I'm genuinely curious because I don't really know all the ins and outs of fan fiction etiquette. I thought it was common practice for people to download fics and sometimes share them with each other on a Google doc just in case the author decided to delete their account or remove the fic from the internet. Fanfiction is an interesting gray area when it comes to ownership, since the characters and worlds already belong to someone else. I guess I hadn't really considered that some fan fiction writers might object to the Google Doc piracy strategy. I would have thought it would be super flattering to have someone be such a fan of your fan fic that they would go through the trouble of sharing it in somewhat questionable ways.
Again, I am not a fan fiction writer myself and have only occasionally browsed through AO3. I didn't even realize there was a way to download a fic without good ol' command C command V.
I wonder if the culture around fan fic has changed as publishing houses have started scooping up fics and repurposing them into "real" IPs. I imagine there are quite a few fan fic writers who want to be the next E.L. James. When there is a possibility of commercialization, that definitely changes community dynamics.
Fanfic writers behaving more terribly than original writers.
I saw a fanfic writer (on Tumblr, surprise, surprise) threaten to "break every bone" in the body of anyone who passes their fics around. And they weren't the only one using violent language. I cannot believe people who NEVER ask the original creators for permission are like this! I am also incredibly sick of the entitlement that hides behind the "community" excuse. You are not owed engagement just for writing fanfic, and if you want to delete your fics because they aren't getting enough attention, go ahead! I hope all these clout-chasing hacks delete their accounts when AO3 returns. Good riddance!
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I keep my distance from fandom. I'm not writing fanfic because I want to be in a "community," and I seldom engage with others' fanfics as I'm not big on ships and tropes. Downloading and sharing (not reposting) fics was never a big deal until now, it came with the culture. But the culture has definitely shifted and turned a lot of fanfic writers into little Anne Rices (no offense to anyone who likes Anne Rice). Publishers are partially to blame. To be fair, though, FF.net writers threatening to hold chapters hostage for comments was standard practice back in the day. The sense of entitlement is not exactly new, it's just festered under our worsening social and economical climate, I guess.
I was a huge fan of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles in high school so I had to look up what you were talking about. I had no idea she was so strident about how much she hated fan fiction. To be fair, she apparently did soften her stance a bit in the last decade of her life.
Semi-related but back when Anne Rice was railing against fanfic, the internet was smaller and more intimate. In 1999 someone posting a fic of your IP would feel a lot more personal than it probably does today. I wonder if some of her hostility was because it genuinely felt like a real person was stealing your work.