#I promise you do not need to um actually sweetie me about pre-internet modes of communication

[thatgirlonstage]

Yes, of course it did. I’m aware. But considering that was the easiest option at the time, the contemporary corollary to what I wrote would have been something like “imagine sending a personal messenger to 124 people’s houses to knock on their doors and hand deliver my fanfics straight to them”. The point is not the notion of the literal physical letter; the point is the extra step and investment that an ao3 subscription represents.

Fanfic in the days of printed fanzines was more underground and involved more effort by default so I can’t really backdate what I’m trying to get across in fandom terms. But consider the difference between walking into a normal bookstore and happening to see a new book by an author you’ve read and enjoyed previously vs subscribing to that author’s personal news letter (whether that is via email, blog post, physical letter, carrier pigeon, whatthefuckever). That subscription means you like this author so much that you always want to know immediately when they have something new out. What I’m saying is that it’s incredible and more than a little surreal that 124 people like my writing so much that they want to know about it every time I post a fanfic, no matter how smutty or self-indulgent or dashed off at 1AM or written for some new fandom I’ve fallen into headfirst this week it is. I phrased it in a silly and hyperbolic way to get the point across (I am also not literally kissing every single one of my Ao3 subscribers on the lips) but the emotion is very real. I mean, do you know how overwhelmed my email inboxes constantly are? The fact that people—people I don’t even know! People I may never have even spoken to! I can’t tell who they all are specifically bc Ao3 doesn’t share usernames of who’s subscribed to you, but like, I don’t have 25 people that I’m close friends with and talk to regularly in fandom, let alone 124, so it’s not like these people just feel an obligation of friendship, a lot of them must be here because they actually just love my writing—care enough about my fanfiction to make me another email they receive and sort through on a semi-regular basis is so genuinely touching. It’s incredible!!! It feels like the kind of investment that a handwritten letter, in the age of the cell phone, represents. The specificity of direction, that they’re not just on their phone idly and looking at their most recent activity, but are hoping to hear more of my words and my thoughts, specifically. The idea that if I did, for some reason, send out handwritten letters to let people know I am putting a fictional guy in situations again, there would be 124 people excited to receive that letter. That’s the point of it: my amazement that that many people care that much. About my fanfiction. And what a silly, glorious, heartwarming notion it is.

Ao3 subscriptions are so fucking wild to me. Every time I write my silly fanfictions and post them 124 people get an email just to let them know that this idiot is posting their fanfictions again. I send 124 people an email every time I write smut. Imagine sending 124 physical letters out just to be like “hello everyone, I put some guys we made up in our heads through the horrors again.” Absolutely absurd. I am kissing all of you on the lips.