, ?

𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏, 𝑮𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒆𝒑?

WIP for the ending scene of "Chapter 3: This it is and nothing more" from my COD ff "Firebird"!

Will Price ever get used to being called by his full name?

"𝘐𝘵 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴. 𝘑𝘶𝘮𝘱𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦."

"𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘮. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯'𝘵."

(Firebird, Chapter 6)

The quality became quite bad due to the troubles I had saving the video and I might repost it, once I get it to work like I want it to, but for now I am quite proud of this. It's my first edit of this kind.

The drawing was inspired by the audio I used (which I first saw/heard on tiktok).

In the top right corner you can see my first design of Laswell‘s canon wife, whom I gave the name Rosaline.

Inspired by this edit

THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES ( Roku, 2024 ) Episode GIF-set - Mulgarath/Dorian Brauer (Christian Slater)

Finally! I've finished the artwork for the end of Chapter 3: This it is and nothing more of my fanfiction "Firebird" on AO3!

I should be working on the next chapter soon after this unplanned hiatus.

as the crazy person with over 3,000 fics on AO3, who just hit over 2,000,000 hits, i have done... The Math

roughly 5% of readers leave kudos.

0.27% of people leave a comment.

truly, i GET that a lot of people, especially younger people who grew up on youtube and are living on tiktok, see "opening the page and viewing with their eyeballs" engagement in itself. but a) it's not, for fanfiction, that's not how it works; and b) "engagement" does not build a community -- interaction builds a community.

if you like someone's fanfiction, and you want more of that fanfiction, please react to it in some tangible way. leave a kudo. leave a comment. let the writer know that you didn't open it, see the first sentence, and decide it was garbage. let the writer know that you aren't a bot that trawls every webpage for AI content. let the writer know that their work is appreciated.

the point of fandom is to be a community, not a content engine. if people stop feeling like people are being reached with their work, they stop creating work for that fandom and move onto the next. there's a lot to be said for the way binge-model TV is killing fandoms prematurely... but there's a LOT to be said for the way infinite-scrolling consumption is killing fandoms prematurely.

if everyone binges a show on friday and feels weird about reacting to fics posted longer than a week ago/doesn't react to the fics they read at all, that fandom is dying out in about a month, max. even though there are probably a lot of people who would love to discuss it with someone or create more work or finish and post a WIP or whatever. because no actual community is created by consumption alone.

reading a fic is only step one.

reacting to a fic is the crucial step two of the equation.

step three is the fandom proliferating! and you getting more stuff to enjoy!