it is the first time i've visited this friend at her house; i'm doing the wrong thing already, what if i have the wrong address, what if she has special rules i don't know about, what if my presence here was more of a politeness and not a true request. it is the first time i've been to this restaurant, and surely yes i've been to many of these but what if i'm doing the wrong thing in this one. and even if i've been to this gym a million times what if this time the rules have changed somehow (or i've been doing it wrong all along and it was pure luck that nobody noticed) and what if this time i'm doing it very wrong.

they're taking orders for lunch at work, what if i order the wrong thing somehow, or what if - what if i am not even supposed to order anything - is this a test? my friends ask if i want to see a movie but what if i suggest a movie that they won't like and that's certainly doing the wrong thing. yes im certifiably happy and she's amazing and i love being a lesbian but if i bring her on a date where everything isn't blisteringly perfect (the weather is a bit chilly, finding parking was harder than i thought, the event started 3 minutes late) isn't that doing the wrong thing? i know i can't control everything obviously but i should have planned better; this was my fault. and of course i know i'm only human but - a lack of omnipotent foresight really is doing the wrong thing now.

Their stories: Amazing grammar, soaring vocabulary, beautiful imagery and prose which flows like a river.

Brother, I literally have more than 2 million words sitting in my drafts folder instead of posted on AO3.

Forgive me for the extended metaphor but I also want to simultaneously celebrate what I’m calling Bakery Display Case Philosophy. You know when you walk into a bakery and the display case is full of beautiful treats? And there’s a variety of different colors, textures, and flavors to discover? And that’s so deeply exciting?

You might say to yourself, “No one is going to want to read this pairing. No one is going to want to want a character study of that character. No one wants genfic in this fandom, only shipfic.”

And you might use that to discourage yourself from writing a certain fic.

Fandoms, like bakeries, need cakes and cookies and éclairs and cream puffs and shortbread and brownies and pies and tarts and petit fours and turnovers and cinnamon rolls and madeleines and meringues—and so many other things—to survive.

I got my (now 18-year-old) daughter into Ao3 back in 2021. I taught her she should always comment - even if the fic looks old or abandoned or whatever. She did.

Well - she got this email this morning:

The fic was written in 2014 and essentially abandoned.

Bethy read and reviewed in 2021 (and was actually the only person who had commented at all).

Today in 2025 - the final chapter was posted by the author and this was her reply to Bethy’s comment.

———

No one owes artists anything.

1. You probably dont suck at your craft as much as you think you do, I bet a lot of people are amazed at what you can make, and