#cringe is way more dead here than anywhere else on the internet methinks

[determunition]

Hi so I’ve curious, (Been nervous about starting my own AU) When you first started posting OFH (on twitter/ao3) how did you get the courage to post it? Were you ever afraid of getting called ‘cringe’ or ‘weird’ or anything else negative? If so how were you able to get over it? (Btw I do love this AU with all my heart!) Sorry if any of these questions are too sensitive!

hi!! thanks for the questions, i'm flattered to be considered a source of wisdom about this x3

OFH/retyrement, like most fandom things i do, started as kind of a silly shitpost thing; i love human AUs, and when my buddy squid_hug made that original text post about the retirement home it tickled me too much to ignore. objectively the scrybes being human old people bickering in a retirement home is a goofy, silly idea, and that's how it started as an AU, down to the written fic. i think that in itself made it a bit easier to post about

however! even with that, when i started posting the first pieces of art it was definitely a "do it scared" situation lmao; i don't remember where i heard this, but in some cases it takes even more courage to do something new when you're already known for something than it does to start something new with no presence at all, and that was definitely true with the retyrement AU. it was my first contribution to the fandom too! i was definitely worried it wouldn't go over well with anyone bc it was so damn niche lolol

my main piece of advice for getting over this fear (besides just doing it scared until you're not scared anymore) is to get yourself a hype squad lmao; though maybe the more accurate term would be a mutual AU ecosystem. i had squid to develop a lot of the AU with me at the start and we bounced a lot of silly ideas off of each other, and now i have a lot more folks around to crack jokes and hype each other up about our art and fics! also at the beginning i had a point where i was feeling a little self-conscious about continuing to post (the AU had a painfully small amount of engagement at the beginning lol), but as soon as i got one (1) ask saying "i wanna see more of this" i took that as my green light to get as silly with it as possible lmao

so ig my TL;DR advice is: don't take shit too seriously, remember it's all in good fun, and surround yourself with folks who enjoy funny lil AUs as much as you do! the second thing can be hard, as it involves uh, putting yourself out there in the first place, but embracing that discomfort is a necessary evil for having a good-ass time! if you can successfully kill the part of yourself that cringes then you'll never be cringe again

godspeed on your own AU endeavors, the digital world is always better for having another crazy creative alternate universe in it <3