Announcement: IcyPanther is Quitting Fanfiction
I had planned to make this announcement a little later, but with some current things ongoing I figured I may as well do it now.
As the title says, I am officially quitting fanfiction (and writing). I made this announcement to my Patreon back in January and they very kindly kept it internal as requested. There's a bit of a process to this, but following filling commissions slots this month on my Patreon I will no longer be writing any new fanfictions, save for those Patreon supporters who monthly get custom content written for them based on their tiers.
I'll be writing those smaller custom fics through "Phase 2" of my quitting of fanfiction, which will be ongoing until the Patreon exclusive Mer!Lance fic titled Bottled Ocean finishes publishing (it will first publish in April 2022 and while not yet completed should be wrapping up ~October 2022, possibly a month or two longer) and then I will officially be done with writing.
I still obviously have a lot to publish as I've got over 350,000 words of written content in my Google drive (and more still to come as I have some commissions I still have to write), so for as long as my mental health permits I'll be posting it on AO3 and also on my Patreon, which will be transitioning to a full early release model. Just as an FYI, at the very end of Phase 2 I will be locking my Patreon so anyone new joining will not have access to my over three years worth of Patreon exclusive content unless they pay for one particular tier with a pricetag to match what they'd gain access to. Two new tiers will be created to offer financial support and be granted the bonus of early release content, but my Patreon archive will essentially be locked save for that one access tier.
I doubt very many people are even going to see this announcement given recent Tumblr reach and of those very few are going to care. But I've always striven for transparency and given that I've been in this VLD fandom for just about 4 years now wanted to give a heads up. To be honest, most of you won't even realize anything has changed as I'll still be updating, possibly with even more frequency to award early release bonuses on the Patreon, until I stop and even then, given how my hiatuses these past couple years have gone unnoticed, probably not notice even when those updates cease.
I had a lot of fun and I'll always be grateful for what the return for writing and this fandom's enthusiasm and engagement meant to me. It brought me out of a dark place and kept me here. But, unfortunately, what was once stars has become a black hole and it is sucking the life right back out of me again. I've struggled so hard to make it work, but I have to finally do what's best for me and that is quitting writing and leaving this fandom as there's no future for me in writing and I can't keep wishing on stars for one.
Again, y'all won't really notice anything different for a long while if you're just active on my AO3 and if you're on my Patreon you've already been briefed on how the changes will be coming down the pipeline. I'll do my best to make it as smooth as possible.
Take care,
Icy
