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icypantherwrites · 2 years

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Announcement: IcyPanther is Quitting Fanfiction

I had planned to make this announcement a little later, but with some current things ongoing I figured I may as well do it now.

As the title says, I am officially quitting fanfiction (and writing). I made this announcement to my Patreon back in January and they very kindly kept it internal as requested. There's a bit of a process to this, but following filling commissions slots this month on my Patreon I will no longer be writing any new fanfictions, save for those Patreon supporters who monthly get custom content written for them based on their tiers.

I'll be writing those smaller custom fics through "Phase 2" of my quitting of fanfiction, which will be ongoing until the Patreon exclusive Mer!Lance fic titled Bottled Ocean finishes publishing (it will first publish in April 2022 and while not yet completed should be wrapping up ~October 2022, possibly a month or two longer) and then I will officially be done with writing.

I still obviously have a lot to publish as I've got over 350,000 words of written content in my Google drive (and more still to come as I have some commissions I still have to write), so for as long as my mental health permits I'll be posting it on AO3 and also on my Patreon, which will be transitioning to a full early release model. Just as an FYI, at the very end of Phase 2 I will be locking my Patreon so anyone new joining will not have access to my over three years worth of Patreon exclusive content unless they pay for one particular tier with a pricetag to match what they'd gain access to. Two new tiers will be created to offer financial support and be granted the bonus of early release content, but my Patreon archive will essentially be locked save for that one access tier.

I doubt very many people are even going to see this announcement given recent Tumblr reach and of those very few are going to care. But I've always striven for transparency and given that I've been in this VLD fandom for just about 4 years now wanted to give a heads up. To be honest, most of you won't even realize anything has changed as I'll still be updating, possibly with even more frequency to award early release bonuses on the Patreon, until I stop and even then, given how my hiatuses these past couple years have gone unnoticed, probably not notice even when those updates cease.

I had a lot of fun and I'll always be grateful for what the return for writing and this fandom's enthusiasm and engagement meant to me. It brought me out of a dark place and kept me here. But, unfortunately, what was once stars has become a black hole and it is sucking the life right back out of me again. I've struggled so hard to make it work, but I have to finally do what's best for me and that is quitting writing and leaving this fandom as there's no future for me in writing and I can't keep wishing on stars for one.

Again, y'all won't really notice anything different for a long while if you're just active on my AO3 and if you're on my Patreon you've already been briefed on how the changes will be coming down the pipeline. I'll do my best to make it as smooth as possible.

Take care,

Icy

Just to keep a record, below is the post I made on AO3 on Absent, of which I am deleting today as I don't like having an author's note as a chapter. I just wanted to add here too.

Quitting fanfiction announcement posted on AO3

Hello everyone,

I have an announcement to make and I've been trying to figure out the best way to post it to my AO3 audience (this went up on my Tumblr and Instagram last week) and given how Absent's final chapter went I figured this was as good a place as any. Please note: this author's note will be deleted on 3-9-22 as I do not believe in having full chapter author's notes and it is not related (entirely) to Absent. So while you can leave a comment here, please know it will be deleted when the chapter is removed.

My announcement is thus: I have made the decision to quit writing fanfiction.

It was not an easy decision, but it has been one a long time in the making and the writing has been on the wall for years and practically graffitied on the past several months. I will always be grateful to the Voltron fandom for restoring my love of writing and pulling me from a very dark place back in 2017 as getting to share my works and hear from everyone in the comments was such a light in my life. Unfortunately, that engagement is just not there anymore and it's made it really difficult for me to continue to post. Posting used to give me a boost, now it drains me. I have to spend days, sometimes weeks, summoning up the energy to post an update or a new story and then when people don't show up it hurts. I spend a lot of time, pour a lot of heart and soul, into my works and as anyone who has ever spent a lot of time on something for it not to be appreciated the way you hoped it really, really sucks. I've tried so many ways to keep going: taking hiatuses (planned and unplanned), posting on a schedule, posting not on a schedule, hosting events and games, giving how-to guides on how to comment, telling myself not to ask for any engagement at all and leave it blank... but it has come to the point where the only solution I see to help my mental health is to quit writing. And so that is what I am needing to do.

I understand that Voltron especially is a dying fandom and I have come to terms that things will never be what they once were back in its heyday. I get that. There are less people reading in my niche -- whump and gen content -- and that's okay. It stinks, but it's understandable. But what isn't and what really hurts is when I see so many hits and subscriptions and kudos on my works but those people do not engage. Take Absent here for example. It has over 700 kudos which means 700 individual people clicked this story and liked it enough to keep reading. It had over 180 subscriptions (down a bit since the story finished on Saturday) which means that's at minimum 180 people who were getting alerts for this story in particular not to mention the over 1,500 people on my author subscriptions, of which I'd like to hope maybe half of those are active. This story has over 170 bookmarks (about half of those are private) which means over 170 people loved this story enough to save it to go back to. But what it doesn't have? Engagement. The last chapter I posted got just over 20 people popping in. When I just listed that easily over 700 persons had at one point been reading this. Where did those people go? Did they hate the ending? Does my writing suck that much? I've had a lot of doubts to that latter as the engagement has dwindled, as I'm told how much people loved my stories like Sin and Color and Hope but no one ever shares a story written in the last year, let alone two or three. Obviously in Color and Sin's cases they are longer stories, but length should not necessarily mean quality. It just makes me feel crappy about my works that I used to take such pride in.

I try not to make a big deal out of this, but I have depression and it has been getting worse and worse. It's actually why I avoid writing stories with that theme as they hit a little too close to home, but I took a chance with Absent and seeing the earlier support it got was personally so healing. Which then made it even harder when the last couple chapters, which were my favorites as we got to finally see the healing and support and open communication, didn't have a lot of people showing up, especially the last chapter. Back in the day the final chapter of a story was where everyone showed up. Not anymore. And that is one thing I am really, really struggling with.

What I've never understood is why engagement is so difficult. I was raised to always say thank you, to show appreciation for even small things. It doesn't have to be a long comment, doesn't have to be a book excerpt. It's just nice to know that people are here. It's nice to see them. To know that my time and effort and hopefully a little talent was enjoyed and appreciated. 95% of readers tend to leave a comment immediately after reading if they are going to leave one, but there's nothing that says you can't come back later if you don't have time then. But if you made the time to read I struggle to understand how there is no time left to engage, even with a few words or a sentence.

I'm not trying to make this just about comment engagement. I'm going through a lot of personal stuff too but where fanfiction always made me feel better and it was my light in the dark, it has become a blackhole to me and just sucks out what energy I have. I've really tried to keep writing and posting and sharing my work because I know in the past it has resonated with people. I know it's helped. I know it can be an escape.

But it's not mine anymore.

I am going to continue posting the works I have already written (over 350,000 words saved in my Google Drive) for as long as I can because I do want people to be able to read and enjoy those works that I put so much love into. I'll hopefully, if I'm able, be posting well into 2023 just given the sheer build up of stories, but I cannot promise anything. My hope is just if you do pop in, if you do read something, please, engage. Leave a comment (if you were reading Absent feel free to go back to the final chapter and give the story a little love). Share a thought. Be a light, a star, in my life. Help build others up rather than tear them down, of which if the only thing you have to say to this post is unwanted criticism of myself please, keep it to yourself. I am really struggling mentally right now and I do not need negativity in my life.

Thank you for your kindness. Thank you for reading this wall of text. I hope to see you around AO3, perhaps my other platforms. Stay safe, stay well, and take care ♥

Icy

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