The thing that sticks with me after the whole zero cycle situation is that I’m going to really miss Rose/evilgustofwind’s presence in this fandom space.
Last night, as I was working, once I found out, all I thought was: not again. Color me disappointed but not surprised. Being in fandom spaces for a long time should’ve made me somewhat numb to this. But, between my work, dinner, washing up, scrolling, I just kept retuning to Rose’s blog. I knew she’d said goodbye, but I was just reading through old posts. The genuine joy that Zc, and other fics brought readers. (In fact, it’s family matters that I read first, that made me cry. What can I say gr chose me as his driver).
Before I know it, I fell asleep pursuing rose’s blog. Upon opening my phone, I laughed. I was like, really, i shouldn’t be this parasocial and I respect Rose’s wishes. Maybe zc and family matters resonated more than I expected. I laughed, looking at the blog, the cover art, the asks. Then the page refreshed, and it was gone.
This is not to be parasocial, Rose owes us nothing, I feel so bad the treatment she received. This is not even remorse to get a scrap of her writing. I just feel gut wrenched again, that we lost the chance to have such a person in our fandom. It great and healthy that she decided to step away. But as I saw in another post, she shouldn’t have had to. She should’ve gotten the chance to experience the joy of her works with her readers, obsess and comment over the races, and have had fun in this fandom. I’m just tired of this in fandom spaces, and with rpf I don’t think a lot of people realize that you need to keep it to Tumblr/ao3. There’s been so many amazing posts on fandom etiquette, that’s I’ve reblogged after this situation. I guess I’m only posting because I miss an amazing person in the fandom.
Though I know she won’t be sharing it with us, nor online to read our support, I really hope Rose doesn’t stop writing. I know she expressed how it had taken over her world for the past year, and this may bring some change. But god, she’s so talented. And I hope she never loses the joy in writing. (And of course, enjoying her hobbies, like f1). Cheers to her, truly.