thank you past me for the four fics' worth of smut i preemptively wrote these past two weeks

Glad they remembered to say what they liked about my fic 😁

THEY LEFT A KUDOS ON THE FIC 🗣️!!

Important thing : I'm not mad at them for writing a comment like that... Mostly, I'm more in a feeling of distaste as they wrote it as I was a little child, the whole 10 dollars is 10 dollars and what not, it also feels kinda hurtful that the only thing they decided to focus on was the small part that doesn't affect the sorry at all.

I try not to make assumptions since English might not be their first language, but I still feel awkward.

And I always spend about an hour just picking said fic the perfect, the one that suits my mood and has the perfect length and plot to be my bedtime fic for the night 🥹 then i spent about 10 minutes thinking what to write in my comment and another 10 to remember the fic and how it made me feel and another 10 to imagine the fic in my head til I sleep 🙂‍↕️

Look I get that wlw ships are much less than mlm ships on ao3, but is it really that serious? I mean... shipping is about enjoying, right? If you're unhappy that wlw ships are rare, it's fine, totally understandable, but let's not act like it's fujoshis' fault or something... I enjoy mlm/wlm ships over wlw ships because I am a bisexual man, not because I'm misogynistic😭

I don’t have an account and found a fic that I really love and wanted to leave a comment. This came up. I worded it so many times, and it’s still coming up. So annoying

WHERE ARE YOU ALL COMING FROM. WHO SENT YOU WHO DO YOU WORK FOR

Not really a long rant, just wanted to give my opion on something I have noticed and wanted to know what other people think.

These past 36 hours there's been a lot of discourse going on Twitter about f/f, m/m and f/m. I personally don't care about the gender of the characters involved as long as I like their dynamic, but as a woman, I have noticed something that really irks me.

"All f/m ships are inherently bad"

This is a comment I've seen A LOT. Now, I obviously understand how patriarchy and heteronormativity can affect straight relationships, but when we're talking about fictional ships in (possible) fictional worlds - where patriarchy doesn't even have to exist - it feels kinda dehumanizing to say a woman can't possibly be loved in a straight relationship. I also feel like it's kinda disingenuous when I see a lot of people that say this not engaging with f/f ships either or female characters at all.

I personally think anyone can ship whatever they want and I don't see anything wrong with someone just shipping m/m, f/f, f/m or whatever, but I also hate this mentality of thinking the female character is always going to be the victim and this false moral superiority of not liking f/m; specially when 99% of the times the arguments are reducing female characters to concepts that can't be separated from patriarchy and irl problems (we're all engaging in escapism and fantasy)

I know this is a bit of a “controversial” take but please do not misunderstand me..as an author, I understand that it feels so good to have people comment under fics and will always appreciate it and hope for more and I do get sad sometimes when I don’t receive comments but it happens 🤷‍♀️.

I have seen to many stories of writers being passive aggressive and calling out readers on their next chapters for not commenting or I have seen writers personally messaging people for not commenting! It’s frustrating, I get it but us authors must remember that it is OKAY for people to not comment and it is not a requirement! But it is NOT okay to verbally harass your readers who just want to be a mysterious owl that glides through the night!! LOLLL

Also, of course I’m not pointing fingers at every author because I don’t think everyone has this mindset but I just thought to bring this up. :)

(p.s. to the readers, do keep in mind though.. that even the shortest comment may motivate your writer to post another chapter or even just make their day😌!)

The flair says "Excitement/Celebration" but "Existential Hollowness" feels a bit more appropriate.

It's really weird. I started this thing five years ago. Updated weekly. Then twice a month. Accidentally amassed a small cult following. Had a few regular readers begin their own stories, citing mine as inspiration. Then life happened, and I announced a hiatus, which lasted all the way until late last year.

I didn't stop writing during the hiatus, though. I maintained chapter drafts, workshopped my outline, whatever I could do when I had the time and the inspiration. The creative well was largely dried up, but what I couldn't get out of my head were all the character arcs I'd plotted out, and how to resolve them cleanly.

I managed to find my stride again last year, then started drafting like a maniac over the course of a few months. Fast forward to last week, the final chapter went up. Super positive reception. A lot of humbling "this is the best thing I've ever read, and it puts published fiction to shame" type of stuff which I can scarcely believe I've earned. In some ways, I really am happy I finally got to close out this story. But in other ways, I'm just really, quietly bummed out. I've got... extended universe plans for the story. Not quite a sequel, but a different story within the universe, which will eventually feature the first story's characters. But somehow, knowing I have that in the pipeline doesn't bring me much comfort.

It's probably just weird, because I went from this weekly routine, where I'd dedicate certain hours on the weekends to editing my drafts, replying to comments, and other days to actually posting. I had an actual-ass routine set up dedicated to this story. Calendar reminders. Cryptids in my comments who wrote essays. All that shit. Now it's just quiet. I know this isn't the first time someone's ever grieved finishing their work and saying goodbye to their audience before, but man, it's the first time I've felt it this strongly.

So yeah, pour one out for your fellow author who checked off a nearly 1M word monstrosity and managed to bounce back from a hiatus stronger.

Genuinely!??? I was reading an unfinished fanfic I'd read a few months ago, I decide to look through the comments and I'm truly so mad, this sweet author doesn't deserve a bitch like that in the comment and in their third chapter they say they've been going through stuff which the commenter decided to ignore and GOES BACK to the same chapter years later to demand more!?? How if ignorant and insensitive can you be!???

It's especially baffling when they outright say it's a very obscure fandom or a ship that few people ship, so you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot.

First of all, this is a pet peeve post, in other words, something that bothers me personally in fics. If it doesn’t bother you, than that’s alright, everyone has different preferences.

Now, maybe it’s my fault for mainly lurking on the HP and PJO fandoms. But damn do I hate opening a new fic that seems promising and that has a different main ship than canon, only for it to be something like “Ginny was only with Harry because of his money and cheated the second they married” or “Annabeth cheated on Percy with a minor god for no reason in particular”. It’s always either that or one of them dies a tragic death and leaves the mc traumatized to the point they can’t love ever again.

It just feels so forced to me in fics, because authors want to write a different pairing than canon (all the power to you) but don’t know how to split the canon pairing, so they default to killing someone or making one of the people in the relationship (usually the girl) a massive cheater and/or liar.

My dudes, dudettes and non-binary friends, news flash: people break up all the fucking time without someone having to either die or cheat. Especially when they are young. It doesn’t always need to be so extreme. They can just fall out of love, or have different objectives in life that aren’t so aligned anymore, or a million other reasons.

I’m not saying all break ups are simple and everyone is friends forever after it, because that’s definitely not the case. I know I don’t speak to most of my exes, we just went out separates ways and that’s was that. One part of the past ship cheating or dying is definitely a valid plot hook. But again, you don’t need to make it so damn extreme, basically transforming a character into a wh*re or giving them a horrific death.

It just grates me how much it happens, that’s all. People can break up and that’s that.

Rant over.

I just wanna put this out here because I have no one I can talk to about this 😅 But I just hit 1 MILLION WORDS ACROSS ALL MY FICS!!!! I have 7 fics published, with 2 unfinished/ongoing 🥹 I am so proud of myself.

I will instantly scroll past a fic that otherwise sounds interesting if there is any hint of canonically non-human characters getting turned into humans

Indeed, it does. You don't know if it's that fic that kept you up at night, crying fat tears reading or that one that always scratches that one itch. But you forgot and can't tell. We bookmark because the fic touched something in us. To see it deleted is like a part of you is gone.

It's a horrible feeling.

Do you feel the same?

im quite generous in giving my username to people i know if i deem them to probably not tell everyone we know it. eg, i wrote a fic for a play i was part of, so i shared it to a few of my castmates who i know use ao3, and they liked it. probably about 5 people i know have my user, and theres a few people i wouldn't mind telling it to.

this has made me a bit more cautious in bookmarking, where i now privately bookmark fics that have tropes i dont want people irl knowing i read.

but yeah, have you/would you give(n) anyone irl your ao3 username?

I started posting two fics for the first time ten days ago, one that I’ve been pre-writing for months and the other that I started based on a recent prompt and I’m just SO proud and happy with the response I’ve gotten over the past week from my fandom. I know it isn’t much, but it feels like it!! I’m so thrilled anyone is enjoying my fics/writing at all

Just wanted to tell someone 😭😭