hey! what does pdwt mean?
PDWT stands for “Please Don’t Write This.” It’s kind of like the author equivalent of “Please Don’t Read This,” except for the fact that it’s already too late, because the work has already been published.
It’s another way of saying: “Why in the world did I write this?” reserved for things that the author thinks were too cursed to deserve to be written in the first place. It can be used both in a joking manner or a light admonishment.
It was a term that was 100% invented for M&M’s March Madness, a yearly-ish event in which I, and any friends I could convince, would write fic about M&Ms. (I don’t really know how to explain this, so… just go with it).
We made up various fandom terminology for the event in order to make it seem like M&Ms was an “established fandom.” PDWT is probably the only one that is vaguely useful in other contexts (and one of the only ones to have a concrete definition).