Today I got a reply to a comment saying that the author had been so discouraged by the lack of response on the last two chapters that they had decided not to finish it, but that they had changed their mind and were now thinking of finishing. Just because I took 30 seconds to comment on each chapter.
It doesn’t matter if the fic is years old
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to say (“I loved this” is always music to an author’s ears, no matter how many times we hear it)
The author will not think you’re a creeper if you’re commenting on every single one of their fics
The author WILL cuddle your comments close to their hearts like the precious gems that they are, even if they’re only one word.
Comments and feedback matter. I’ve written in fandoms and for pairings that have very active, vocal fans who comment a lot, and I’ve written for ships that are not terribly popular and don’t get much reaction. The difference in my attitude is incredible.
Your feedback matters to authors. Click the kudos button, but please, take the time to leave a comment. Even if it’s just one word. If you like the writing and want to see more, let the author know
/rant
yes yes yes yes yes yes
Comments are very motivational.
Kudos is wonderful and I want to thank everyone who’s ever clicked that little heart on AO3 but I have to admit, getting a comment would be even nicer :)
I live for comments. Every time I get one, my confidence and happiness goes through the roof. As an amateur writer, knowing that someone out there reads and likes my stuff - and likes it enough to spend time writing in response - is probably the greatest feeling in the world.
I look at ever single reblog to see if they put tags saying they like it, it honestly means so much to get something saying you enjoyed & if you say it directly to me I will legit thankyou so many times bc it honestly keeps me going
my pet peeve are fic summaries with something deep and obscure that not only tell me nothing about the story but dont MEAN anything theyre just words like
‘When lost eyes lock onto a summer’s shadow, will love make it in the end?? [content warnings]: anal fisting ‘
“villain attempts to go back in time to kill superman as a small child, gets shot in the face by ma kent, who buries him behind the barn with the others” would probably have niche appeal as a comic but i don’t care, i want it
The first time a man from the future showed up at Martha Kent’s house, Clark Kent was two years old.
According to his birth certificate, anyway. She just kind of accepted that the details were a little fudged. Relativity, and all.
Maybe the stranger would have succeeded in whatever it was he wanted to do, except that he really did just show up. Appeared, like a ghost made flesh, right in the backyard. Clark, thank goodness, was out in the fields with Jonathan. He couldn’t bear to be alone, that boy, and they could never bear to leave him.
Which left Martha free to shoot the ghostly intruder in the face.
Martha had not always considered herself a shoot first, ask questions later sort of a person. But that was before she found a baby in a spaceship where her corn was supposed to be.
They’d switch off, Jonathan and her, who got Clark and who got the shotgun. Martha got the shotgun more often than not. Guns made her husband uncomfortable. She was hardly a fan, but she’d always been a terrible pacifist. Too determined to defend herself.
The sight of all that blood and brain and bone was still nauseating. She compartmentalized, told herself it was no different from slaughtering a cow; didn’t think about riot gear or tear gas or the friends she’d lost or all the things she’d moved away from when her heart couldn’t take it any longer. This was different. This was her son.
She prodded the corpse with her foot. It remained a corpse. A real nasty looking corpse, all big and burly and holding a gun much too large. She didn’t like making assumptions based on appearances, but she didn’t imagine he’d been coming for anything nice. She bent down to search his pockets, found a metal wallet and flipped it open.
Born 2018.
Well, hell. Wasn’t that just a kick in the pants?
Probably she ought to have been a bit more unsettled than she was. But she’d been waiting two years for someone to show up on her doorstep, men in black or UFOs or something. Hell, she’d half expected her sweet little boy to hatch into something worse.
Just because she brought home space babies didn’t mean she was a damn fool.
Jonathan had rejoined her in long strides, was holding Clark in such a way that he couldn’t see the corpse on the ground. “Well, shit,” he said.
“Eyup,” Martha agreed.
“Don’t look government.”
“Nope.”
“We burying him?”
“I’ll bury him,” Martha said, standing up. “You get Clark inside and read him a book or something. I don’t want him seeing any of this, getting him messed up in the head.”
“You sure? Looks heavy.”
“That’s why we have a wheelbarrow. I’ll stick him out behind the barn, might as well keep all our secrets in one place.”
Martha had a long time to think as she dug a time traveler’s grave. There were a lot of reasons someone might travel back in time trying to kill her kid. The first was her instinct as a mother, which was: he was a fucking asshole. Who killed a kid? Fucking assholes, that was who.
Now, it was also possible that her sweet little boy grew up to be some kind of space Hitler. She didn’t think she’d raise that kind of a kid, but she didn’t suppose there was any parent who set out to raise a Hitler.
Still didn’t sit right with her. She didn’t much like the idea of killing baby Hitler, either.
listen, there is absolutely nothing that gets me going like mutual seemingly unrequited pining like? i live for both people losing their minds over the other person in bitter silence. savoring every single accidental brush of their fingers, elbows, thighs, every stray glance, memorizing every gesture or expression they catch while the other isn’t looking, all while being absolutely convinced that it’s one-sided only to finally!! finally find out it wasn’t in a triumphant moment of bliss after years and years of delicious, soul-rending, torturous, heart-wrenching pining. i literally don’t care about the fact that this trope is predictable af and always plays out the same way i will still go wild over it every single time like they’ll be doing the same reveal scene i have seen a million times and i’m still on the edge of my seat gasping “are they gonna kiss???”
my single greatest weakness as far as love stories go
is when a story is told through one character’s (pining) point of view, but you the reader KNOW that their love interest loves them back
and the pov character casually says something that you the reader KNOW is gonna be completely devastating to their love interest, but pov character has NO IDEA, like:
“[innocently devastating thing],” said pov character
a strange look seemed to pass over love interest’s face. “yeah, [seemingly casual response that comes off as a little stilted, for reasons pov character just cannot pinpoint],” said love interest.
“uh, [joke that accidentally just DIALS UP THE AGONY TO A THOUSAND FOR LOVE INTEREST],” pov character added, to cut the tension.
love interest step’s faltered for a second. “[seemingly casual response that is FILLED WITH EXQUISITELY REPRESSED PAIN AND LONGING].” it sounded a little gruff. probably love interest was just distracted, or wanted some space. who could blame them?
"Fanfiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band of brilliant pop-culture junkies trapped in a sealed bunker. They don’t do it for money. That’s not what it’s about. The writers write it and put it up online just for the satisfaction. They’re fans, but they’re not silent, couchbound consumers of media. The culture talks to them, and they talk back to the culture in its own language."
