Rain Dance

[rynling]

One of my writing goals for the fall was to write notes and leave comments for all the fic I've bookmarked on AO3. I also set a goal for myself to leave one comment a day on fic I haven't bookmarked.

With one exception (which I've been saving as a treat to myself), I managed to accomplish this goal in September. I read fic while jogging on the treadmill every morning and typed comments before I got in the shower. Some of these comments were full paragraphs that I wrote on my laptop and edited before posting, but most were brief, one-line "I loved this, thanks for sharing" messages of appreciation and encouragement. I like reading fic, and I like writing comments, so it was good times all around.

Unfortunately, I ran out of batteries. I haven't gotten comments on any of my own stories since early August, so I guess I was drawing from a store of energy that hasn't been replenished. There's nothing much to be done about this save to hang tight and chill out for a bit.

Still, I wish there were some sort of forum where you could go and say something like, "Hey, here's a link to my AO3 profile, I need some encouragement and support today and even a kudo would mean the world to me." I remember that there used to be comms like this on LiveJournal... I wonder if it might be possible to recreate something like this via Discord?

ETA: Feel free to drop links in the comments if you need some support too! I'm always looking for readings recs.

Comments

[runicmagitek]

I absolutely feel you on the drained batteries 😰 I swear every other month I'm like, "I will read a fic a day and leave a comment!" and then after a couple of weeks, my brain is at 5%. I'd also love a forum like that, even if my anxiety is screaming at the thought. It's especially hard for smaller/older/quieter fandoms. Like I get there's a smaller audience, but it would be nice to hear something from someone 😞

[rynling]

I just saw your #WIPWednesday tweet! It's gorgeous - and also a very good idea! I swear to god, if I have to be on Twitter then it might be good to start a nice chain of #WIPWednesday tweets and retweets. I am so beyond caring about "professionalism" at this point that I'll post fic under my real name, I do not give a single fuck. I'll retweet other people's fic too while I'm at it.

As an amusing aside, I went to the #WIPWednesday hashtag out of curiosity, and lo and behold it's all K-Pop RPF. Sometimes I forget that's a good 75% of fandom these days.

[runicmagitek]

Awww thank you!! I've been garbage about staying on top of it here, but it's so quick and easy to post a snippet on Twitter and move on with life (I do wish all my wip posts would feature sunrise ocean views, but this may also be an excuse to get creative in my office). Would love to see you and others jump on the #WIPWednesday goodness! You know... offset the K-Pop RPF fandom by maybe 1% (I'm I didn't go dumpster diving in that tag last Wednesday ho boy).

Also don't mind me cheering for your "fuck professionalism" vibes. Enjoy what you love, be loud about it, and if people don't like it? Well, the door is over there 💕

[rynling]

> Enjoy what you love, be loud about it, and if people don't like it? Well, the door is over there 💕

So I am going to be real and admit that I think taking screencaps to save as "receipts" for people is mentally ill behavior. However! I am slowly amassing a collection of screenshots of the Twitter profiles of Very Serious Scholars who will follow me and then unfollow me a day or two later when they see that my Twitter account is good energy and positive vibes. Like, they don't mute me - they're apparently so offended by seeing minorities be happy and successful online that they actually unfollow me. I know this doesn't sound funny, but if you saw how pretentious and self-important their Twitter bios are, you would be just as amused as I am. I hope the door smacked their asses at least a little on the way out.

[lassarina]

I've been slowly working my way through ten plus years of things I tagged in Feedly for "later," but a distressing number of them have gone into AO3's "mark for later" tab because I get overwhelmed on the computer when I have to read more than 4k words in a shot.

This post is a good reminder to tackle some of those marked for later, though.

[rynling]

This is a little off topic, but I'm relieved to hear that I'm not the only person who abuses uses Feedly this way.

[lassarina]

I got in the habit because instead of going to AO3 and searching, I subscribe to fandom tags, and then I would usually go through my feedly at work, when I did not want someone to either peek over my shoulder or see me crouched over my phone for too long, so I'd slap the "mark for later" button and be like "I'll get to it when I get home!"

....yeah, nah

On the other hand I did find some divine things I'd stashed away that are very delightful to be reading now.