Blarp blarp bleh whine

[extrapenguin]

I have a new apartment all lined up; now I only need to pack and move. Panic mode? Ye Zun encapsulates my mood perfectly.

Yuletide has been ... the fic I expected to do modestly at best overperformed, and I have an excellent recip comment on it. The rest are doing less well than I expected by a few comments. As usual, the Yulefic fate is fickle, though usually I've gotten a few more comments than this.

My gift is excellent, but no-one save me has commented on it. 2k of T-rated Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian, very good, excellently captures what I like about the dynamic. It definitely deserves more feedback! No spoilers past the "Poisons" (Sandu) arc, which has been translated some while ago.

I count by comments because the reason I publish fics on AO3 rather than just leave them to languish on my hard drive is that I want feedback and reader engagement. Kudos don't count – if the person liked the fic (and weren't one of those people who only kudoses stuff they hate), which bit did they like? Do they kudos everything they read? I want to hear about what they liked! "I liked it when X happened." or "I liked the way you did Y." aren't that hard to write, but apparently no-one wishes to think about fics, just go "aww cute" and never tell the author anything about their response? (Instead, they'll later find me on Discord and tell me they love all my work. It is hard to believe the praise when they have perhaps kudosed one of my works and commented on zero of them.) Bleh, I know lurkers exist, but coming into contact with them is apparently bad for me. I'd also accept the "brutal betaing" style of comments that are more popular in different fandom climates, but those aren't likely at all to appear in an AO3 inbox. (I should probably try to get back into The Goblin Emperor fandom, they're consistently at least okay about commenting.)

There was something else I wanted to whine about, I think, but perhaps the fact I've forgotten about it means I can spare you. On the topic of things other than whining, I will at some point do a post on how this year's crop of fics got their titles, probably separately to my 2018 in review post. I'm also suffering from my usual post-Yuletide drop, this time slightly earlier than usual and exacerbated by e.g. the moving thing. I'll mope for a bit and try to get some sleep now.

Comments

[isis]

Aw, I know the feeling - my amazing gift is the first for its fandom, and so far there's only one comment other than mine on it, and it deserves all the accolades!

I, too, love comments for the reader engagement. But I don't feel that kudos "don't count" - I take that as a valid "I liked this but don't have anything to say about it", and I am happy to see them on my stories. (But comments make me grin, and I always enjoy seeing what people liked in particular, and I love responding "oh, thank you, that was my favorite bit!)

[extrapenguin]

Mine isn't the first for the fandom or the ship, but it's a rarepair that breaks up the juggernaut, and the fandom is very OTP-centric. I suppose the best I can do is rec it everywhere.

To me, kudos are a lot like that cookie clicker game that was semi-popular a few years back – the numbers are going up!!!! Alas, the numbers going up doesn't excite me, unlike a lot of people; I always bored of the games when my number had only gone up to a few hundred, instead of the millions of billions my friends got to. It's the same with kudos – the first one excites, because someone liked it, and the rest could as well not exist for all the response they generate in me. (Hits likewise – someone clicked on it! etc.) Most (almost all) of the time, I can take kudos as "I liked this but don't have anything to say about it", but I want those comments, because I love it when people have something to say about my fics, and I want to tl;dr at them over how I liked crafting that bit/why I made that bit to be like that!

P.S. Wonderful icon! :D

[karanguni]

I feel you on the commenting; I think it's a bit down this year because of the awkward weekday timing of the 25th. Hope you feel better after some sleep!

[extrapenguin]

Sleep has fixed a bunch of my sadfeels, and also brought me a comment notif! ...on the story that is outperforming expectations wildly. People are clicking on it?!

Huh, I hadn't even considered the weekday timing! I suppose most people live in places that aren't almost completely closed from 24.12. to 2.1. ("between the years") so commenting should pick up slightly over the weekend. I'll be busy packing, though I might see if I can sneak in a few more comments on underappreciated works.

[the_cloud_whisperer]

I agree with you on the need for comments on fics - a kudos is nice, better than nothing, but it's very impersonal and requires no effort, whereas a comment does. A lot of people say, readers don't owe you comments! Well that's true, but conversely, writers write for free and don't owe readers any chapters. So we just go through this life of not owing anyone anything, and the reader-writer relationship becomes colder and colder.

That said, I sometimes leave only kudos on fics that just kind of made me go 'eh', just to acknowledge that I read it. I should try to comment more, even just a short, specific line. It's really discouraging for authors otherwise.

(Sorry if there's a specific etiquette to commenting on others' personal posts! I'm new to Dreamwidth and don't know what's what)

[extrapenguin]

Commenting on others' posts, personal or not, is always welcome – if I wanted this to be limited-access, I'd have access locked it!

Oh, there are fics where the only thing I have to say is the kudos button, if that, but I do try to give comments where I say "I liked X bit and how you did Y thing". It's not like I lose anything, y'know? I might even get more stuff that has X bit I liked! And yeah, a lot of readers seem to be under the impression that comments and reader engagement are unrelated to how eager the authors are to dabble in the fandom again.