ohhh anon, i'm so sorry you're dealing with this. first off, i just want to affirm that it's really natural for you to feel bummed out and have your feelings hurt, and that i would probably feel exactly the same way. at the end of the day, how you feel is how you feel, and you're allowed the space to feel it! i think it's really nice and generous of you to recognize that those people probably didn't intend for you to ever see the things that they said, and i think stuff like that is so tricky! on the one hand, it's so normal when talking to a friend about a fic to give your honest thoughts on it and even bond over parts that you found silly or clumsy without having any malicious intent, and i think those conversations are fun and important. BUT, i ALSO think that it's very important to make sure that those thoughts don't reach authors, particularly in a niche amateur community like fanfic is. so while i think it's fine for people to have those conversations, i think the people who were talking like that about your fic definitely shouldn't have done it in a context where they were linking your fic and you could find it. i know not everyone necessarily realizes that some authors will search the urls of their fics, but lots of people do that (i definitely do!!!) and so i think that's something readers should be mindful of. so, PSA to anyone who doesn't know: if you're publicly tweeting a link to a fic, anything you say in that tweet or in the replies to it might be seen by the author one day! we are incorrigible snoops and we want to know what people think!

i think that the fact that you were having fun while writing it is so important and so cool!! you were making choices for the joy of them, and that's the whole point of creative expression: making choices and taking risks and putting yourself out there and hoping that someone else will gain the same kind of joy from those choices that you did! and it sucks that these readers didn't connect with you on that, but i'll bet money that there are lots of other readers out there who did feel your joy come through in that story and found those choices just as fun as you did! that's why i think it's so important to love what you write and love the choices you made rather than writing things that you might not like much but that you think will appeal to others. i think the love that YOU feel for the story does shine through and gives it something special! and it makes the connection you make with people who enjoy reading it feel that much more special too, because you now have something important in common with them! you both think these ideas you had are SO rad!

i do super understand getting in your head about what might be wrong with the thing that you're writing, and it can be really difficult to overcome. LUCKILY, i've never come across anyone saying anything mean about one of my fics, but i am sure that people HAVE said mean things about them, or thought them in the privacy of their own minds, because it's absolutely impossible that everyone who reads a story will like it. and i do sometimes imagine what those people might say in my head! there are a lot of things about my writing that i like (as in, like, i enjoy writing that way) that i am also sort of insecure about and that i worry that other people will dislike. and it sounds to me like maybe these readers hit on some of the insecurities that you have about your writing in that same way, like those things that bring you joy but that you could see someone else not liking! and there's something very embarrassing and very real about like, having someone else say out loud the thing that you fear might be true about you or about something you made. i've experienced it in other situations (i think everyone has!!) and it feels like being Seen, but in the worst way. like you've been found out or something that you hoped you could hide has been revealed. it makes you feel foolish and small, and i'm so sorry it's happened to you here with something so special. i want you to know that you're not alone in feeling that way and that you're not foolish for feeling it! we're social creatures, and being seen in a negative light stings for all of us. it's so normal, and it's so okay for it to stick with you or affect you.

as for how to get past it... i know a lot of people will say "fanfic doesn't have to be good!! we're not getting paid!! you're not entitled to quality!!" etc. and i do think those are all technically true statements, but personally i don't find them particularly comforting, so i'm not really going to go that route! i like reading fanfic because i enjoy it and think it's good, and personally i do want the stuff i read to be good by my standards. i do care about quality and how it's perceived, and i want to feel like i've made something worthwhile that i enjoy. obviously i'm not under any illusions that i'm writing a literary masterpiece or something, but i think "literary masterpiece" and "good" are frankly different metrics! you're aiming for different things!

i think where i land is: sometimes you will find people whose standard of "good" or "enjoyable" does not align with your own! these are the people who hate the cheesy tv show that you love, or who dismiss the musical artist who you agree isn't very Serious but deeply enjoy and find meaningful all the same! and it's also these people who read your fic and thought all those things about it! and like, those people aren't your audience. they're out there, sure, but you're not writing For them. you're writing for the people like you who like the choices that you're making and who kept reading that fic because of those choices rather than in spite of them!!! if you came across someone who was like "actually i think being gay is wrong and it's evil to write stories that glorify it" or "writing fic about real people is creepy and gross and anyone who does it is horrible," you'd be like "wow those people are not for me and will never be for me and i don't want them reading my stuff" lol! and i think while this example is less extreme, it's still in that same ballpark tbh. these are people who just don't like the things that you do! you do not agree and you're not aiming for them! i say lean in to the thing that makes you polarizing, tbh, because that is also going to be the thing that other people connect with the most and find most special!! time and time again, i find that the things i include in my fic where i think "this is so weird, this is literally just for me" are the things that other people will point out as things that they loved or really identified with! and it's definitely not everyone, but it's SOME people, and every time someone DOES point something like that out, i feel like that spidermen pointing meme! like THOSE are my people!! and your people are out there, and they are NOT Those people who said those things! have fun writing the story you're writing!

i find that often when i get really in my head about a fic, the only thing that really helps is to put it on a back burner and work on something else for a while. i find that when i've had some time for those feelings to settle, i'll come back to it and be like "omg actually this slaps and i remember how fun this was to write!!" and the joy will be there again. it sounds like all of this is still pretty fresh for you, and sometimes wounds like that just stay open for a while and take some time to heal! i also think that like, if you do end up feeling like you want to take those criticisms to heart and make some changes based on them, that's not necessarily a bad thing. but it can be hard to do that when you're still in the space where ALL you can hear in your head is those criticisms! where you're constantly second guessing your own choices and impulses because you get worried that all the things you love and enjoy are somehow Bad actually (i've been there 🙃)! and i would caution that if you do make those choices, that you make them out of love for the thing you're making and hope for it to be its best most joyful self, not out of fear of what others will think of it.

because there will always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS (i cannot stress this enough!!!!) be someone out there who doesn't like the thing that you made and worked hard on! it's simply a fact of life! all those fics that you think everyone in the fandom universally loves? there's someone out there, probably LOTS of someones, who hate them and think they're bad lol! think of how many books you read in school that are supposed to be Great Novels where you read them and were like "well that sucked"! tastes are simply different, and nothing is for everyone, and if something WERE for everyone, it would be vaguely liked by everyone and beloved by no one, i think. i think the things that people love the most are the things that are specific and individual and unusual, because they feel the most Human. they feel like they have the fingerprints of the person who made them all over them. and that's what makes things special. YOU are what makes the things you write special, and it's important that no matter what you write or how you write it, you feel like it matters to you and is something you like. that's something you can't fake.

that seems like probably a good place to end this extremely long response lol, a nice positive note to go out on, but i also want to just say that if you like writing and you want to keep doing it, which it sounds like you do, you're going to write a lot of things!! and you'll get better at writing, or at least more comfortable with it, as you go on. the things that you write and like will change, and i have some old fics that i don't like as much anymore, where i feel like my amateurishness and the things that i don't like about my writing were really on display. but i think it's important to keep love for those things, because the only way you get better at writing is by doing it a lot. so i sometimes do actually find it comforting to remember that when i'm writing something and i worry that i'm making a choice that's cringe or bad or stupid or whatever! like, maybe someone will think the choice is bad! maybe I'M gonna think it's bad 3 years from now or whatever! but i am where i am, i'm as good as i am right now, and where i am right now is an okay place to be! this fic is a record of who i am and what i like and how i'm creating things at this very particular point in time, and it's worthwhile to create stuff that preserves that! who you are right now is worthy of creating something. what you like is worthy of being put down in a story, even if you worry that it's silly. and that's all i have to say about that i think.