#or 'thank you'

[fallloverfic]

Also to clear some things up in the notes, specifically about Ao3:

Authors on Ao3 do not get notified if you subscribe to their work. We do not get notified if you leave a bookmark, even if it's public. If it's public, we can see a bookmark if we check the bookmarks, but a lot of people don't do that, or at least don't do it regularly. If it's private, we can't see it at all.

What authors can see (outside comments, kudos, and public bookmarks) is their statistics page, which lists, among other stuff that isn't relevant, total # of bookmarks on individual works (which includes total private bookmarks as a combined # total with public ones, but no names or links), total author subscriptions, and subscriptions for individual works. The only time we can see who did what is when we check comments actually on the fic, check kudos, or we check the public bookmarks. That's it. Who is making up that total subscription # count and total bookmark # count (which again, includes the # of private bookmarks, but not who made them), is a mystery. And we can't see total bookmarks and subscriptions for series. The only thing we see for that is public bookmarks.

If an author allows people to add their work to a collection (just a regular collection, not a bookmark collection), or to ask to add the work to a collection, an author will get notified of that. Collections are not bookmarks. And authors will not get notified of bookmark collections. We can see those by checking the public bookmarks, if the bookmark collection is public, but we do not get notifications about it. And if they're private, again, we don't see them all, other than presumably they are included in the total # of bookmarks on the stats page for individual works.

Also authors have to manually check their stats page. Most of us try not to do that daily because it can drive you insane (I know plenty of us check all the time though, and keep track of it offline, mostly to track trends). And if you've got a lot of fics... that's a lot of stats to keep track of. What I do see every day, though, which is very easy to read, is my daily kudos email, and within 15-30 minutes of posting, an email that someone has left me a comment.

(This is mostly a PSA to people who are upset authors don't know they've subscribed, and who leave nice comments solely in their bookmarks; even if it's a public bookmark, it's pretty likely the author will never see it, or at least not see it for a very long time, because a lot of people check those only rarely or don't check at all, versus comments and kudos, which are sent out as emails).

(Also just a personal one; if you've ever reblogged fanart, maybe consider doing the same for fanfiction, too? I see some wonderful people liking fanfiction promo posts, but seldom do I see people reblogging/otherwise sharing them)

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.

[noodles-and-tea]

[woodsdyke]

having viral posts is all fun and games until you have clowns in your mentions being like "well, op, i bet you also didn't know THIS" [haughtily explains something i absolutely would and do know] like add whatever to my posts that you think is informative just don't direct it at ME! i know! i just didn't include it in the post i made in 20 seconds because i didn't think 30,000 of you would see it!

[evilgoodguys]

he’d forgotten how much he missed that smile.

[tawnysoup]

Found my fav Slay the Princess route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖

Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!

[maskenjager]

I can't unsee this

[jollymalt]

what could have been

[antennatoheaven]

[artsymeeshee]

Haven’t collabed with @renconner in a long while for a mini comic (minus our big one, Instinct). We were talking about one of Stan’s lowest moments involving being outside with that damn sign, so we decided to make a comic with Stan remembering it. I’ve also kinda of assumed Filbrick would lie to Ford about what’s going on with Stan (Stan probably did too to some extent).

[electronicmail]

Hey how's the ovulation going

im a danger to myself and others

[skecherss]

@batbirdies honestly this SOUNDS like something your Jason would say

[electricpurrs]

i also woke up in the middle of the night today and i felt the impulse to grab my phone but not even joking i stopped myself by conjuring this image in my brain so i just went back to sleep

[dear-ao3]

[x]

[evilgoodguys]

he was his father's greatest creation.