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I wrote a thing! Please read and share

I don't think I'll ever love another creature as much as I loved Mags. Still miss her every day. #nationaldogday #labsforlife

It was an abundant day for turtle sightings on our walk. The dogs were really excited to have the chance to make new friends, the turtles did not share those feelings.

I've been writing fanfiction for 8 years, reading for even longer. In that time, as I have developed as a writer I've gotten my fair share of mean, rude reviews. Most of the rude ones haven't really been critiques, just spewing without use. And while I definitely have written plenty of shit, I've never deleted a story. My earlier, horrible work has always remained on the site. It's part of my history as a writer. So, even when I've had bad starts or looked back at my earlier stuff or left a story unfinished, I've kept it. I don't delete stuff. Once there, it's there. Last night I posted my second attempt in the LOTR fandom. My first story did pretty okay, amassing about 230 reviews and 270 followers.I definitely got grilled by some fans for tweaking things in the canon -- which was fine, until they started getting rude. Then it was less fine. But I chugged on, fueled to finish by the positive fans and finished satisfied. Cause fuck those guys. This morning, I woke to my first review to this second piece. It berated me for making changes to the canon. It was anonymous. It wasn't nice. Hands down, the LOTR fandom to me has been the least-open to alterations within the canon and the most vocal about it. And most of the fans when they are vocal, have a tendency to be assholes. Fanfiction often diverges from the canon. That's kind of the point. To alter the story to fit your vision. And every change I've made had been relatively minor -- not using elvish names, allowing elves to be sick, changing the date of battles by a few mere months. But the amount of sheer research as I have done, the hours spent on wikis checking timelines and double checking family trees and maps of various regions in Arda, all of that can apparently just fuck off. I've literally never had such a bulk of rude reviews, not even within some of my biggest pieces. The review I got last night -- one review -- was enough to remind me what hell I was put myself through of irate fans. So, I've concluded that while I love writing LOTR and research it, while I've had some moderate success, I'm never posting in the fandom again. For the first time I deleted a story. It was a weird moment. "One review?" you might say. "Seriously? Really living up to that 'drama queen' name, aren't you?" It might come across as a little dramatic, to not even give a story a chance. And it probably is. But I went through that shit with Keeper and I'm tired. As a college student I don't have as much time to write anymore. If I can dedicate my time to something, I'd prefer a fandom more prone to critiques, rather than one who gets suck on the fucking details and will actually critique the damn story rather than writing about something that isn't 100% canon. I just did two hours of math to estimate the distance between Rivendell and Mirkwood, and now you're bitching that someone's name isn't "evlish enough?" Unless I named someone Destiny or Raven, zip it. So, Morbid DramaQueen10 won't be publishing in the fandom again. I'm a little disappointed, as I have two or three things in the works, but I'm not wasting my limited time on a fandom that has given me some of the rudest review in my career. I'll keep reading, and sometime soon I'll post a few HP one-shots, so I'm not going away for good.

We finally managed to bring Bethie to a game. Fantastic day with three of the people I love best, despite the god-awful heat. #gocards

At Ballpark Village about to watch the Cards cream the Royals! I couldn't find my Cards shirt so Pizza John it is! #gocards #ballparkvillage #cardinals-nation #pizzajohn (at Ballpark Village)