Yaku's Girl

i told you i was saddened - too many people feed wild animals, mistakenly believing “once won’t hurt”. too many people think that wild animals are just bigger/smaller versions of domestic animals - they see a fox running around a house on youtube and think that’s a catdog and i could keep it. i told you that the worst part of working with wildlife was having to take care of the aftershock of this. in my state, any nondomestic animal that bites a human must be put down to check for rabies, even if we are positive the animal is safe. the government just slashed the budget again, no more EPA. around this time every year, we spend hours on the phone trying to rehome creatures that can’t survive in the wild anymore - someone thought a feral animal could be “taught” to be a pet. 

a woman cries to me. the fox in the basket is growling. “i thought it was like a dog,” she says. “I didn’t know it would be this much trouble.”

i told you -  why can’t people understand that care can look different on different bodies. that sometimes love for one thing is not love for another. that it can be selfish to want to hold something that was not meant to be held. the lovely thing is that we have plenty to hold, and each other, and a whole world; but there are things with hearts that should stay in the woods. it’s not yours to touch, is all.

you told me: let people have their fun. it’s one raccoon. it’s one bird full of bread. it’s not that big of a deal. 

much later, long after you had been washed out of my hair and my life and my hurting - i realized you would leave little bruises on me, but hated whenever my lipstick smudged across your cheek. you used to say - i just don’t like the feeling. you would bite my lip until it bled and look down at me and say - marking my territory. 

and no, this isn’t me saying “write that messed up, disgusting thing” because while, yes, write it if it’s what you want (I myself enjoy writing dark fics, something I believe would be considered “vile” to a lot of people), this is me saying in a world of censorship and capitalism, ao3 really is a treasure.

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

It makes me feel like this

"He's right!" A voice echoes from the back of the crowd.