Why Is It I Do This Again?

To make a long story short, I write Final Fantasy VIII fanfiction. In fact, I have a fic that just had it's two-year anniversary on the 25th that I'm still writing chapters for (what can I say, I'm very long-winded, haha). Another fact is that writing is almost like a part time job with no pay. It's kind of like volunteering, really. You work for no money but you feel good about yourself when people randomly stop by just to say, 'Hey, you're doing a nice job. I appreciate what you're doing. Thanks.' Unfortunately, I am human so I'll admit that it's the only good part about this unpaid job (that and the fact that my analogies suck, but hear me out now).

To make another story short, on the 24th, I updated with a 4,000+ word chapter that was kind of fluffy. It was well received but I only three reviews for it. Granted, I might have slit my own throat because I somehow managed to miraculously update when the site's login/uploading section was down (so a lot of people couldn't review because they couldn't login) but still. I got three fucking reviews when the chapter had 158 views. Now think about it, that's a single review for 50 page views. I find something terribly offensive with that ratio.

Anyway, after that chapter, I honestly didn't know what to write and I felt like I was lacking some kind of direction. I've been feeling like this with this fic for a little while now. I didn't feel like I could really go forward and acheive anything I had set out to happen because more often than not, I think of better things on the fly though it screws up long term plans I make.

So, because of that I get the idea that maybe applying the song meme to a bigger picture might help get me thinking of something (because people would have my head if I literally made this a song meme resulting in 100-ish words), anything to feel inspired again. With what I thought was good luck, I got Our Lady Peace's Right Behind You. I felt lucky to have gotten a decent song that could easily fit in without cheating with the shuffle 'cause honestly, I kept on expecting an unusable Metallica song to pop up.

Oh-ho no... It ended up being a shit-fest from there on in and for the first time ever, I was receiving negative/WTF reviews. I got 8 reviews, but that meant fuck all when people were making me feel like shit.

Oops, did I forget to explain? Yeah, I did.

So yeah, the reason behind this was I seemed to have had the strangest idea to make it look like I'd killed off Rinoa's parents in the game when Rinoa was on the road to recovery from some other problems. It's a fucking shame though, because it was exactly the kind of thing that I needed to get where I needed to be for what I'd planned and for once I felt excited to write something. I'm not a heartless person, so I made sure I thought this doozy of a left turn through just like I had with some other plot bunnies I'd done in the past.

Anyway, here's a sampling of the kind of shit I had gotten for this:

huh? Well that was completely out of left field. Where the hell did that idea come from? She's an orphan now? Not sure I'm liking where this is going all that much... I hope there's a good reason for killing them off. I... don't really know what to say about this chapter. It's fairly short and... yeah, I don't really know what to say.

i don't know what to say. is that an official chapter to the story? anyway please update soon.

(Spread the word, pray for the soul of Amiel, 10 years old, who died literally flattened by two vans on his way to buy a hotdog from the school cafeteria. Correct the name spelling if you know any better) Wow...I hate it. I mean, if you've read the note above you'll see why. I really, really thought reading your latest chapter would cheer me up from the horrible death of a stranger who had a whole life ahead of him but no... it turns out to be tragic, too. I mean don't get me wrong, I can't wait for the next chapter; total cliffhanger you gave me, really good one, too. But it's just one of those things where it's totally not the one you were looking for. *sniffles* Keep up the good work.

To be honest, I don't know what to say about this chapter except I'll wait and see what you do with it. I trust you enough to keep reading and see where this goes. If this really happened and isn't a dream, then I'm worried Rin will stop eating again and relapse. But hopefully, with Squall there, things will be fine. It's just... with everything else that's happened to her, I don't see how she can bounce back from this. (As for your experiment thing, I kinda hope you don't it. I know it didn't really work this time, but I'd like the story to flow naturally and not be forced to fit whatever song happens to get picked.)

So yeah, I know that some of these sound like they're backhanded compliments but honestly, it was the little things I was picking out from them that really hurt. Like there were two people (one of them I didn't put here) who pasted that message about a kid getting run over by a truck (even though they had different names). Most of the people were probably hoping that this was just a dream, and one even had the audacity of thinking that I was just doing this trying to fit the OLP song. Needless to say, until a friend gave me some hope with her review trying to make sense of the others, I'd honestly felt like I'd fucked up big time and jumped the shark.

She basically gave me the courage to say something back in my author's notes when I managed to update another chapter within the same day (that's a really rare feat to be honest with you). I know it was a wall of text, but felt like a necessary wall of text.

So as of now, I have three reviews and the same person who accused me of trying to fit the OLP song isn't going to review anymore though he/she said they'd still follow. Yeah...isn't everyone doing just that?

I bet you any money that my review to view ratio is going to get even more skewered. I'll probably only get the two reviews from people who never say anything more than 'plz update soon.'

Fuck, is this some kind of double standard where I can't make some kind of interesting plot twist but others can?

I think I need to start drinking.

You haven't seen the world outside for days,
You sleep, you hope, you wait,
Imagination disappears,
And all the dreams you have, you save,
Confrontation like a mirror,
They try to take your mind away.