very not serious post about my feelings on fandom and fanfiction that im gonna throw under the cut for y'all:
i genuinely don't understand why fandom in general is allergic to telling its writers that they like their work?
i understand the sentiment of 'oh well i don't want to bother the author/what if they find me cringe' but like. dude. they posted the fic. on the internet. publicly. my guess is, if it's a creative project put somewhere that people can engage with it, they probably want comments?
now i'm positive there are pretentious fic writers out there, but in my 12 years of being engaged with fanfiction, i have not once met an author who DIDN'T want comments talking about their work.
and i don't mean 'when's the next chapter?' those comments suck. i'm sorry, but they suck ass. nothing makes me want to write less than people commenting on my wips that haven't been updated in literal years asking for a new chapter, with NO additional thoughts on the story so far.
like, you're asking for more, and you can't be bothered to even tell me what you like about it? imagine doing that in any other scenario. going to a hobbyist, they give you something for FREE, and a year later you come to them and go 'hey remember that thing you made for me 12 months ago? yeah i want another one. for free btw'
like i have other fics. recent fics. stuff that's fully completed. i know not every fic is to everyone's liking, but like, i don't know. i don't really understand why fandom is like this.
what annoys me most is that the solution is super easy. just leave a comment. doesn't have to be on every chapter, doesn't have to be a detailed comment (though those are always loved).
it can be a keysmash. it can be you saying you loved the story. it can be your favorite line from the fic, followed by more keysmash.
anyways this isn't me like, genuinely angry with fandom or anything like that. at the end of the day, this has been a good exercise in learning to write for myself, and not for numbers sake. i have writer friends, i have a little discord group i can chat freely about my ideas in, it's not like i don't have a network. i just wish this problem that everyone knows about, and yet no one tries to resolve, would resolve itself already.
again, i've been doing this shit for 12 years, this feeling has been brewing for over a decade. i think i'm justified in being a little annoying on the internet about it. peace and love <3
anyways thanks for looking at my post, you win a silly meme i made