S.E. Hinton, author of The Outsiders (This tweet of hers has since been deleted otherwise I’d link it.)

My first thought was, clearly this woman has never participated in a big bang before. But it honestly goes so much deeper than that…

You know, I’m always proudest to call myself a fan fic writer when someone, especially someone like S.E., bashes on it. It’s like I’m harboring this little secret about what I actually do when I write fan fiction versus what they’re accusing me of. And while people who put us down about writing fan fic are trying to make us look like idiots, if you ask me, they’re the ones who end up looking stupid. It’s always apparent when someone who gives you crap for writing fan fic has no idea what they’re talking about other than what they’ve heard. They have no idea the amount of passion, dedication, or heart that goes into fan fiction. They have no idea how supportive (for the most part…) the community is. They don’t know the fear of putting oneself “out there” when sharing their work, or what it feels like to have someone admire your work even though you’re not a published author. They might never know what it feels like to have something that brings them so much joy laughed at, or mocked, or disregarded because it’s different. They cannot understand. 

Yes, S.E. is a published author, she wrote her first novel as a teenager, and the book is still well known today. She knows about these grueling deadlines, and formats, and inputs she speaks of. But what she seems to be missing about us measly fan fic writers? So. Do. We.

The thing is, countless fan fic writers are writing because it’s an escape, because it’s something we’re passionate about, because it’s a way for our voices to be heard; a lot of us will stop at nothing to be able to write even just a little bit every single day. So many of us are full time students, parents, holding full time jobs, often times doing any combination of the three and so much more. Dead lines? Yeah. I have them. I get to write when the kiddos go down for a nap. Two hours. If I don’t get out what I have to say in those two hours the opportunity is gone unless I want to sacrifice something else (like sleep, for example). Many others are squeezing in words on their lunch breaks or in between classes, staying up late to get something put on a page because they worked all day or haven’t had time otherwise. Sure it’s not a “real” deadline. No publisher or editor is hanging a contract over our heads, threatening our jobs. But you know what comes with that publisher? What comes with that editor and that deadline? A paycheck. Compensation for the time you’ve spent writing. A paycheck just like you’d receive at any other job. So yeah, we may not have “real” deadlines, according to published authors such as the acclaimed S. E. Hinton, but that’s because no one’s forking over cash in exchange for a word count by Monday. We’re writing because we love it. Because we want to share a piece of ourselves whether it comes with money attached or not. We’re writing because we care about something so much, it spills out of our hearts and onto the page in the form of high school AU’s, and slow burns.

We may not understand deadlines according to the “real writing world”, but we sure as hell understand doing what we can when we can because otherwise we won’t get the chance. That does not lessen our skill in any way, shape, or form.

But input, oh. We don’t understand input. …Except for you know what comes along with all that fan fiction we’re not being paid to write? Input. In every single form imaginable. Kudos, and comments, and reblogs, and likes. That is our input. Reviews, recommendations, criticism most of us don’t ask for, thrown at us on our AO3 accounts and our tumblrs, our fanfiction.net accounts, our livejournals, and our wattpads — places most of us go to for solace. Whether we want to see said input or not, it’s there, glaringly apparent. And a lot of times it’s great input! A positive comment on one of my fics can make my day. But sometimes, just like input any published writer may receive, it is not kind. Often times it’s harsh, degrading, discouraging. And we don’t have editors, or assistants, or publishers to keep us going. We don’t have the buffer of “well I’m getting paid to do this so it doesn’t matter whether they like my work or not.” All we have is each other, and our own strength, strength a lot of us have garnered from both tough life experiences and you guessed it, being a lowly, silly fan fic writer.

So you know what? Go ahead. You keep on giving your [shitty, unwelcomed] input on what you think about me writing fan fiction and what I could or could not ever understand because I’m not like you. I’ll be over here doing something I love, something I often times have to fight to be able to do, and I’ll keep doing it because nothing you or anyone else could ever say will make me feel like what I’m doing doesn’t matter. Because it does. And that is something you could never understand.

(via nestingdean)

Also, fanfic is a collective noun, S.E. you fucking hack.

(via taraljc)

If I see another fucking show where a bisexual girl is labeled “confused” because she has only dated men in the past, and finally finds a girl to date, I’m going to fucking scream.

#likewise #if i see another show where a bisexual woman was,'experimenting' or 'going through a phase' because she dated a woman previously #but now dates a man #i'm going to fucking scream 

LOOK at the way he laughs at his Haters. 

our pup with pups!