Why hello again everyone, I almost posted consistently. It has been a rather interesting week in my life, featuring some fencing, viciously hateful spam comments, discovering a game that hacked my brain, depression, and less writing than I intended. We’re going to talk more about all of that in a second here, I just wanna say one thing before I do. Summer is really kicking my ass. I’ve always disliked the season for being too hot, but my new place has a skylight, and in my infinite wisdom I decided to move my bed right underneath it in the winter. Big mistake. Because of all that sleeping is a bit hard lately, but I’m managing as well as I can. It’s been a drag on my mental health though.
Hate Comments
I’m hoping here is a safe enough space to talk openly about this, but I might just accidentally summon the misguided individual here by doing so. Regardless, let’s chat a bit about hate comments. I’ve never been very involved in fandom before The Owl House. For most of my life I was a silent observer, a virtual wanderer, drifting from one interest to the next without any awareness that there were fans wholly dedicated to what they love. That changed with the Owl House, a show that I connected with on a personal level. I felt seen by Luz and Amity’s struggles, Luz and I have similar school experiences, similar experiences with romance, and with people not quite getting us. Amity? Well she’s expected to have perfect grades, and for the entirety of grade school my parents were obsessed with me getting good grades. If I got a 98, my parents would ask where the other 2% went.
Plus, it’s just such a cool show. It’s such a cool world, with lots of cool creatures and cool lore and lovable characters and good writing. So naturally, I wanted more stories featuring this world and characters, so I started looking. I found AO3, read some amazing and inspiring stuff, found some of the smut lacking in certain aspects, thought I could do it better, and the rest is history.
It actually took a surprisingly long time for me to start getting real hate for my work. The first major incident occurred when I was publishing All For Fun, the sequel to one of my breakout hits Just a Little Fun. Someone REALLLLLY hated the Blight Twins, to the point that if they were included at all this person would get extremely angry. It was really surprising, and it was my first encounter with the usage of sock puppets, for those who don’t know a soft puppet is a throwaway account made for one person to pretend to be someone else. They’re often used in harassment to avoid any accountability.
Naturally, when I started getting these comments I took it in stride, I joked about it with my creative peers. Turns out the hater WAS one of my peers, and I had accidentally launched her into an extended harassment campaign involving getting my first Twitter taken down, my second Twitter taken down, my third Twitter taken down, and my first website taken down too. Probably my Patreon too, but that’s up in the air to be honest. It hurt a lot, to have someone I considered a friend turn on me like that. To have them and their friends try very bitterly to get me banished from all spaces, to call me everything from a sex cult leader to a criminal who belongs in jail, and all that fun sort of stuff.
Eventually that person and their clique’s obsessive vitriolic ranting (they may in fact still be at it to this day, I don’t know) got them kicked out of most spaces, and the harassment directed at me and my friends died down. That was pretty nice actually, though it wasn’t long after that incident that I switched guest comments off on my AO3 posts, because I got more hate comments from people who REALLLLLY didn’t like what I was writing.
Couple of months ago though, somebody new started a crusade. I’m not the only creator they’re harassing by any stretch of the imagination, but the ramblings are both amusing and alarming. I’ve never had anyone so directly threaten my life before, not online at least and it was a little eerie. This person clearly is not a very good writer, because the rants are near incoherent, but that’s nothing new for hate comments. What is new is that they’ve taken to spamming my commission form on this very website, every couple of days to a week I get a new rant from them.
Here’s a sample of the latest rant, fresh off the presses last night:
Just another day of writin’ fanfiction. I’ve talked about it before, but I’m on my own personal sexuality journey, figuring out what my sexuality really is has been fun and I’ve been exploring that further through fanfiction. It’s always been a big part of my work, trying to make different groups of people and different individuals feel seen the same way I felt seen by The Owl House. I’ve had people DM me, I’ve had people comment, and more confirming that’s how they felt. My goal is the same as any artist, to invoke a reaction, to make you feel an emotion of some kind. So in a weird way, the fact that I’m getting consistent hatred from this person is a success, however bitter a success it is.
It shocks me to this day that people are seemingly incapable of following the golden rule of fandom. And typically it’s a good strategy to have for your entire life, your whole entire life, and that’s Don’t Like, Don’t Interact. It is exceedingly easy to hide a post or scroll past a link, and the fact this person FIXATES on mine and other’s works because it doesn’t focus on the ship that they like is — it’s difficult to put in words, almost fascinating? It’s almost morbidly fascinating in the sort of macabre that prevents you from looking away during a train wreck. What exactly has to be going on in your life and in your mind to drive you to this level of obsession over a bunch of random internet people you’ve never met creating art that you don’t like?
Can’t be anything good. That’s for sure.
The Cost
The thing is, I almost wonder if a lot of the authors this person mentions frequently in their rants have quit because of harassment like this. I’ve known a lot of writers who gave up, who packed up and left for a myriad of reasons, and some who just disappeared forever without a trace. I know an author who took a nearly year-long break from a really excellent piece of writing because of the hatred she got for, and I quote, “Doing trans ppl wrong” despite her consulting with many trans people to make sure she got it right. Which is way more work than most people do. All I can say about it is that it’s a damn shame, because a lot of really talented creators quit because of a couple of loud assholes on the internet. I think about all of the amazing works they would have made, all the lives they could have touched, all of the new writers they could have inspired to create even more wondrous works of fiction all gone. Because some fucker couldn’t just scroll past and carry on with their day. Because the block button is sacrilege, and calling people pigs and threatening them with death is somehow a noble pursuit.
Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, if this particular hater is reading the post, this is directed at you: Hi, I’m sorry your life is not going well. I just want you to know that I am not going to stop writing no matter what kind of vitriol you spit my way. People way worse than you have tried and it’s not going to work. In fact, the more hate you send my way, the more motivated I am to continue.
No amount of online bullying, no amount of threats to shoot me in the head, no amount of ranting and rambling about how I’m the worst scum on Earth is ever going to stop me from writing. Because I’m good at it, because I enjoy it. Because it’s what I really want to do with my life. I’ve always told stories, now I’m just sharing them with people.
Do yourself a favor, if you see someone post something you don’t like, just ignore it. It’s going to be better for you, it’s going to be better for everyone else, and you aren’t going to give me and my peers anymore ammo to have a chuckle at. We are allowed to write whatever we please, even if it’s a ship you hate. Just do something else with your day, ANYTHING else. All this harassing isn’t worth it.
Burnout Blues
So this was supposed to be the main thing I was going to blog about today, until more hate comments came in of course. So if you’ll indulge me to talk about two separate things in one post, let’s begin. I’ve been feeling incomprehensibly tired lately, and while part of that has to do with my personal life, another part of it has to do with my professional life. I’m so ecstatic that I have as many subscribers on substar as I do, especially since it doesn’t have nearly the same grab or reach as patreon. You all keep me going, along with fans and positive comments on my works. It’s been nearly 3 years since I started writing fanfiction, and for the last half a year I’ve been posting a chapter a week. It’s a lot, a lot a lot. That’s a lot of sub-star commissions, on top of regular commissions, on top of my lofty ambitions for my own work, both fanfic and the novel. I’m afraid I have stretched myself a little too thin, and I’m once again facing burnout.
To my endless chagrin, I might add.
It’s important to pace yourself, and it’s important to prioritize. I only have so much juice, so much fuel in the tank so to speak, and I’ve ended up spending it so soon that I have nothing left for my personal goals. There’s a lot on my plate, or perhaps I have a lot of spinning plates with a lot on them to balance. I have personal health goals, I have personal social goals, I have my professional goals, and I want to deliver excellent quality products to those who commission me. I’ve run empty, the last week has been really hard in the motivation department. I bought factorio like 4 days ago and I’ve already got 15 hours in it, which is a substantial amount of gaming for me. To the point that my wrists are really sore, thank you repetitive strain injury.
So, I’m taking a break from commissions. After this last one I’m working on they’re going to be closed for the entirety of July. I’m going to take that time to rest, to write my own stuff, and to finally finish this goddamn novel. I want to finish polishing it by the end of July. If it’s ready, then I’m sending it out into the world. I have no idea what will happen after that, but rest assured that I’m going to be writing fanfiction forever. Ya girl Elfie isn’t going anywhere.
It’s important to rest, make sure you do so today, even for a few minutes. No phones, no tiktok, no distractions, just you and relaxation. A few easy breaths at the very least. It’ll help you in the long run. With all that said, I am going to make breakfast, and then write bisexual Amity. Have a good one! See you all next week.
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