Lowkey being depressed or intrusive thoughts don’t seem like a reason to private your fics like there is no correlation between those things so really your just hurting people who wanted to read them, like fair enough if you never finish them but it’s not really fair on people who wanted to re read. I do hope you feel better soon but I don’t understand why you privated them.
I don't really know how to respond to this tbh but I'll try. I guess from the outside there might not seem to be a rational connection between me privating my fics and my mental health because you're right that technically I could have left them up for people to reread even if I never intended to finish them, but firstly I don't really think that connection has to make sense to anyone else and secondly maybe I didn't explain myself very well in my last few posts so I'll try to give a bit more context.
Like I said before I have bipolar disorder, which you can obviously do your own research on if you want to understand it more but part of that is experiencing episodes of clinical depression, which manifests in a lot of different ways but for me particularly in becoming extremely socially withdrawn, anhedonia, and pretty intense feelings of guilt and worthlessness. At that point I didn't want to engage with fic at all, I got absolutely no joy from it, it was actively making me feel worse, I hated basically everything I'd ever written, wished I'd never put any of it on ao3 in the first place, and even started resenting the comments I was getting, not because the comments were bad because they weren't like they were overwhelmingly kind and supportive but I was in a headspace where I felt like I didn't deserve any of that and having people tell me how much they loved something I'd written was somehow making that feeling worse rather than better.
On top of that, like I tried to explain in my last post, the combination of genuinely lovely comments, people politely asking about updates, and people considerably less politely demanding updates became really overwhelming. I don't answer a lot of the asks I get on here, sometimes because they're just people demanding updates but sometimes they're incredibly sweet messages that I genuinely appreciate and still don't have the mental capacity to reply to and at my worst I wasn't even answering messages from my actual friends or family because I just didn't have it in me so replying to strangers about fic definitely wasn't something I could manage either.
I also don't think you necessarily see from the outside how much of that there was, I'm really not trying to do some ‘look at me I'm soooo popular’ thing because that isn't how I feel about it at all but the Solangelo fandom is big and it can genuinely be intimidating to look at your ao3 stats and realise how many actual people those numbers represent. Obviously I'm incredibly grateful that people read my work and left kudos and comments but when you're already struggling it can become overwhelming very quickly and I'd get myself into these spirals of thinking like if this many people were physically standing in a room looking at me right now I'd freak out so combined with everything else going on I basically reached a point where I didn't want to be perceived at all.
When I realised I could put the fics into a private collection rather than permanently deleting them that felt like the best option because it meant I could bury my head in the sand for a while and not have to think about them or about anyone reading them or waiting for something from me or having any expectations of me whatsoever.
Even now that the worst of the depression has passed, that doesn't completely take away the feeling of being overwhelmed by it and tbh I sometimes wish I'd posted my fics anonymously or at least used a different ao3 username from my Tumblr because I started feeling way too connected to everything. I'd get anxious about literally reblogging something because I hadn't updated a fic for a while and start thinking like oh my god they're going to see that I'm on Tumblr instead of writing and they're going to hate me and obviously I know logically that most people probably weren't thinking anything like that but knowing something logically doesn't necessarily stop you spiralling about it especially when you're already not doing very well.
And this also really isn't new for me, like if anyone has been here since the original Death Note fic days, you'll know I've been writing the same fic for about eleven years because there have been periods where writing and fandom just became too much for me and I had to step away, and now that I'm starting to actually want to write again I'm doing it in a much smaller fandom where I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed. It's also me going back to some of my older fandoms which I don't really know how to describe beyond saying that it feels much more comforting to me right now than writing for Solangelo did by the end and I think I need to follow whatever is making writing feel enjoyable again rather than immediately turning it back into another obligation.
As for the point about it being unfair to people who wanted to reread my fics I do have to disagree with that, I genuinely appreciate that anyone enjoyed something I wrote enough to want to reread it and I'm incredibly grateful for that but ultimately I don't think someone else's enjoyment of my writing should supersede my mental health or my ability to decide what happens to my own work.
And I genuinely don't know if or when I'll put the Solangelo fics back up, I'm really sorry to anyone who feels disappointed by that because I know a lot of people loved them and I've had some incredibly lovely messages from people telling me that my fics helped them through difficult periods of their lives or meant something important to them and I don't take that lightly at all, but I also can't let the fact that something I made became meaningful to somebody else turn into an obligation for me to keep it publicly available regardless of what engaging with it is doing to me.
I think the thing I'm trying to do now is choose whatever is least destructive for me, which isn't necessarily going to look completely rational or fair or ideal from somebody else's perspective but it's still a pretty significant improvement over the periods where my response to feeling this overwhelmed was to actively make things worse for myself. I'm not a perfect person and I'm not going to pretend I'm endlessly selfless or capable of handling everything in the best possible way all the time and the reality is that the person behind these fics is somebody who is genuinely mentally ill and sometimes pretty badly so, which means there are going to be times where I cannot be the endlessly available productive fic writer people might ideally want me to be, and sometimes the thing that is healthiest for me is going to be disappointing to somebody else. I'm not saying that to dismiss anyone's feelings or because I don't care that people miss the fics, because I do care and I am sorry, but I also can't promise access to everything I've ever written, promise that I'll finish everything, promise I'll come back to a particular fandom, or promise that my decisions around any of it will always make sense from the outside.
And I also want to be clear that I'm not saying all of this from the other side of some completely finished depressive episode where everything is fine again now because it isn't. I'm doing better than I was, but I'm still dealing with a lot of it and I'm still having intrusive thoughts, like I have a particularly disturbing one about clawing and biting through my forearm and pulling all my veins out through the hole, I have the repeated urge to crash my car into the central reservation when I’m on the motorway or throw myself in front of trains to the point where I’m inches off doing it and I have to dig my nails into myself to lock back in because I don’t actually want to do that, so tbh whether somebody is currently able to reread their favourite fic of mine just isn't particularly high on my list of priorities right now. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh because I genuinely don't mean it as ‘fuck you, I don't care’ and I know that the people who have been demanding or entitled about updates or access are absolutely a minority compared to the people who have been incredibly kind to me, but it gets to a point where when I'm already overwhelmed even genuinely lovely messages can become overwhelming simply because they're another thing attached to this huge body of people and expectations that I don't currently have the capacity to deal with. That's not anybody's fault for sending me something kind and I'm not asking people to feel guilty for caring about my work but I do need people to understand that right now my priority has to be getting myself properly well again and finding ways to enjoy writing and engaging with fics and fandom again.
I appreciate you saying you hope I feel better soon and I genuinely don't mean to lash out at you specifically because this is much more of a straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back situation than it is about this one message but I probably won't be engaging with anything Solangelo related for a while because I think I need some actual distance from it rather than continuing to make myself feel worse trying to explain or justify myself. If that's something that bothers or disappoints you, or anyone else who's still reading all of this, then I'm sorry but at this point I really do just need you to unfollow me and leave me alone rather than continuing to ask me about it.
THIS IS THE LACK OF FIC ETTIQUETTE PEOPLE HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING ABOUT.
To Anon: Fanfic is a *gift* from people who do it for the love of creating and the source material to the fandom. There is no rule saying once they post, they have to keep it available to the public. Even if it's popular. Even if people adore their work. Especially if keeping it up in any way harms the author's mental health. And, no, no reader is entitled to an explanation of why something was abandoned or taken down or made private. Whether the reasons provided seem sufficient to you is irrelevant. This is incredibly rude, entitled behavior, anon, and it goes against fanfiction community norms. Perhaps you didn't know that. In that case, please use this as a learning opportunity to never do something like this to an author.
Stella, I am so sorry you're going through this right now but am so glad you are starting to feel better. Do whatever you need to do in order to safeguard your health. (And that's coming from a hardcore Socialites fan) I'm so sorry you felt like you had to defend your choices about your work at a time like this.
10/10 best part of nico's narration is when he talks about the first time he met percy, and he makes it sound like percy was really confident and brave and knew what he was doing in those scenes, but then you reread the same scenes from percy's perspective and see that. that boy was an Anxious fucking Mess. "but percy came out of the shadows and saved me & my sister!!! 🤩" Percy forgot to tell the rest of his questmates where he was going, spent the entire time fretting about how he was going to get yelled at by thalia after this, almost dropped his weapon, insulted the monster attacking you and your sister like 3 times in one sentence, and tried to convince you guys to jump into the ocean with him in a last-minute escape attempt because he forgot you guys didn't know he was a half-blood and would obviously assume he was trying to get you killed. he really had no idea what he was doing, bless his heart my favorite fumbling eighth grader ever
Nico di Angelo is the boy who sat next to Hestia when he saw that she was all alone. He was the first one to sit next to her in years. And he didn’t even know she was a goddess.
Nico di Angelo is also the boy who summoned his ghosts with food instead of animal blood because he wanted to show them respect.
He’s the boy who decided to befriend a titan that tried to kill him and friends cause who else did Bob have? He had amnesia and it wasn’t fair to hate him for crimes he didn’t remember committing
Okay so as a result of seeing a million amazing edits of Dustin Henderson mourning Eddie Munson in the final season of Stranger Things to Bleachers "Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call" concurrent with S3 of PJO TV being filmed, I am BEGGING the internet to bring this trend back for S3 (and hopefully S4) Nico next year because
"And the toughest part is that we both know/What happened to you/Why you're out on your own"
is just so Percy feeling guilty about Nico losing Bianca and running away it makes me want to tear my hair out in anguish
i fear so many people mischaracterize nico’s relationships with others. even rick and mark. he does not dislike others, he fears what he will do to them. between his queerness and his parentage he believes he is inherently unworthy of everyone, he is a monster and a weapon. an abomination. he loses the two people he loved most, further ingraining this mentality of he is a breathing curse, deadly to be inhaled. he pushes these people away out of concern, out of care, out of love. not out of selfishness or malice. his anger and standoffishness is not a fault of theirs, he is angry at himself.
jason telling leo he was important. jason telling nico he did the bravest thing he’d ever seen. jason telling piper he’d trust her with his life any day. jason insisting they were a team all together, no matter how insecure or worthless piper or leo felt. jason going above and beyond to show nico he trusted him and supported him. jason reassuring leo that he belonged somewhere, piper that she was enough just as she was. jason keeping the underwater fight a secret for percy’s sake no questions asked. jason who was always full of so much love for his friends and who would do anything to make them feel like they mattered and belonged despite not having someone to make him feel like that when he was a kid.
jason who was always full of LOVE despite growing up without it.
i was like “yeah jason grace is the type of person to read pamphlets very thoroughly” because he’s just that guy right so it’s a nice headcanon but it’s actually fucking canon and it’s hilarious to me
in MoA him and piper are going through the forest or smth in hercules’ island and piper is trudging through and Hating Everything and jason is just trailing behind her with the fucking guidebook and reading out a Fun Fact going like “oh this is cool i actually didn’t know that!! but now i do!!”
extrovert nico di angelo who learned to keep to himself because he was so isolated by others x introvert will solace who learned how to handle people all the time because it was expected of him as head medic and head of the apollo cabin
When do y’all think Hazel and Nico learned about the polio vaccine?
Like Polio was terrifying and common in the United States in the 1930s and 40s. Like they would have known about it, would have been in the most common age group to catch it, and also certainly knew kids who had. The fear of catching polio probably would have heightened whatever fear of swimming either of them might have had as children of Hades/Pluto as accidentally swallowing contaminated water while swimming is one way to catch polio.
Honestly, they might have learned about the vaccine if they ever commented on how weird it is that almost no one in the United States seems to catch polio anymore. Which coming from the 30s and 40s to the 2000s would have been very weird.
