I’m another writer on that “wall of shame”, and I deeply apologize beforehand if this post is a little scathing. I’m just calling it like I’ve seen it.
First off, I want to remind you all that us writers do NOT live on the internet. We have real lives, and I’m sure many of us are struggling with college or with full-time jobs. Writing on THP is not something that is going to put food on the table, pay the bills, or finish the schoolwork for us. It is a
pastime, albeit a very enjoyable and rewarding one I must say. But when real life becomes more real, you have to understand that we can’t just keep writing through the thick and thin of it. When our free time gets cut for whatever reason, we have to carefully pick and choose what we do with it. And sometimes THP is not as high on that list of priorities as you would think. This is what happened to me, I know that it was a major contributor to what happened to HY, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the sole reason more than half those writers are on that list up there. I’d ask you to cut them some slack, eh?
But to get to the point… Your request is, “Old writefags, please come back!”
My response is,
“Why should I?” Do we
need to write on THP to survive? As I said before, this isn’t a job, it’s not a school course, and it’s not even a club. This is something all of us writers do because we feel like doing it, for our own reasons. We’re not getting paid, and we’re not getting any special privileges. We’re not getting
anything external except the knowledge that anonymous people on the internet enjoy and praise our work. Even the era of our beloved drawfags giving us fanart has faded away into obscurity. And frankly, that is hardly an incentive to write.
Now yes, I agree that many writers, myself included, write simply because they love to write. It’s fun for us, just like playing a game might be fun for someone else. It lets us create worlds and put all our ideas and dreams down into physical being. If we’re not satisfied with the latest movies or the newest video games, we have the power to remake it as we choose. And I assure you that this is a damn good reason by itself for me to write.
But that doesn’t mean I need to do it on THP. I can open a notebook and write whatever I feel like whenever I feel like; in fact I already have, and it’s a far deal more liberating when I’m not constrained to another’s’ creations.
We give you our words. Our sweat, our tears, our very souls, and hundreds upon hundreds of hours at a glaring computer screen. And what do you give us back? “GET BACK TO WORK, NIGGER.” “Updates, plz?” “(Insert Touhou here) is crying, Writefag. She wants you to write for her. You wouldn’t want her to be sad, would you?” Every single one of those comments instantly negates the ten comments before it of how much you love our words and our characters. Praise is cheap. Criticism is expensive. You act like we
owe it to you to write, for the good of the Touhous and for the good of THP. We do this because
we want to, because
we are kind enough to give our stories to you. If anything,
you owe
us.
>>4312 and
>>4313, your points are valid. However, they only apply to writers still plodding along on the site,
not to those of us who’ve already stopped writing. There’s plenty of us who no longer have any stories to go back to, and in the current climate of THP, that means the people who once cared about us—our specific readers—have already moved on to reading other stories, and trying to “explain your feelings” becomes infinitely harder when the people who caused us problems in the past are no longer around to listen.
I don’t care how pessimistic this sounds, but Anon as a collective being does
not care about the writers of THP, no matter how much cheap praise they utter.
>>4310 hit it right on the head. Anon, plain and simple, just wants to see their favorite characters doing things, whether they be funny, cute, awesome, or sexy. Why do you think the #1 debate at the beginning of nearly any story with a male protagonist is what “route” to go on? Why do you think people always secretly (sometimes openly) want a harem “route” and sexual promiscuity? It’s because Anon wants to see whatever characters they like the best at a given time. And they’ll latch on to whatever writer will give it to them. The plot, the setting, the supporting cast who never gets a spot in the limelight; it’s all background details once Anon has effectively “route-locked” themselves. Why do you think original characters catch so much flak from everyone? Because they’re stealing the spotlight from the Touhous, the “main attraction”, regardless of whether or not they’re significant to the story, or even have deeper characters than the girls do.
Please,
please understand that with the previous paragraph I am NOT demeaning the ability of a single person to care. Fell, I’m quite certain that you believe every word you’ve said, and that you really do want all the old talent to come back. I thank you for that, I really do. And I’ve seen plenty of posts in my time that I can tell without a doubt came right from the heart. They’ve moved me to tears more than once. I know that each and every one of you individually have the propensity to feel for us writers as fellow human beings, and understand where we come from when we explain things to you. The individual reader is not the problem. The collective being of Anon is the problem. Anon panders to the lowest common denominator, and is responsible for the worst that comes from this site. But because 95%, if not more, posts come from Anon, anything good Anon says is either attributed to the precise individual who said it rather than the collective, or simply swallowed up and forgotten in the sea of choppy sentences, sexual innuendos, trolls, and rage wars.
See, the question that has been posed to us former writefags is NOT “Why did we stop?” The question is “Why don’t we come back?” And the answer is because Anon doesn’t need us to come back, and therefore doesn’t care if we live or die. We’re the old generation, and you’re living in the new one. All that we did is still being done today. We were heroes once. We saved the world for you. And when the world was saved, we left it, our work finished. Now new heroes are saving the world, whether we want it to be that way or not, and whether we join them or not. It’s the way things are. There will be no shortage of patriots; no shortage of volunteers. I know you understand.
>>4314, you have said many good things, but the point I (and I think
>>4310 as well) am trying to make is that our problem isn’t with
what we’re writing, it’s with
where we’re writing. We give a lot, and Anon only gives back a little, if even that. Do you think we as writers enjoy it when after three hours of writing all we see is a string of one-sided votes with no commentary at all?
Speaking for myself, I know that my heart’s in the right place when I write. But it’s difficult to pick up the pen for you again when I know all I’m going back to is a mass of Anon who don’t have a heart for anything other than a cast of characters I didn’t even create. And let me tell you, it’s a rare thing when a writer manages to characterize a Touhou
well enough to where their personalities and backstories are actually deep enough to get recognized by Anon past their clothes and established fanon memes. Is this what writing is supposed to be about? I love the girls too, but the girls aren’t mine;
the story is, and you don’t even care about it past those hats and lacy dresses.
I don’t belong in this world any more, and it was not by my hand that I am once again given to text. I was called here by Anon, who claimed they wished to pay me tribute. Hah, tribute? Anon steals writers’ souls, and makes them their slaves, but perhaps the same could be said of all religiously-followed anonymous boards. Their words are as empty as their soul, and Anon ill needs a savior such as me.
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