so it's been a little less than three years since i wrote my last blog post on this site and over five years since i've joined. it feels like eternity though.

i gotta say, i'm a little surprised about how many people i used to talk to in 2011 are still here. i figured that when all the changes happened to aff that there had been a mass exodus of writers. not only that but i remember a flood of prepubescents taking over that definitely influenced the content on this site. (which, irony being that i was only a few years older than them at the time.) maybe most of them only left for a short amount of time to just come back later.

after i left, i joined another website. ao3 is super organized and has a great tagging system for navigating through the website. i tried ff.net and as quick as i joined, i left. did the same thing with livejournal. and not only did i go to a different website, i almost completely changed my topic of writing completely. my writing shifted to game of thrones (i haven't watched the most recent season; i can't believe it either) and merlin. i haven't even really touched kpop fanfics since i left. i barely even touch rpf at all since i left. something almost changed my taste for the genre.

for a reason unknown, however, i am thinking of coming back to write another project. i have so many drafts in my google docs varying from when i had been writing here to a couple weeks ago and i really want to finish some of them. some people are still reading my tips, which is crazy. i wrote that thing when i was 13 and it's mind boggling to think people are still reading it with value. my subscriber count is about the same as when i left, too. on top of that, i logged in with friend requests as well. i don't know how old they [the requests] were but i accepted them all regardless. knowing how people talk so frequently on this site does make me want to come back a little bit.

so. a lot has happened since i've left. both speaking about myself and just how this website is now. i am really contemplating coming back to write a few more things but i'm not sure. i remember i left because writing stories became a lot about making posters (and for some, advertising) and i was really never about that. it's the biggest reason why i like ao3 so much. it's so simplistic. content on the story is what a website for fanfiction is all about. there're no banners or in depth character descriptions before you start reading. no fancy colors or crazy (pretty) layouts. it's all about the story itself. upvoting isn't a thing and there's no ranking among writers. no fanfics are featured.

point being: it makes the quality of writing much better because the writing is the only focus. there's been so many ad-ons here. that fanficoverflow never became bigger, will always make me a tad sad. i remember easily getting two features simply because not a lot people joined and i was the lucky one who happened to have upvotes. the website was built on the same group of people but never caught on. the stories felt much more thought out. not the typical 'a clumsy girl who is nothing but at the same time has everything any girl would want' meets 'cold boy who can't be fixed somehow is steered in the right direction' type setup. and it comes in a thousand forms if you don't know what i'm talking about.

not only that, but ao3 also takes out the element of competition. adding a ranking system implies that there's a competition of sorts when all an author really wants to do is get their writing out there and allow people to enjoy reading it as much as they enjoyed writing it. but i feel like the ranking system kind of allowed this pattern of authors being led - whether they really saw this or not - to write what would be massively popular. whether that would be the group they would choose or the general plotline.  i remember trying to write for the bands that were big because they were big and people wanted to read more about them and not so much because i wanted to.

maybe it was because i was, like, 12 at the time? maybe not. some people follow a pattern, some don't. it's not easy to see them all.

that being said, i do miss the community that had been built back in the early aff days. it's really my only reason for considering coming back. as i write this, i do see how i did put down aff a little bit. but. but this was the place where i first began to write seriously. the old quizilla days were just bad memories of *you* fics and extremely awkward first persons and not to mention all the notifications i got for writing lemons when lemons were a thing among fandoms. starting over on another website, i discovered all over again (i was strangely popular on quizilla because those were the days [early 2010] when fanfiction was growing as a likable trend) how hard it is to build up a reputation as a reputable author among a consistent group of readers.

and now is the point where i just really lost all train of thought where i was going with things. lost in the nostalgia i really don't know what else will really fit in this blog. so much has happened in the past years and i applaud you who have stuck with this website for all these years - much longer than i have.

perhaps i'll be speaking to you all again.