Hi Nonnie! First of all, no need to apologize for venting. I get it, I truly do. It's something I think a lot of us writers deal with and feel.

"Write for yourself" feels like such an empty platitude at times. Like yes, you should write whatever you want to, I understand and fully endorse that. You shouldn't let other people influence what you do or do not create. However, the reason why we bother to edit, post, and share is for other people and we want our hard work to be acknowledged, want something in return for hours, days, weeks, months spent creating. It's true in all aspects of life really. You study hard and work all night on that paper so you can get a good grade. I spent five-six hours a day making sandwiches for people and it's nice when they give an actual "thank you". You mow your parent's lawn and you wanna be told "wow, looks great!" It's just human nature to want that sort of response.

This fandom really is awful for not supporting creators and I get it to some degree with all the witch-hunts and people going after shippers. Hell just today I woke up to some call out thread featuring a few moots being accused of the heinous crime of being into rpf/s. So a lot of folks are more private about it, have locked accounts, read those fics incognito so it's not in their AO3 history, hide posts in their bookmarks. They don't want anyone to know they're a "freak". But it does still hurt and get frustrating on the creator side of things, esp when so many of us have things like Retrospring or CCat or any other anonymous questions app where we can get that feedback and those comments. One would like to think or even hope that bc of such hate and attacks from anti-shippers, those who do love it would double-down in their support, help us all come together as a community but sometimes that feels like asking too much.

You aren't the only one struggling with finding that motivation and considering leaving. It does feel like putting in a lot of hard work for nothing. It's something I constantly struggle with too, whether I wanna bother pushing through fatigue after work to write or not. It's one reason why the latest Strangers update is taking so long, bc I wonder if it's worth working on it if I feel like no one cares. And that's the impression we get with no feedback: no one cares. And if that's the case, then why should we care.

I can't tell you to keep writing, it's ultimately a decision you have to make on your own, but just know you aren't the only one feeling that way 💙