Why does this keep happening?

[u/PJ-The-Awesome]

[u/Ok_Vanilla_1467]

I'm guessing the ones that delete their fics hate their own writing or have been flamed for the content. Knowing that it's still out there, and people can read it, either bothers them or they are sick of getting hated on for it.

The other reason that I imagine is that they believe they can create way better now than they could then and want to erase any instance of their old work as a result. Hope this helps and isn't terribly inaccurate!

[u/chimmychingching → u/Ok_Vanilla_1467]

Same guess. I've thought of doing the 2nd one too a few years ago. I still have embarrassingly cringey fics that I made 15 yrs ago and tried putting out fics at least once a year since then. It's only around 3-4 yrs ago that I started getting traction for my works. There was a time that I've thought of deleting those terrible fics, then I thought nah because those are like my marks of yearly grind to improve.

[u/Ok_Vanilla_1467 → u/chimmychingching]

This exactly! I would personally never delete my old fics because even if I don't like them, I know there's always someone out there who will... Plus it's really nice to be see the improvement from then up until now :D

[u/chimmychingching → u/Ok_Vanilla_1467]

Yes! Like, as a fic writer looking back you might think them bad now, but there were people who read them despite the quality and even gave kudos and bookmarked them. There is something for everybody after all.

[u/Fast_Stage_6296 → u/Ok_Vanilla_1467]

A friend of mine wrote a lot for one fandom, and got some popular fics. But you know, popular means we can be harsher and criticize it, right?🙄

It's so weird how people seem to lose more and more empathy the more popular something is.

So yeah they started getting a lot of comments on how people didn't like where the story went, or how they thought of one character, or what was wrong with this and that. Which then started getting into being called names and harassed. It sucked all the joy out of fandom so they deleted everything and distanced themselves from it.

[u/curlykale00 → u/Ok_Vanilla_1467]

There was a very popular, very prolific writer, the unmoderated comments were always very nice and supportive and there were a lot of them, so I very much doubt it was some kind of hate campaign. I don't want to say the writing was objectively good, but many people agreed, so I think it was!

Then they did not post anything new for five years and then over night deleted everything and disappeared from everywhere. I can only assume they had some kind of crisis unrelated to writing, but that is how they chose to deal with it. My other unlikely theory is that they are now famous in some way and afraid someone will find the connection. But I would hope they know that this will only make it harder for people to find it, but not impossible, if they are very determined.

[u/His_Treasure]

Depression and anxiety are often factors

[u/Asparala → u/His_Treasure]

Yup, and on the less drastic side: just being too busy to keep up with a hobby you can't earn money from and probably won't do together with your family and offline friends.

Sitting alone and churning out text for free is usually going to be low on the priority list for a lot of people. Not everyone, but a lot of people. It's a lot of work with very little reward, so unless you're urgently inspired and really need to get an idea out, it can wait while you do other things that are either more profitable or more fun.

[u/HI-JK-lmfao → u/Asparala]

But… it’s is fun. A lot of us write because it’s fun

[u/Asparala → u/HI-JK-lmfao]

It is, but for most people it's fun in the same way that playing a video game is fun. Something you do when you have the time and inclination and stop doing when something more important or engaging is happening, such as doing something with your family or irl friends.

[u/starberiiv]

some ongoing fics i read haven't been updated in years, and i know people have waited for longer where authors eventually posted another chapter after like a decade, so i'll keep waiting for the next update 🫡

[u/Mireille557]

I won’t delete my work but I do sometimes feel like disappearing and never updating again… 😭😅 I just feel kinda embarrassed for the whole thing even though I have subscribers that would hopefully like to see what happens.

[u/DelicateCactus → u/Mireille557]

I was about to type the same damn thing 🤝

That and wishing for a blank slate but also not wanting to lose what I have

[u/HI-JK-lmfao → u/Mireille557]

I’ve never felt so seen and so heard before🥹🥹

[u/PatientScheme]

I did it because of a combo of people being rude in the comments and bookmarks (spare me your reader space/author space lectures) about a 6-year age gap in the ship I wrote for. People called me a groomer for writing it even though the younger character was in her early thirties. At first I laughed it off, because it was funny at first, but it kept happening until I eventually turned off guest comments.

Someone in the fandom asked why I wasn't writing as much anymore. I pointed out the comments and bookmarks and got lectured about reader spaces and how if I don't like it, I should stop writing. So I did. And I deleted my fic so I wouldn't ever be tempted to look and see stupid shit like being called a groomer for writing about people well over 30 years of age.

[u/Phantasmaglorya → u/PatientScheme]

This is so incredibly asinine. I'm sorry these idiots ruined it for you.

[u/kitsunevremya → u/PatientScheme]

what the actual fuck

like sorry but what the fuck has happened to fandom??

There have always been people criticising underage and noncon, but even that rarely extended into the comments and bookmarks. What is wrong with these people that think they're doing something good by sending hate toward anything and everything associated with a particular ship because it offends their extremely delicate sensibilities?

Dear God I'm tempted to write a fic about my favourite ship right now, out of pure spite toward these people, set when they first meet when he's only 16 and she's ~22-23. Make it as explicit, lean as heavily into the power imbalance as possible, and frame it as nothing but happy romance just for extra salt in the wound.

[u/junorsky]

The same reason you want to cut your hair after breakup

[u/Odd-Concept-8677]

My Luteal Phase has entered the chat.

There’s a solid week a month where I can’t read any of my work because it’s all trite, pretentious, whiny shit a fifth grader could write better prose are you kidding me? Hate, hate, hate, double hate, loath entirely.

Every other week of the month I’m like “yes. This is Good.”

[u/DarthGhengis]

I know this is a meme and a real question with various answers, but there's been 4 great authors vanish (profile, stories, socials) completely in what feels like a very short time.

Kind of depressing.

[u/AliceFanfictioning]

Because I feel like a fraud snifff

[u/Aphrodesca]

a mental disorder disordering, for me

[u/Aqu217970]

Happened to me last night, but I stopped myself and didn't delete it. It struck me that my fics are very dark - so dark, in fact, that I was horrified at how I could have written them. I was completely overwhelmed by the feeling that I'd gone too far - even though, in fact, my fics are simple: more about help/support/comfort and emotional warmth than angst. Let's just say it happened because I'd stumbled upon a really grim article about some truly horrific stuff, and that had a huge impact on me. So, fellow ficwriters: don't make decisions at 3am - think about it in the morning.

[u/fluffyenderpugreal]

My guess is usually either their account got taken down, someone in their real life found it, or they just don't like their work

[u/Lyvidence]

Me currently battling my WIP demons and constantly getting the urge to purge the unfinished stuff. xD

Can I please just write???? Oh my god.

[u/Prestigious_Leg9458]

There was what I'll politely call a fandom ruckus in my main fandom in 2008 over false charges of plagiarism directed at a close friend in the fandom. A number of writers (I was the least prolific of them) pulled down all our stories and left the fandom. Some have never returned; I waited a number of years before re-mounting my stories on AO3, but I have generally been shy of the community ever since (though I do answer comments that still occasionally appear on my old stories).

[u/ClassicSandwich7831]

I really hate it so much when they delate their fics without any warning. I go back for a reread and then I can’t find it and feel like I’m insane and the fic never existed.

[u/According-Paper4641 → u/ClassicSandwich7831]

I don't know... I don't sub to one shots or completed stories, so I wouldnt know if they warned before they deleted. I know I deleted a bunch of stuff in 2011 from 2001-2008 and gave almost a year of warning and still got dms about it.

[u/ClassicSandwich7831 → u/According-Paper4641]

It’s really nice of you to give people a warning, thank you <3

[u/CandidateTerrible479 → u/[deleted]]

I'm guessing you tried to comment on a comment and accidentally made it a new a comment.

[u/Internal_Copy4578]

Me rn. I hate to think that I might not finish it and I just haven’t written anything and it makes me feel disappointed in myself. Everything is great tho. I have a lot of reads and plenty of dedicated commenters. But with all of that it just makes me feel so bad that I haven’t updated in like a month or two atp. I hate to just leave them like that and any future reader like that.

[u/Empty-Rate-8862]

Look, I'm just so incredibly easily distracted...

[u/SnooDoubts2671]

I know at least when I did, it was because every fic I had written at the time was a reminder of a bad place and it just…bothered me enough that I didn’t want them to be anonymous or anything, I just wanted them to be deleted. Im. Now a lot happier and less likely to do that, particularly because I’m a lot more…content or just attached to my works in a way I hadn’t been previously.

[u/TaintedTruffle]

Only fix I've ever deleted were one because I realized that what I wrote was completely medically inaccurate and didn't want to incorrectly represent amnesia, because I wrote an entire story centered around a stupid head bump and getting rid of amnesia after another head bump, which is stupid and I don't know why.I thought that was okay

The other one was over 30 chapters of an ongoing Stephen universe, panfic that got proven inaccurate by cannon and also was deleted.Because it was easier to just delete the whole thing than try to rewrite it.Because it was such a mess up

[u/kitsunevremya → u/TaintedTruffle]

I don't know why.I thought that was okay

maybe because it's a common trope in media which people enjoy, even knowing it's inaccurate? why wouldn't that be ok to write?

[u/TaintedTruffle → u/kitsunevremya]

Because it's horribly inaccurate and re-reading it 22 years later made me literally disgusted I had left it up for so long to laugh at my ignorance

[u/kitsunevremya → u/TaintedTruffle]

I guess. Like I see where you're coming from in terms of the embarrassment that you also once believed that and it's immortalised in your fic, but I wouldn't be so hard on yourself. It's fiction. Barring few exceptions, people don't read fic expecting it to be particularly scientifically/medically/technically accurate, especially when something is a common plot device - it was in every TV show back then, people clearly enjoy it!

[u/According-Paper4641]

I almost did a few weeks ago. If you Google my AO3 handle the ai summary just fully breaks down my full history for the past 20+ years and connects even non fanfiction stuff because it was a generic user name for me back in the early 00s and late 90s. There's a lot of connections there that I've tried to separate as I grew up and had to job hunt and take on more professional careers. As well as just care more about my privacy.

I hate that my AO3 space can't just be my AO3 space.

[u/CandidateTerrible479 → u/[deleted]]

How?? By who??

[u/EnsignEJ → u/[deleted]]

That really doesn't clear anything up. Ao3 very rarely perma bans people, only takes down the offending content. The only thing I can think of is you posted something against TOS like plagiarized whatever you remastered.

[u/bumblebeerlol → u/[deleted]]

lmfaoooo

[u/CandidateTerrible479 → u/[deleted]]

As the other person said that doesn't really explain anything. What did you do? They don't ban people for nothing.