What do you think of the IF community as a whole? And of the process of creating your own IFs? (I am curious because so many factors are involving in an IF: writing, planning, coding, often managing a blog, interacting with your community... how has it been for you?)
I'll answer the second one first: it has some ups and down. If you read my almost weekly progress posts, you can see where I'm at. I try to often include how I feel about things because it will affect my speed/progress on a project. Overall, I love it. Sometimes, less so. Sometimes, it's just a lot.
I've had some weird anons being rude for some small things, which was not cool. But most people are nice, it's made the whole thing fun.
I think I am more proud of learning some new languages/skills almost on my own more than anything else.
As for the community as a whole, answering is a bit difficult. I think I interact with a very limited crowd in general (whether it is here or Discord or the Forum), I am not really a minority (I might be for some aspects, but I don't want to talk about it online, and I don't particularly consider myself one anyway), and my projects do not really handle heavy topics. This means that I have had a pretty sanitised experience overall (if you take out those handful of rude trolls).
Like every group, there are positives and negatives. We are a very passionate bunch, there is a lot of creativity around (whether it is from the authors creating stuff or readers making fanart), and the cheering for others is so so so very lovely. There are so many interesting projects out there, from reinventing older pieces of art into IF to take a new spin on an old genre, to just going knees deep into a tried and tested trope. The amount of amazing writers pouring their passion into their work makes me so happy to be a part of this group. And having so many of us wanting and willing to help others (from coding to beta-testing each other's work) really warms my heart.
But... It's not all sunshine and rainbows either.
I've seen authors getting a lot hate, so much so that some would end up abandoning their projects or internet altogether (doxxing is no joke). I don't think a week passes before a rude asstwat passes my dashboard. The vitriolic violence that people get for choosing to create their projects one way rather than another, changing the gender/sexuality of a FICTIONAL character, not writing/updating fast enough, not including that reader's idea/request in the project, or... and that is so much worse, the author's identity.
I want to stay that I don't understand why people spew so much hate, but I have seen how people behave on the internet (or for some of them, why), and I am not surprised by it. Just very disappointed they would choose this rather than kindness (or just not interacting).
