But I think FMA does also does an excellent job choosing when to not let Ed come out on top. We just had the Nina episode and now Ed is in the middle of processing his first "catastrophic failure to save someone" type of failure since attempting to bring his mom back. He's dealing with a low that's absolutely hampering his abilities and the tonal shift hits for me in the way that 1) he doesn't notice Scar's initial attack against him (Al has to pull him away) and 2) Ed absolutely freezes up just thinking "This is bad."

This is, perhaps, baby's first "someone is coming at you with the full, concentrated, explicit intention of killing you" and Ed is so genuinely out of his depth with it. He really does try. He gets immediately bested. He's staring at a situation where Al is directly in harm's way. And Ed just lies down to die like a dog...

(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’s particularly frustrating when you find something nice someone wrote about your fic on a completely different place and that same user name just put a kudo and didn’t write that same nice thing in the comment box on the fic. You found that nice thing entirely by accident.

Or when a popular author you used to admire tells you oh yes, they know your work. In fact they discussed it on a private discord with other authors in your fandom that you used to admire. Yeah, they all thought it was great! Except none of them could be bothered to tell you that, you had no idea they knew you wrote, never mind read your stuff!

Oh and the person telling you this only left a guest kudo, they could not possibly leave one with their actual name on it. That person told you this while also talking about all the cool art, podfic and even a bookbind they got from readers, so they know how awesome that feels but they can’t even tell you they liked your fic. They can’t even just click a button with their own name attached to it.

Those are things that happened to me.

I really wish that person had kept their “oh I’m one of your guest kudos” to themselves, because that absolutely destroyed my desire to write for months.

Don’t get me wrong, talking about stories with friends is awesome, but in the name of all that is good and holy, ALSO TELL THE AUTHOR!!!!

@miadearden !!

I’m a little late because I’ve been under the weather, but happy 3rd anniversary!🎉

happy pride month from everyone's favorite transgender LESBIAN video game characters!!!