so i feel like as far as caring too little or too much goes that's just kind of a thing that Is and like with feelings in general, awareness that your emotional response to something deviates from the average doesn't inherently do much to regulate it. tbh i feel like this is a big part of why finding your audience of 3-5 sickos is so key to enjoying fandom because once you find yourself stressing too much about what too many people think of you and how your opinions are perceived that's when your misery starts compounding. but like, easier said than done.

in the interest of not repeating myself too much it's on the record that in my opinion:
- fanfiction is inherently derivative (value neutral statement) and trying to divest someone's opinion on the source material from their fic kind of strips away the joy and spirit of creating derivative works in the first place
- it doesn't make sense to treat the distinction between fiction and reality as black and white especially when it comes to rpf. fantasies and fictionalized reality are very much a thing like. boys planet was real but it was also scripted. i feel like that's the kind of vibe that characterizing rpf has.

i ended up cutting this from my thoughts on ooc and aus that probably prompted you to send this but like, as i've said before i think that sincerity makes the largest impact when writing fic and like, i feel like writing comes the easiest to you if you are writing people the way you want to write them. that's kind of like vague and self-referential but like. people have different priorities and sometimes the follow-up question to "how do i want to write matthew?" is "do i think that matthew would do this?" and sometimes it isn't. like do i think that matthew would brutally murder people and cannibalize their hearts? no. but i want to write him doing that so that's what i'm doing rn lmfao. and sometimes the opposite is true. like do i think that gunwook would be willing to fulfill someone's masochistic fantasies? yes. but like, i'm not interested in writing that without caveats so i'm not going to.

but i think that the fact that zeroses are so into "canon compliant" idolverse compared to like, how au-heavy a lot of other kpop ficdoms are causes people to give more weight to their own and others interpretations of their real-life idol personas. and like we can sit here all day debating on how much is too much to care but like the fact of the matter is that people do care, and that's less of an opinion that simply the state of reality. and again we could sit here debating all day whether it's "right" for them to feel that way but like, different people just have different priorities. sometimes even internally between what they want to write and what they want to read and that's mutable and situational.

as far as getting over that mental block about writing "right" goes i feel like it loops back around to finding your audience of 3-5 sickos. like if your fic ends up resonating with people outside of yourself and your friends' folie a [insert appropriate french number] like great! and if it doesn't then like, it's not in their niche. like as much as fandom loves to equate dislike = bad = evil like someone not liking how you write someone doesn't mean that it's bad. and that includes me too and like that's why i don't want people to see me as some sort of gunwook arbiter like i am a born hater and me not liking something doesn't mean it's wrong and bad for others to like it it just means i don't like it and i don't want to see it lmfao it's not an indictment of character

and like as far as how serious is the right amount of serious to be like. again. that varies from person to person. sometimes the fun is in being serious. it's like being a farming sim spreadsheet warrior. i think it's fun to engage in all of this meta essay writing about writing and thinking about thinking. but like i know i also have a tendency to take things too seriously and make myself miserable like i take crack way too seriously and am committed to high quality gags to my own detriment. but like again. one man's fun is another man's misery.

idk like part of the reason why i'm so forthcoming about my personal preferences is because on my first month ever participating in any kpop or rpf community (so december 2023 lmfao) i had to deal w people telling me repeatedly that i clearly don't understand matthew (with the implication i don't like him either) because of how i like to write him (not an exclusive sub bottom omega) so like i prefer to make where i stand clear. like contents are as labeled. don't go to the soup store looking for clothes but if you want soup here it is. so like. i don't blame people for being hung up on characterization because not everyone has the mental fortitude to deal with people being rude in their replies and comments and inboxes because you're not in each other's heads. like i'm not in favor of homogenizing fanfic in order to reflect majority fanon characterization but like, once you post your fic it no longer exists in a vacuum. and that can be terrifying. and y'know we can move like gunwook and still do what we think we should do, what we want to do, even if our hands are shaking and our palms are sweating but like. we're all going to feel how we're going to feel.