alexcabotgf

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A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

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Who is the biggest hater in history?

Me when I'm in a mood

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GHOST (1990) Dir. Jerry Zucker

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The Cranberries - "Ode To My Family" [x]

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Scream King - Laurence Fishburne

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Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley

ALIEN (1979)

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using the bus tracker app is like. oh it's going to be here in three minutes. now it's five minutes. oh the bus has killed itself

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when the effects of media wear off and suddenly you're just a girl in a room all over again

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american women your objective for the next four years is to make men miserable. exacerbate that male lonliness epidemic as much as you possibly can.

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fuck y'all!!!!!

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Hello there! How are you? I have no ideia if you take requests, but If you do could you please gif Melissa Schemmenti talking about rocky balboa?? Pretty please 🥺🥺🥺???

hii i do take requests for things i'm currently watching/am into so i'd be willing to do this one if you could point me to the episode in which she's talking about him

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I wake up every day and wish that I was different. THE GREAT IMPERSONATOR, Halsey (2024)

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TJ MIKELOGAN's HALLOWEEN 2024 EVENT DAY 30: Favorite horror movie - The Conjuring (2013) dir. James Wan

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ALSo pisses me tf off that the halloween office party planning was assigned to the most incompetent team member and kept in complete secrecy from the rest of the team so much so that no one even knew we had to wear costumes until like earlier this week

tumblr needs to have a close friends/followers only option for text posts cause sometimes i need to rant so badly lmao

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MIDSOMMAR (2019) dir. Ari Aster

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Stevie Nicks told Katy Perry to be normal and touch grass. Iconic.