#a stat which could be found more easily & less cruelly by simply hitting the sort by bookmarks/kudos button on ao3

[thevioletcaptain]

if you as a fic reader ever become possessed by the urge to do a popularity bracket with the fics other people wrote and shared for fun and for free, consider:

don't ❤️ 

#just!!!! make a rec list!!!!!!!!! #popularity contests do nothing but drive writers out of fandoms by pitting people against their friends #and invariably result in people being assholes in the comments as if the people who wrote the fic can't see it #like ''oh clearly fic x is better than fic y'' #or ''why is fic c even in this poll?'' #nobody gains anything by you doing a bracket to see which fic is the ''most popular'' #a stat which could be found more easily & less cruelly by simply hitting the sort by bookmarks/kudos button on ao3 #anyway ugh. i saw that one of my fics was being pitted against one of my friend's fics in this bracket that's going around #and i have no idea who is ''winning'' because i refuse to look. but either way it's gonna feel bad!!! #because i want my friend to get his flowers so i want him to win!!! but i also would like to know that people like my fic!!!! #so it's just a lose/lose situation even though i generally don't give a shit about numbers #but this turns it into a schoolyard popularity thing #and the emotional response to having people *vote* on if your work is *better or worse* than other fic is hard to ignore #cannot reiterate enough JUST MAKE A REC LIST #or if you absolutely must do a bracket like this do it in a private chat server or something #don't create a public forum for people to pass value judgements where the authors can see it #and feel bad if they get told their fic is ''worse'' than someone elses #but also feel bad if they get told theirs is ''better'' because it came at the cost of telling another author they weren't good enough #ANYWAY i still feel sick with a super sore throat and a headache & am probably extra cranky because of it #(still testing negative thankfully so it's probably just weather/allergen related) #gonna go make some tea and prep the fic updates i want to post today #cass says things #fandom problems #wank adjacent