I miss back in the day when 13-year-old girls dedicated their lives to fictional men and wrote the most gut-wrenching, tear-jerking fanfics with the best plot you've ever seen, and writing that makes you question if they are really 13 or just Shakespeare in disguise. Not to mention the updates, those little saints did not play about their update schedule. No matter what happened, you would be getting that update on time and with a silly little story in the author's note.
Oh, and they never got anything wrong.
Characterization? So good it makes you completely rethink the character and everything you know about them.
Slowburn? It takes them 17 chapters of the 22-chapter fic to even acknowledge their feelings.
Think about how many Tumblr soldiers we have lost to TikTok trends. Like, no, I don't want to see your dance TikTok, I want to see you with a pen in your hand, ready to pull a Hamilton and write like you are running out of time.
How did they do it? I'll never know, but most of them are grown now, so if any of the "I'm 13 and English is not my first language." girls want to fess up to whatever spells you were casting, I think I'm ready to know now.
