#this reply got lost in my drafts annie im sorry 😭 i was busy over the past week and didn’t realise my other (scheduled) post got in first 😭

[ofmermaidstories]

1. No, self-insert for me tends to indicate an oc, or an otherwise named protagonist, while xreader is the reader, and will be referred to in the 2nd person

2. I don’t really think it’s polite to criticize a fic directly to the author unless they request it. If it is like, a tumblr post, I would generally say it would also be kind of rude, but also, if it is one of those fics that is super popular/well-known in the fandom, I think it would be fair to be like “I don’t really like X fic bc of Y reason” and leave it at that. But personally i’d probably just say it wasn’t really the vibe i was looking for or something more neutral. In general if you don’t like a fic tho, you should keep it to yourself

3. I never finish WIPs and the main point they tend to get abandoned at is when I get bored or have to make the connection between two cooler parts. I have v bad adhd. Usually i just like to take ideas and rotate them around in my brain for a few weeks. They rarely make it beyond there lol

omg i was talking about this the other day, with some friends, like—what does an x reader need in order to be rightfully counted as one? and for me it’s a reader-insert when there’s no like, legal name attached to the character—and there’s second-person POV. i think the 2nd-person POV is crucial for the… intimacy you need, to insert on. butttt maybe that’s a discussion for another time, lmao.

this is a little bit of a repeat of what i said to anon before, but like—i think the biggest problem with trying to critique a fanfic (unasked) is that… do you as the critiquer know the difference between recognising opportunity to strengthen a piece, vs. it just not being for you? like sometimes yeah, you just have to accept you’re not apart of the audience. my interest in the Big Fics, though, like the cornerstone, defining fics, is when they’re written in a way that makes them almost comparable to like, proper stand-alone stories? I think if they’re trying to be more ambitious than say, a smut one shot where you go in already knowing the setting and the characters and they know each other, then you kinda already have to look at it with a different lens? 🧐 Not to keep using H**** P***** as an example but All the Young Dudes is so incredibly popular that if i had read the fic (i only know about it bc its so popular lmao) I absolutely would feel comfortable enough dissecting it like I would commercial fiction—between the piece itself sort of treating itself like a book, I do think the popularity is almost a shield, LOL. Like… at that stage, you’re no longer punching down, you know? Whereas if I was to pick a random fic that got like, 80 kudos over five chapters, and its writer had a following of like, idk, 200 people, then that would be. and we don’t punch down!!!! we only punch up, bc then they give us a worthy fight. 👊🏽😈✌🏽 (im… half joking LMAO)

honestly tho, the hardest part of writing is like—writing. 😭 doing all the fiddly parts!! chipping away at it even when it’s boring, because you like—have to build up the connection to the fun part. 💀 it’s almost exhausting sometimes, actually… so i relate. 🥺 do you have any ideas you really, really desperately want to see on paper (on screen)? because for me the main driving force is literally just the promise of eventually—eventually—getting the satisfaction of being able to see it done and completed. like… literally, sometimes it’s the only thing that motivates me enough to work through what sometimes feels like stripping skin off of my back LOL.