londonbelow

Absolution has been offline for quite some time and I worry people will go back to read it again and realize it wasn’t as good as they remember it being. I know the best thing for me is to get into a headspace where I don’t care what people think about my stories or my writing, I know that more people love my writing than those who dislike it, but the amount of hate that Absolution got when it was being published has been burned into me for a long time. And now, looking back at the story, I feel like I’m seeing all of the points people were making against it and I wish I took it as constructive criticism rather than pure hate (although, most of it was just pure hate).

I’ve been reflecting a lot on 2019-2023 in the Harry fandom. I know the pandemic had a lot to do with the way my fanfic blew up the way it did—people were quarantined and bored, TikTok was thriving because of it and that’s how a lot of people discovered my writing. I think that’s a big part of the reason I have such a sour taste in my mouth about it, because while harry is my favorite person in the world and has been for many years, and love on tour was my most favorite experience, the pandemic rewired my brain so harshly that anything I went through in that time period feels at least a little bit tainted.

I want to write again. I miss it, desperately. I’ve been working through a lot of trauma and figuring things out for myself for a long time, and things still aren’t 100% good. I know they’ll probably never be 100%, but I would like to be able to approach writing in a healthy manner. I would like to look back at my work with pride and not let strangers online control my perception of my worth. I’m doing my best to be the greatest version of myself that I can be, I’m working hard to release myself of the brain rot I’ve acquired ever since that man broke into my apartment and I dealt with the ptsd and fear via severe isolation.

I get messages all the time about Absolution. I know people miss it and want to read it again for nostalgic reasons and I get it, I truly do. But I’m not ready yet for it to be published again and I can’t say for certain that I’ll ever feel ready to publish it again. Rewriting a piece of work that you already have a complicated relationship with takes a lot of hard work and brain power and I feel like if I’m going to work hard to write something, it should be the book that’s been spinning around my head for the last few years that features Mad Max as the MMC. The book that I could see myself not only writing, but publishing one day. I’m not saying it’s a waste of my time to rewrite Absolution right now, but I am saying that I have a short attention span now (thank u tiktok for short form content… it’s ruined me completely) and I have limited energy for writing overall. I want to put that energy somewhere that matters to me.

I second guess myself often. I will type out an entire post, scroll through it and nitpick at every little thing. I did it with this post lol. I always convince myself that people will hate it, will hate me if I say everything I want to or need to say. I have been shrinking myself down for years, I want so badly to please people, to make all of my readers happy when they’ve made me so happy in the past, but I’m doing myself a disservice by not being my true authentic self with you all 100% of the time. I need to accept that not everyone will like me, not everyone will like my writing, my characters, my stories. They aren’t for everyone. But my brain has me convinced that I need to cater to everyone or else I’m a bad person lol. Once I free myself from those mental chains, I will revisit Absolution and that entire world.

I feel like a lot of people are probably sick of reading these types of posts from me. I’ve always struggled with leaving my past writing on the internet for anyone to access and judge. I have struggled so deeply with absolution and then feelings of guilt when I take it away from you all. I know people have got to be sick of me publishing and unpublishing it. Of saying I’m going to edit it and repost and never doing it. Of deleting every trace of my writing on the internet and never putting it back. I completely understand the frustrations and all I can say is that I’m sorry, but I’m also not. I have to go through the motions, I have to let myself feel the way I feel and I hope everyone understands my struggles with this.

As for Petal… that is different for me. I don’t feel the same negative emotions toward Petal that I do toward Absolution (or dark side or daylight, the Harry fanfics I wrote back in 2011 lol) and I think it’s because I personally find Petal to be the better story. My writing was better, the smut was better, the characters feel well-rounded to me. I still have my issues with it though… there’s still a lot of smut that wasn’t totally necessary to the plot (which is fine, don’t get me wrong, I love a smut heavy story! but I’m a plot heavy girly and I should be writing that way). I also had an original ending in mind when I first started writing it and at the last minute I decided I needed to give it a happily ever after. While I don’t totally regret changing the ending, I do feel sad for myself because I always let the feedback I receive sway my decisions.

I let twitter’s toxicity get to me immensely. I let the wattpad comments get to me instead of just moving my material to a different platform. I was worried that if I tried to change anything, or if I didn’t include all the smut, if I kept the unhappy endings, that I would lose my popularity. It was so beyond necessary for me to disappear from the internet for a long time, to find new things to love and care for, to rewire my brain in a healthier manner so that I wasn’t just trying to please other people.

Anyways, there’s no point to this. I just have a lot of feelings and thoughts about Absolution and my writing in general and doing a little re-read of it over the last couple of days brought a lot of icky feelings up. I felt like I was reading it with fresh eyes and a new perspective, and I wish I was coming to you all to say “fuck you if you don’t like it, people love it and it’s coming back” but I can’t say that just yet. I need more time. I know anyone who truly loves me or my writing will understand that my main focus going forward will be original content. I think I’ve always been scared to move into that world because what if I write a book with all original characters and everyone hates it? What if my only talent is for writing Harry Styles fanfic and I can’t even write that right now? It seems silly to muse over these intrusive thoughts but… my imposter syndrome has been killing me more and more as I get older and start to explore more of what I truly love. I feel like such a fraud so often, like none of the success I’ve had was real or deserved and it was all just sort of bestowed upon me without me working very hard to get it. (I say this as if my fanfic got me a six-figure book deal or something lol, this is how you know it’s truly bad for me!!)

I’m 33 years old and all I’ve ever wanted in my life is to hold a book in my hands that I wrote and felt proud of and I’m nowhere near achieving that goal. Most days that goal feels light years away from me. Some days it feels completely impossible, even with the influx of self publishing in the book world. I always thought I would take a break from writing and come back with a new banger about Harry and it would just be a rinse and repeat situation, similar to my break between dark side/daylight and absolution. I know I can write decent fanfic, but can I write a book worth publishing? I think now is the time to put my Harry pen down and explore something (sort of) new.

Mad Max is an original character of mine that I am deeply invested in. He lives in my head rent free. He feels so fleshed out and whole and real that I know he’s the perfect character to attempt writing a book about. If I’m ever going to be able to do it, it will be with Mad Max as my MMC. The world I created for him is so clear in my mind, I can see it every time I close my eyes. I hope that i can release all of my doubts and stop overthinking and just write. I need to just write. I don’t need perfect right now, I don’t need popular, I don’t need positive feedback in order to write in a Google doc. I think somewhere along the way, I forgot that. I forgot that this isn’t a performance for an audience. It’s my childhood dream. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for myself. I owe it to myself to at least try.

So in conclusion: Absolution is not coming back anytime soon, unless I can figure out a way to put it behind a paywall or something that ensures only the people who truly love it in its raw, unedited form have access to it. I’m teetering in the middle of republishing Petal or keeping it down for now. All my work that’s posted here will stay here, as I do quite love all of my oneshots and feel proud of them.

I would love if anyone that bothered to read this far would take two seconds out of their day to send me some good vibes or positivity. I’ll even take prayers. I’m not religious, but I will take any magic or hope that exists in this world to get the authors pen back into my hand.

I think of you all so often. On here, on toxic ass twitter and even on the hellscape that is Wattpad. While I have a lot of negative feelings about my time as a fanfic author, I hope you know that I truly have soooo many positive experiences with you all. I have felt your love and your light every time you’ve given it to me. A lot of you carried me through very dark times and I hope you feel my gratitude. I wish that I could give you what you really want as a way to express that gratitude, but I know most of you will understand why doing so would be harmful to my already very frazzled and fragile mind. Mental health is a lifelong battle with a lot of ups and downs and I appreciate anyone that’s stuck with me through the various “downs” I’ve experienced over the years.

I have to add, it feels so good to type a bunch of giant paragraphs about how I feel and send them off into the void. I’m not sure anyone will read this, and… I don’t care if nobody does. I needed it off my chest, I needed to dump all of my thoughts somewhere and tumblr has always been safe for me to do that.

Sending lots of love and giant hugs.