genuinely one of the worst things fandom has normalized lately is treating fanfiction like content to be consumed and reviewed rather than something another human being is actively making.
people will sit on tiktok and make entire ranking videos of fics. they'll talk about how they want slow burns with immaculate characterization, intricate political plots, and emotional payoffs that span 600k words across five years of updates. they'll talk about wanting stories that completely take over their lives.
and then those same people won't touch an ongoing fic.
they won't leave comments. they won't bookmark. they won't tell their friends. they won't engage until the work is already finished and has been vetted by fifty other readers.
do people realize what they're asking for when they demand a 600k slow burn? that's half a decade of somebody's free time. that's thousands of hours spent writing after work, after school, after exams, after family emergencies, after losing motivation and finding it again.
those legendary fics everyone loves to recommend didn't appear fully formed out of nowhere. they survived because people supported them while they were being written.
everybody wants the next fandom-defining epic. nobody wants to be the person encouraging chapter 17 of 143.
and then people wonder why fewer longfics get finished.
because writers can feel when they're performing for an audience that only shows up at the finish line.
