#its not some attempt to garner like attention or something i simply have been ruminating on this for some time

[skiitter]

So I’ve been in fandom for over half my life easily, but I’ve only begun to engage and create in the last four years or so and it is very interesting to see things from the other side, so to speak. I always envied the people who could write or draw and now that I am out here finally doing the same, it is strange that I ever felt like I couldn’t do it? But I think this comes from the way fandom is structured these days, and how the bigger the fandom, the more of a contest it becomes. When I was releasing my Johnny/V fic, I loved the interaction and talking to people about our blorbos and just feeling as though I was a part of the community. With A Darker Blue my dhr longfic, it has been nearly the opposite. There is this baked in sense of performance in a fandom as large as dhr that I fell in with. Like it became this desire for engagement above enjoyment. I NEEDED people to like this fic, as if it would validate the place I was trying to carve out for myself in this huge, ancient fandom. My very first dhr work did so well and I was like “oh very cool I can actually be a member of the fandom!!!” and then ADB didn’t immediately blow up and i was like “i am a failure, actually.” which is a ridiculous sentiment to internalize and not one that I was used to feeling. All my other one-shots and ficlets for other fandoms were labors of love. I wanted to write something for me and then put it out there for others should they wish to enjoy it. A Darker Blue became this like Goal I had to meet. If I could just be GOOD and POPULAR than I could be a proper stan and like, that’s on me for sure, but also the way that fandom operates on this scale of popularity and adhering to the accepted fanon/tropes is not my favorite and I had to step back for a bit and kind of reorient myself and the space I wanted to occupy. Idk. I am very much “terminally online” by way of my life as it is at this moment, and so it was a perfect storm of a lot of other factors, but at the end of the day I just think that it’s healthy to occasionally step back and remind ourselves that fandom should be Fun. idk. Creating a fic for the Star Wars fandom is wild since it is so many tiny pockets of ships making up the whole, whereas Dramione is a beast unto itself and i sort of lost myself.

anyway this is very long and it is all to say that i don’t know if i’ll ever update ADB again. i know it has only the epilogue remaining but it came from a strange place for me, one that i’m not sure i can get back to anytime soon. i like writing dhr and i intend to make my silly little one-shots but it wasn’t a vibe to be running myself through the ringer for no reason. again, i’m blaming only myself, but it has been an interesting lens through which to view a fandom as big and as active as dhr.