omg I need your thoughts on the terminally o line author culture bc ngl it makes my eye TWITCH, there are authors I deliberately avoid even tho I've heard their stuff is good bc they're like that 🙈
HHHHH oh good lord, okay, from how I see it, there are two angles on this, both aggravating and sad: the official decree one and the spontaneous ecosystem one.
The officious one is that the nature of publishing nowadays demands an author have an online presence. You need Twitter/X. You need to let every potential reader know your book is coming out. You need engagement through reviews and pre-orders incentives (if you buy now you’ll get a special keychain!!) and word of mouth assurances from your peers that yes your book is as cool as you say it is. You need a newsletter with links (more buying! more voting on lists that are simply popularity contests!) and promises you’re still working on the next thing, don’t forget about me in the morass of everyone else doing the same thing. You need an Instagram and TikTok now to post pretty pictures and videos because one or two authors made it big off this kind of promotion and now everyone thinks it’s the ticket to the bestseller list (sadly, it seems to be working). You need an OnlyFans (a joke but I do recall a twt spat that was a joke/not joke about how rupi kaur will always be more beautiful than her critics and people who took issue with the conflation of beauty with talent). At the end of all this, you’re basically an influencer, a content creator creating content for the content you should be focusing on creating, the finished novel. And the novel itself seems to be disappearing behind the masks used to promote it (fanfic-style tropes, moodboards, playlists, memes) until I now no longer trust the book that I’ll pick up to have any resemblance to the enticements that brought me here. I’ve seen an author or two complain about the stress all this self-promotion generates, but it’s become such an entrenched part of the industry, I think people just accept it. And thus spend too much time online hoping that if they tweet just a little more, produce just one more reel, maybe that’ll be the difference between a sale and no sale.
The other side of this, distinct but obviously connected, is the ecosystem created by this panic of being perpetually visible coupled with the fact that so many of the new authors came of age during the rise of internet fandom culture. That opinionated community mindset that blurs the line between anonymity and friendship is the lens they bring to their own work. I mean, it makes sense I suppose—if you love yelling about characters and words, why wouldn’t you do that once you start to produce your own? This really came home to me hearing about that reviewbombgate “scandal” and how people involved were in reylo circles and that was used to provide receipts. You’re interacting with your readers and peers about your intimate work but they are also all strangers. They will not always give you the benefit of the doubt, and now—as opposed to the past when maybe the worst that could happen was a handful of bad reviews in newspapers—you will either be tagged in hate reviews, sub-tweeted, explicitly called out, demanded to atone for your sins. It’s no longer the morality of consumption but the morality of production. Of course, the easy answer is just log-off, touch some grass. But that can work only when you and everyone else are separated by anonymous accounts or when you have no platform to maintain. As an author trying to make your livelihood from this, suddenly it’s do or die. We’re in a strange moment of authorship bringing the Internet’s echo-chamber and claustrophobic into the real world (this is a lie: publishing now is no longer the real world. But it looks like it) and thus you can kind of no longer escape things.
Will the average reader who isn’t aware of all these machinations care about reviewbombgate? Would a reader browsing at Target think about the controversies around Lightlark? Very likely not. But the impression I’m getting more and more is that the average reader isn’t the one buying all the books. Or shall we say—a bestseller’s status relies on bookstore stock. Bookstore stock is only huge when they know a book will be a good investment. They’ll only know a book is a good investment if it and its author has street cred based on booktokkers, bookstagram, bloggers and reviewers (have you noticed how many books out these last maybe 1-3 years have these kinds of accounts thanked in the acknowledgments? Yeah), and THESE are also chronically online people who will Know. And decide the cast of fate.
Honestly, @batrachised, I see why you avoid these kinds of writers, though I wonder how long it’ll be before the disease becomes epidemic.
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Helloooooooooo! Can I request lee!Itadori and ler!Gojo? Perhaps poor poor yuuuji is having a bad day and Gojo just has to cheer him up cuz he is his dear dear student??
Thank youuuuu^^ (Your fics are AWESOME btw)
Oo, I love this!!! I haven't written enough JJK here on my blog! I've gotcha covered, anon! :D (Thank you so much! I appreciate it!)
It was a strange day when the team’s sunshine was down and out.
Yuji Itadori- a walking ball of energetic sunshine- was uncharacteristically quiet. He didn’t talk much, only answering questions with simple replies, and his few rare smiles were ghostly and heavy.
“Did something happen?” Gojo asked as the day went on, growing increasingly worried for his student. He figured he woke up on the wrong side of the bed and would bounce back after breakfast, but he only seemed to wilt further as the day went on.
“I don’t know- I tried everything I could think of to get him happy again, but nothing worked.” Nobara shook her head in defeat, folding her arms in thought. “Maybe he got bad news?”
“Not likely- it would have to go through me before it goes to him.” Gojo hummed. “Got his heart broken?”
“Hasn’t been on any recent dates. Anniversary of his grandfather’s death?”
“Nope- that was a few months ago.” Gojo tilted his head, tapping his chin. “Did he get into a fight with Megumi?”
“Who’d I fight?” Said boy asked as he walked up. After a quick briefing, he was just as confused. “Maybe he’s just having a bad day. We all get those once and awhile.”
“Yeah but…it’s weird, seeing him so down.” Nobara tightened her arms around herself, brows furrowing. “If I knew what was wrong, I could fix it.”
“I don’t think there’s a straw doll technique that could.” Megumi shrugged, earning a light glare from the girl. Gojo on the other hand looked suddenly thoughtful.
“Maybe not a curse technique, but…” He grinned. “I think I know what to do.”
~~~
Yuji was laying in his bed when Gojo appeared, halfheartedly reading a volume of Chainsaw Man. His headphones were in, soft music blocking out the world around him. To anyone else, it’d be a clear sign he wanted to be left alone.
For Gojo however, it was an invitation to strike.
Putting his skills to work, he placed himself on Yuji’s bed, hovering over the younger sorcerer with an easy grin. Then he leaned in so his nose was hovering over the manga, waiting for Yuji to notice him.
The younger boy let out a low sigh as he went to turn the page, eyes flicking upward at Gojo. Silence. Then-
“AH!” Yuji squawked, manga tumbling out of hand and headphones flying off his ears as he scooted back on the bed, staring at his teacher. “G-Gojo sensei! What- how- when-”
“Who, where, why?” Gojo finished, closing the discarded manga and tossing it on the nearby table. “That’s what I’d like to know. First of all: How are you?”
“I uh…” Yuji’s shock faded some, that sad look from earlier returning. “I’m fine. Just…”
“Moping in your room, reading manga and pretending the world doesn’t exist?” Gojo asked, pushing Yuji down by his shoulder. “Relatable, but we can’t have that now, can we?”
“G-Gojo-sensei? What are you-” Yuji began, lips flattening and eyes widening when a finger wiggled into his armpit. He squeezed his arm tightly against his torso, trying to block out the invasive finger. “N-No! No do-don’t!”
“Oh? Why not?” Gojo teased, motivated by the wobbly smile on Yuji’s lips. He added a second finger, a third, and before long he had pushed his entire hand into Yuji’s armpit, clawing gently and earning even more struggles from the other. “Is someone ticklish?”
“Yo-You alreahahdy know thahahhat!” Yuji tried to argue, giggles pushing past his lips as he squirmed. This was NOT how he planned on spending the rest of his “Mope hours”! “Goohohohohjo, wahahahhait!”
“No way- you’re still sad! I won’t stop until you’re happy again!” Gojo shot his other hand into Yuji’s pit, earning an arch and a squeal. With that, he was laughing, twisting about on the bed as he tried getting away from Gojo’s tickly fingers. “Come on, let me see you smiling!”
“Nohoohohohoho! I wahahhahant to mohohohohohope!” He cried, cheeks pink and eyes squeezed shut with mirth. “Lehehehhehet me behehehehehehehhee!”
Gojo’s response was to drop a hand to his belly, drilling into the center and making Yuji shriek. He went to shove his hand away, but that only opened his armpits up further for more tickling. ‘Coohohohohohohome ohohohohohon, this ihihihiihihisn’t fahhahahahhahair!”
“All is fair in a tickle war!” Gojo chimed, stretching his fingers back further so he could prod the back of Yuji’s ribs, earning a snort. “Gonna tell me what’s wrong?”
“AHEHAHHAHAHA! FIIHIHIHINE, FIIHHIIHIHNE!”
“Promise?”
“YEEHEHHEHEHS!”
“Reeaaallly promise?’
“GOHOHOOHOHJO!”
“....You sure?”
“I PROHOOHOMIHIHIHISE NOW STAHHAHAHAP!” Yuji cried, gasping for air when the tickling came to an end. “Ehehehehe..hehehehhe…yohohohoohu’re ehehhehevil!”
“Mmhmm! The evilest sensei you’ve ever had!” Gojo skittered his fingers over Yuji’s belly before climbing off him, flopping at the end of the bed with a grin. “So, what’s going on, sunshine?”
“Ehehe!” Yuji spasmed, giggling. With a wave, he sat up , crossing his legs as he caught his breath. “Heh…I’m fine, really.” At Gojo’s raised brow, Yuji pushed on. “No, for real. I just…I had a rough night.”
“Nightmare?” Gojo asked, watching Yuji nod. “Wanna talk about it?”
“....No, not really.” Yuji shook his head, looking up with a small but genuine smile. “I’m feeling better- I don’t want to go back to that right now.”
“Fair enough.” Gojo nodded, reaching out and patting Yuji’s leg. “If you ever need to talk though- you know where I am.”
“Thanks, Gojo.” Yuji’s smile grew, as did Gojo’s.
“Anytime. Hey- let’s go get food with the gang. My treat.” Gojo stood, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “I heard there’s this new place that opened up; they sell gyoza. Hungry?”
Almost on cue, Yuji’s stomach growled, making them laugh. “Yeah, sounds good.”
Thanks for reading!
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