I see people complain about not enough content for their ships, but when you look in the ao3 tag, half the fics have no comments. I’m just like, how long are authors gonna feed you for free before they start looking into fandoms that actually give feedback and encouragement?

People are responding to this saying they stopped writing completely and that makes me so sad. I hope you can find an encouraging community to write with - writing is such a solitary pursuit but finding other writers to share work with has helped me a lot.

For years (lol decades) my only fandom interaction was leaving and receiving comments on fic, and the discussions generated by those comments. I don't think people realize how much writers value comments, and how comments connect writers to their fandoms.

And yes, everyone is writing for themselves first, but do I see a lot of this attitude:

What they (non-writers) say: writers should write for themselves.

What they mean: don't expect any feedback, but write, edit, format, and post your work online where I can read it for free.

Also, comments are appreciated, but saying you won't comment if the author doesn't respond makes this weirdly transactional. The author already gave you a whole fic for free. It's like you want a thank you note for your thank you note? (You'll usually get one though!)