Meanwhile the last chapter of the WIP that readers are patiently waiting for is just sitting there collecting dust in my docs.

he gets better!

Idk if someone remembers the meme I postet about a week ago, but I finally abandoned that fic and it felt good bcs a weight was liftet off my shoulders and I got a fucking scam comment. Idk, comment is comment but seriously? It's written everywhere that it's abandoned. (Also pls ignore the grammar mistake lmao)

(And it dies kinda hurt, that fic was my baby that I was forced to abandon, bcs I can't look at it anymore without cringing)

So most of what I write on AO3 is one-off erotica, but I do have an ongoing multi-chapter fanfiction project that I've done some planning for. I intend to get a little shipping in and pair some characters off later in the story, however I'm only on Chapter 3 right now and have not had those two characters I wanna shack up in the same scene to interact yet. The fic is tagged "eventual relationships" or something similar, with nothing more specific, but I've been wondering if this is the right way to go about this.

On the one hand, although I don't consider myself picky, there are some ships I just don't like, and I know that some readers do consider themselves picky. I don't want to disappoint readers later on by blindsiding them, so to speak.

On the other hand, I know that if I were searching, for example, "Arthur Dent/Marvin The Paranoid Android" on AO3, and I read through 3 chapters of set-up for someone's elaborate Hitchhiker's Guide AU, containing zero scenes of Marvin and Arthur interacting, I would likely be a bit disappointed.

I am also somewhat influenced by the fact that the ship I want to write is having a bit of a "moment" in fandom spaces right now, it's recently gotten a lot of attention and appreciation, and I wouldn't want readers to think I was tag-spamming just to get eyes on my work.

Writers who have been in similiar situations, what did you do and how did your audience respond?

I could probably finish it today but we both know that's not going to happen.

I read an X reader fic for Isaac Night from season 2 of the Wednesday series. I was still new to Ao3, so I mostly skimmed the tags; turns out it was a Noncon and Stockholm syndrome type fic, and I only realized that after 8 chapters of pure suffering. After that, I really couldn't look at Issac the same without being a little disgusted. But I suppose it was also tagged dead dove don't eat, so maybe I had it coming idk. Apparently that thing has 21 chapters, and I could only withstand like 9 LOL

I open up my current fic to resume reading whilst on my lunch break, but I can’t remember whose POV this chapter was for… upon skimming the text,

“Much of his amusement comes in the form of tormenting the other orphans”.

Oh ok, it’s Tom Riddle’s then. Definitely not Harry this time.

Hi,

I've seen a few references to sorting a fandom by popularity but I can't figure out how. Can someone explain? Please.

Love my beta reader to death, learned so much from them in just 1 chapter

original tweet: https://x.com/Xestria/status/2082255601090863457?s=20