it's not your fault

i'm not saying it would've fixed him, but i think teen ruben would've benefited from finding a tiny, scrawny, miserable little kitten to care for. no not niall, i mean an actual cat

i feel like part of the reason you don't see fun fluffy (not in the cute romance sense) silly slice of life style fanfics as much anymore is because peoples standards have gotten way way higher when it comes to fanworks in a way that kind of sucks. People want to read good fanfics and look at good fanart (who doesn't), but there's hardly any room for truly Playing Toys anymore because people get extremely pissy if something isn't in-character enough, which then makes writers of all kinds insecure about their writing, and insecure about posting it, because when they do make something 'bad' it's no longer just a person having fun and writing a fanfic that's not your thing, it becomes a personal affront on The Character You Love So Much. How Could They Do This? Are They Stupid? Can They Even Read? Do They Have Media Literacy? And like. I get it. I'm guilty of feeling the same way sometimes, I think most people are. But we can't have nice things when we're constantly mean to people. Even if indirectly. Everything has to be legitimate and in-character and there's very little wiggle room for being silly and unserious because then it would come off 'innaccurately' and obviously make the author a bumbling idiot with no sense. There's more to it than this for sure but I think the immense pressure of "they would not fucking say that" really weighs people down creatively

we would NOT get the creepypasta mansion nowadays yknow what I'm saying