I-am-iela - Laugh Hard At The Absurdity Of Evil

10 reasons to wear low kudos counts as a badge of honor

You wrote a trope that isn’t popular in fandom right now and isn’t high on search lists—you’re expanding fresh content

You wrote an out-of-the-box characterization 

You’re learning to be proud of your work without external validation, which is a hard process and every little time you do it improves you

You didn’t write smut and a lot of readers only click on fics with smut, while other readers are grateful for new G&T-rated fic

You did write smut, a specific kink many people avoid, but other readers are thrilled to find it

You tackled a difficult topic that might trigger readers and your warning tags rightfully reduce your readership but don’t diminish the importance of the work

You wrote gen fic or wlw or a rare pair and are boosting content in underserved areas

You wrote a longfic that takes readers longer to consume, which is an awesome accomplishment regardless

You had a story in you that needed to come out, and you put it into the world

Even if the story was awful, which it probably wasn’t, you took the risk of doing it anyway, which is how you get better every time you write, and that commitment and grit is 90% of the battle

Kudos are not a measure of merit, which can be hard to remember. Kudos are affected by a million factors, only some of which involve merit. Kudos trickle in over time. Kudos are affected by fandom trends, and how many followers you have. Kudos are affected by who reblogs or recs your fic, which is pretty random itself. There’s no end to the factors that go into it.

Want thousands of kudos? Go to high-traffic fandoms, pick the most popular ship, find the most popular tropes, and write a good fic in that trope. Put in the work of making friends with big names and hope they reblog your stuff. Turn fandom into a transactional experience if that’s what you want. But is that following your muse? Is that what will make you happy? Maybe; if so you’re lucky. But if not, realize that choosing to follow your muse even though it takes you elsewhere is an incredible thing, and the lower kudos counts that result are not evidence of lack of quality or reader hatred. 

Almost all of my fics have fewer than 300 kudos. A handful of longer ones have more, and my top kudosed fic is a silly short coauthored 8th year that is not at all what I’d consider my best fic. My longest fic (105k, took me two months of full-time writing) has only 200 kudos. I’m still super proud of it and feel like it had a great reception and amazing comments. I have a bunch of shorter fics with under 100 kudos.

I think there’s a misunderstanding that it’s expected to get a high kudos count, and in my experience that’s just not true, so I don’t really understand why we talk about it that way. Let’s change the conversation, and focus instead on our pride in our writing and our love for other fics, and move away from using kudos counts as a proxy for worth. You’ll never feel satisfied if you’re turning to ao3 stats for your self-validation.

“what if things go wrong?” sweetheart, what if things go right? what if you learn and grow and experience beyond anything you ever thought possible? try not to listen to the scenarios in your head. things will be better than your brain is making you think. i promise.

The Middle

I wrote and illustrated this story as a birthday present for my partner, I hope you enjoy it!

physically stopping in my tracks in the middle of my midday walk because i took two hits, saw a flower and realized that gods cant love the way humans can because love is about survival

Valarie Kaur, Sikh activist, civil rights attorney, and author