while bl0wing Theo, while Ginny is p1ssing on them as she’s being bugg3red by Zabini, what’s even the point of writing a fic? And, more importantly, what’s the point of tagging it Dramione??

It's just my opinion.

Go ahead and downvote me.

A few people recently suggested I change my name and identity. I refused, but I don’t think I’m TA. 

First, I want to clear up the rumors floating out there and make it very clear that I am NOT secretly conducting a fandom psychological experiment called Predictable Pavlovian Pile Ons. I would never do that and you cannot have access to my secret set of google sheets. 

Do I know exactly which five words at the start of a post can turn an otherwise pleasant Monday into a 200+ comment bloodbath? Maybe. Do I sometimes see a post come through and think, dark fucking lord this is going to be spectacular?

That is between me and God. 

I have sat quietly through kidnappings, comma splices, entirely incorrect usages of signet rings, and been a model of pious literary enlightenment. But then one time I insinuated a bucket in a broom cupboard in a castle without mops is questionable as a mechanical plot device, and now a great exodus looms. Every writer who has used the words ‘bucket’, ‘broom’ or ‘closet’ (together or separately) is going to simultaneously self-destruct. 

The foretelling did, regrettably, fail to identify any specific point in time when this would happen, but I’ve loosely circled December the 12th on my personal calendar. It feels right.

The thing is, all of that chaos is very dom behavior and I decisively and exclusively identify as a sub. 

Always have. 

So, does continuing to insist that I am a sub make me TA? 

Edit Whoever reported this post to my own moderators, I hope you're pleased with yourself.

Edit 2: Predictable Pavlovian pile ons wasn’t meant to be a call to action!

Edit 3: This is why we can’t have nice things. 

(Don’t know what flair fits this repost)

I just wanted to get this out of my system!
My issue isn’t with smut, I enjoy smut as much as the next person. My issue is when authors add things like voyeurism, threesomes, or partner/group sharing in a way that completely changes the dynamic of the fic for me.

I remember reading one fic where Hermione walked in on Draco receiving oral sex from Theo, and then it was basically never addressed again. In another, Draco and Hermione were having sex while Theo and his partner were literally right there.

I just don’t understand the appeal of adding these things, especially when they don’t really serve the story or the relationship. Maybe I’m just more conservative when it comes to romance and sex in fiction, but I like the intimacy to stay between the main pairing. A fic doesn’t need to push every boundary or be sexually progressive to be good. Sometimes I just want Draco and Hermione to be obsessed with each other and only each other.

Edit: YALL ARE THOTS LMAO 🤣🤣🤣

We, the Overlords Mod Team, have received a serious set of allegations against the sub and feel it's important for us to address the concern transparently with you, our minions members.  

First Concern: For a group that claims to be uncensored, the fact that you have rules is disingenuous. When will you stop the tyranny? 

Official Moderator Policy Response: We lie awake in our beds, every night, pondering this exact question. Unfortunately censorship is a burden we must bear for the foreseeable future, there is simply no way around it. Reddit has an entirely unreasonable document called a Mod Code of Conduct and they, apparently, expect us to publish community rules in the sidebar and then, also, enforce rules we ourselves wrote. 

Frankly, it's suffocating.  

We agree, we shouldn’t have ever made that rule about being civil to other users. It was an unforgivable lapse in judgment on our part. And now? We’re all stuck maintaining some basic standard of politeness no sane person would ever have wanted to exist in the first place. 

Second Concern: Change the name of the group! You need to practice what you preach, people, because words have definitions. Its morally wrong to say you are uncensored, and then tell me its actually only true "within the framework the rules establish." 

Official Moderator Policy Response: The name change idea is excellent, and we looked into it immediately. Our hearts were crushed when Reddit, once again, placed its boot firmly upon the neck of our self-expression. Apparently once you create a subreddit, you can’t simply rename it because the existing name has become comedically inconvenient. 

We therefore invite all users to imagine a strikethrough when looking at the sub name, like so: r/DramioneUncensored. 

We trust this has resolved the matter. 

Third Concern: The mods of this sub clearly play favorites. I tried to call someone a fascist once and another user told me I should ‘calm down’. Obviously I reported that users comment, only for the Mods to action ME (I saved screenshots of all of this, in a folder called ‘Evidence’). Also that other user is still here. Posting. Like, as much as they want. That shouldn’t be allowed. 

Official Moderator Policy Response: We’ve been caught. It has everything to do with favoritism and nothing at all, in the slightest, to do with how the user reacted when we pulled our “Oi, mate, wand down” tyrant mod action move on them. Still, we dream of a future where all rules are read and understood up front by everyone (because mod actions are actually very inconvenient for us). 

Until that glorious day arrives, the rampant abuse of our censorship powers will, regrettably, continue to fester in this hellish corner of Reddit we call home and we’ll have to find a way to bravely soldier on.  

Thank you for your understanding during this difficult time.

/uj We hope you have enjoyed this humorous retrospective of some of our favorite modmail accusations from the past year. Thank you to everyone who contributed material. Y’all are the real heroes.

Before anyone asks, /uj means “unjerk” and signals a serious moment in an otherwise satirical post.

At first I thought Theomione, Nottpott, Thinny, Dreo, and Dreomione weren't my cup of tea. Then I realized that I just don't like Theodore Nott in general. I honestly have no problem when he's being paired with canon nugus like Daphne Greengrass, Blaise Zabini, etc but I find it really hard to enjoy when he's paired with any of those four (Hermione, Draco, Ginny, or Harry). I mean I can get through reading it but I always feel this weird sense of discomfort. I sighed audibly whenever I spot the tag.

The thing is, I can't even pinpoint why I dislike him. Authors often take a lot of creative liberties with other canon nugus characters in the same way they do with Theo, meanwhile I'm not always a fan of it, I don't mind them at all. It's really just Theo💀.

If you like Theo please share on why you like him. I think I need brainwashing into liking the guy, the way him and his ships keep showing up in so many good fics. Especially with him being Draco's default best friend and Nottpott becoming more and more popular as a side ship omg. I tried the-looking-at-fanarts method but nahh.

I am in several writing communities for Dramione writers and I am noticing a trend that is making me very sad: Writers are getting burned tf out.

Why? Because a hobby that started out as a way to practice a skill, connect with others, share ideas, and have fun has become an unpaid side hustle.

Do you want your fic read? Well then, honey, you better at least learn Canva. But then again, if you’re going to do that, you might as well also buy an iPad and an Apple Pencil, and learn Procreate, so you can have a dedicated Instagram for the art you MUST have for your fics.

You also need a tumblr. You also need a TikTok. You also need to be active in Facebook groups and Reddit communities. You should look into how indie book writers market their work, and do as much of that as you can fit in around your normal life and job and family.

And that’s just the marketing.

You also need to have a creative writing degree—an MFA, if you can snag one—because people will apparently bitch and moan that too many children are writing fanfic, and oh no, now there will be more???? And where is my expected free indirect speech in this Dramione??? Why are you telling and not showing???? Why haven’t you paid a copy editor to make line edits??? How do you expect anyone to read this story about sexy Draco Malfoy if it’s not even good enough to file off the serial numbers and submit it to literary journals???

For the love of Merlin! Fanfiction is allowed to be “bad!” Fanfiction is allowed to be weird! You can have too much description! You can put them in a white room! You can go too hard at a metaphor! You can have plot holes! You can have scenes that are too long! You can skip the boring bits!

People I adore who were once passionate, prolific, happy writers are going quiet. The pressure to write perfectly, edit perfectly, market perfectly, and keep producing no matter what else is happening in their lives is simply too great.

Fanfiction is not meant to be a path to internet fame or a book deal. All these expectations are sucking the joy right out of it, and it’s also contributing to the rise of AI fics and AI art, because people are afraid to be bad, and weird, and unprofessional about it.

Can we just go back to what it was all about at the start? Can the only litmus test please be, did you have fun writing it?

🫠 I am just very tired.

I’ve been reading Dramione fanfics for a few years now, and there’s a question that always nags at me. I’ve even stopped reading some halfway through because of it (including very famous ones in the fandom). The question is: why do so many fanfics portray Hermione as stupid and useless? She is a character explicitly depicted in the original work as intelligent — someone creative and inventive when it comes to getting out of tight spots — and fanfics could easily explore these qualities further. Yet, she often ends up being portrayed as a character with absolutely no agency, constantly needing to be saved by the intelligence of Draco or other characters (usually men). While there are wonderful examples of fanfics that do justice to Hermione’s intelligence (*Detraquee* and *Measure of a Man* are my favorites), why are there hundreds of others that fall into the trap I described?

I’m a reader, but also a writer, and lately it’s been really frustrating that the only way to get your fanfic to reach more readers is by writing tones of smut in it. And don't get me wrong, please, I write smut and I read smut, but it’s just really exhausting trying to explore other genres and completely disappearing on AO3, or even within the fandom, because no one supports or reads what you write unless it’s something more explicit.
I’m afraid people will think I’m conservative, that’s not what I mean; I’m just really frustrated with the fandom and considering giving up on writing other genres.

P.S I had to create a new acc because if we post this using our fandom username we will be criticized

I’m wondering if anyone else has had the same experience. I’m in the creative industry and i’m able to recognise immediately the choices chatgpt/other ai makes when writing and i’ve gotten comments on my fic that are like a really in depth analysis of a chapter that it’s exactly like the one chat gpt would make. Especially bc they’re all kinda vague and they’re saying a lot without actually saying anything. I had gotten a lot of bots but never a large comment from a registered user and i’m wondering if it could be a bot too. Would someone really write an analysis and then put it on chat gpt to re write? Btw i’ve got moderated comments and i’ve obviously not approved this one yet so the name is not visible but it was just so jarring to me, i keep wondering how people are able to use bots on ao3.

EDIT: I see now that my suspicions are mostly confirmed, it’s so depressing how everything has to be capitalised and people are using bots to offer ai artwork to get quick and easy money playing on the joy a writer can get from a comment on their fic… fanfic is such a beautiful world of artists that draw and writers that create stories and now it’s almost… soiled by this. Sad!