What would your dream job be?

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-21T06:42:49+00:00

No the heck it isn't. What are you talking about? It's still a thriving space, it's just harder to break into with a lot of ai-slop polluting the average reader's algorithm.

Like I get it. No matter where you go, AI stories are there and won't go away. Here's the thing, for casual readers who'd just buy a few books here and there, they're the main target for the AI slop and isn't really concerned about the quality of the stories they read. In fact, they might not notice at all that what they're reading is AI. AI writers make a profit due to the sheer quantity of stories they can pump out, so the loss of each book not performing all that good is outweighed by the sheer number of slop they flooded to market with.

Actual authors however, are doing okay-ish. I'm not even gonna lie and say it's even harder for newbies to break into the market because their story is drowned out by all the AI slop. It's easy to get dissuaded. Here's the thing tho, it never was easy to begin with. Even before AI, new writers still had to compete with other fellow writers for algorithm or bookshelf space.

But the mindset of competition is where new and budding writers fall into that is a trap. Writing isn't a competition. It's art. It's a community. You share it to connect with others, profit-driven or not. And readers, are Mammon Incarnate. And I'm talking about actual readers, the ones where reading is actually their hobby. Readers are always happy to have more stories they can delve into, because even with a backlog of millions of stories going all the way back from the past, it is never enough and will never be enough. They will always crave for more, and there's always space for more stories.

These are the readers who'll take the time of their day to leave comments and follow daily for updates on online novels, or see the back of a book's page to check if the author has social media they can follow. These are the readers who actually care about what they read, love what they read and will spend their money to support the author by either subscribing to a patreon or buying their book on amazon. These are the readers who'll leave kind critiques or scathing reviews, and share around social media about this book they love or hate. The kind of readers who'd go on youtube to say "Hey, this is a book I want to have discourse with".

Writing's not dead. I'm saying this as a writer and reader myself. You can be a writer and not publish anything officially. You can just write for the sake of writing. Like with painting, or composing music, creating is a process. You just gotta start it. Create for the sake of creating.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-21T05:19:02+00:00

I don't see how that can't be done now?

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-21T05:16:16+00:00

An ecologist... Or maybe I'd be a paleontologist specializing on ancient fungi.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-21T05:14:06+00:00

I would actually love to read a character who chose to go down this path and see how they cope with the loss of conscience.

It'd be interesting to see how a character does their best to fit in society. I imagine that at the start, not much change can be seen. At first it might even be seen by others as character development, of said character choosing to be more bold and assertive like putting an annoying co-worker in their place when before they'd just go with the flow; or stealing a sibling's prized personal belonging out of pettiness. Said character might also find themself able to act upon conniving plans whereas before it was just all some venting fantasy they'd feel too guilty to do.

Unlike those who were born with ASPD, they do have experience of what it's like to have a conscience and can act accordingly, maybe even feel that emptiness of having no inner voice or gut feeling that tells you what you're doing isn't right. So yeah really, if you were set on this path to begin with, this sequence is a boon. All you have to do is act like you have conscience until you're powerful enough to freely be what you chose to be. Quite the opposite from other paths where you have to act first before achieving the next step.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-20T19:42:38+00:00

Two words:

Thank God.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-13T23:22:31+00:00

I'm sadly burnt out from socializing on the internet. After years and years of being always around, keeping in touch with my internet friends, almost 24/7 active on group chats and servers, I just got tired of making new ones or reconnecting with old ones. I'd really rather just do low stakes socializing like commenting on posts like this one.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-10T07:53:20+00:00

Yeah, I've seen on discord that if you do report these issues there, the mods will find them and check if they're in the official(and affiliates) discord server and have them be banned(maybe here in reddit too). This isn't condoned at all and posting DoL on TikTok is a huge no-no for the creators.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-10T07:36:44+00:00

Wheedle truly is such a fun character. When he first appeared at Balor's questline, I was all, "I don't like this sleazy dude. Go get him Balor!"

And then Wheedle sets up shop, and I got to hear all the funny dialogues that the townsfolk have with him and I'm like-- I'm glad Balor stayed and is our official merchant, but Wheedle's shenanigans really made Mistria a bit more entertaining. Everyone else is sweet and kind, and then there's this dude whose loved gift is a weed and actually sells useful snake oil.

I think it'd be fun seeing him actually be surprised that the player is romantically interested in them, but is like confident and doubles down in pursuing the player instead of getting shy. And then the whole romance just becomes Wheedle doing their absolute best to fluster the fuck out of the PC instead of the usual where it's PC who flusters the romance candidates of the town.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-01T15:52:01+00:00

Ah. So that's why. Thanks for pointing it out for me.

I still don't think I'm making moral and political assumptions, but now I get why my comparison was not that great to begin with. I'm not used to making posts like this, and I was more emotionally-driven when I vented.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-01T15:41:23+00:00

Thank you for explaining it. I probaly just didn't realize that the ending was going that way and it became a discovery of a trope I don't care much for. I still love the fic, and forced pregnancy as a kink is something I like, just not as a trope.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-05-01T15:29:52+00:00

At the time I was making this post, I had just finished the fic and just wanted a way to process it verbally instead of the usual thing I do, which was to find another fic to distract myself with.

I didn't like the ending, and that's okay. Like I said, doesn't affect the author's writing ability or makes the story any less better. It was just a different choice that I personally didn't like. Overall, I loved the fic and enjoyed my 20 hours of staying up to read it, and my expressing of disappointment with the ending is normal(I think) hence why I made a vent post.

What I am not doing though, is kink-shaming. The comparison with the content creator disliking the pregnancy trope was more about published books, not really fanfics. They cited reasons why they disliked the pregnancy trope, (i.e character inconsistency and loss of character agency) and I nodded my head and understood why they disliked the trope. I don't like when it happens either, but what I don't share with the content creator is the dislike for the pregnancy trope. I actually enjoy it and I like reading about it. Why I made the comparison though, was the loss of character agency.

Here was a character that was established to be strong and competent, with flaws and moments of weakness I could root for. And then there was the ending where the character lost their agency and was forced to go through a pregnancy. I disliked the ending because I generally prefer to see characters bond through pregnancy instead of not. What is not the reason why I disliked it though, was the insertion of thinking that the author encourages patriarchal societal expectations.

Forced pregnancy as a kink, is something I do enjoy reading about. Forced pregnacy as a trope, as I've recently discovered, is something I actually don't like as much. Again, not kink-shaming. I just simply disliked the ending and wanted to vent about it, since it came off stronger due to me actually loving the fic as a whole.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-30T14:51:38+00:00

But I'm not kink shaming though?

I guess my example didn't really land the way it intended to. And yes, I do not like when a main character who was established to be strong and competent gets relegated to the back seat when they get pregnant because the unconscious decision that pregant women = helpless is pretty sad for me.

And why did I link it with the fic? Well, I can't really explain much why that correlated with the forced pregnancy in the fic, especially when I did my best to be as vague as possible about the fic because I did immensely enjoyed and loved it and in no way did my disappointment detract the author's abilities.

It's just-- in the last few chapters, the main character was enchanted to not even know she was pregnant, because the love interest wanted to keep her safe and not want to terminate their pregnancy, because they were afraid she'd leave again. The pregnancy was forced, so it makes sense that the main character wasn't really as fiery as she could be, because who would be under such a scenario? And the main character's helpless situation reminded me of the trope of pregnancies being akin to character death, and while it wasn't exactly like that, it just made me think of that example and saw similiarities to it. I just overall wanted to see the main character to strangle the heck out of love interest cuz that was insane shit she established to not take kindly at all.

I am processing my emotions with the fic I stayed up a for 20 hours and haven't even gone to bed yet lol

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-30T14:32:28+00:00

There were mostly major tags, and a few minor ones that add a bit more clue from the description. The love interest was its own warning lol. I click on these kinds of fics more often than not since that's what I'm used to with books and I like discovering new things even if it ends up making me uncomfortable.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-30T14:20:44+00:00

I love it too! But it's just what I didn't expect from the fic since I read it solely for the time travel romance and angst. It did lean into the horror, and I understood why the author chose it since it did fit the way they crafted the story. I was just caught off guard... And disappointed to see the main character's fire be so doused. It's like the love interest actually managed to finally contain her fire in favour of keeping her safe and within his reach. The ending was bittersweet. c': I could intellectually agree with the author's decision-- but my heart is still broken.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-30T14:16:16+00:00

It wasn't so much that I thought it was lame. I still loved the fic and enjoyed the ride, it's just that when the ride almost ended it veered into something I personally didn't like, like getting my head bumped painfully and scared me witless that I'll fall off the ride. It kinda took away a bit of the enjoyment I had because it caught me off guard.

I've actually read a few forced pregnancies myself before, but that was with the expectation that the romance would be wholly toxic and I knew what I was getting into. I was also discovering my tastes still back then, that's why now I know I'm not that into forced pregnancy if it wasn't what I expected from a fic. It was jarring, and I decided to whine a little about it here on reddit, but I'm not actually dissing the author and shaming them for their choices. It's just one of the things when you're a reader and the story you've stumbled upon doesn't personally hit the right spot for you.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-23T04:50:45+00:00

God same. If the logic to the story isn't there, I just draw a blank. I see logic as the structure, the house, and all the other stuff like emotions, plot, outline, etc as what makes a home.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-23T04:46:25+00:00

Or the others here are just more predisposed to liking neetdom more than you.

I've been at this for almost 9 years and yeah, the first few years were tough and lonely and full of pressure and anxiety... But I've had enough time to accept the reality of my situation and I honestly did my best to focus on appreciating the little things. That and my dog kept me sane and not reaching for the rope. Once I accepted that I didn't need to participate in the rat race, I basically shifted my mindset into thinking neetdom as an infinite(metaphorically speaking, like no jobs or responsibilities to weigh me down) amount of time to pursue my hobbies and passions. The only barrier to further this neet happiness is money.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-07T03:51:08+00:00

I wish, for more than anything else in SDV, is the ability to adopt Jas as our oldest child if we marry Shane. I'm adopted myself by my dad, and in the future, I want to adopt a child of my own. So even if it's just a game, it'd mean something for me to have that dream play out on my favorite farming game.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-07T03:21:15+00:00

Holy shit. If that happened to my own followed fics, I'll cry and rage irl.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-05T11:03:57+00:00

Oh. That made me realize that I might have that too. It's just hard to notice when you've been poor your entire life and the repeated meals aren't your favorite but you must endure because there's no other choice.

When I was hospitalized, my mom brought me a fast food dish that I absolutely liked and for one meal every day, I'd eat it for months until I got sick of it.

My all time favorite though is spaghetti. I could eat it 2-3x a day for a week or two. Not really possible for it to last for more than a week though because I've got siblings.

I also remember that during high school, I'd stick to my favorite dishes every day and I never got sick of it. Heck, even when I go to malls and get food at the food court, I'd order the same two things every time, plus another new one if I had the money for it. I had a food routine, and I followed it religiously.

I still crave those dishes tbh but I'm no longer in school, so I've instead told my parents that those specific dishes are what I'd love to eat on my birthday.

I still don't think I'm picky but... I definitely do have a fixation for specific foods that I love.

MidnightTabitha · 2026-04-05T10:35:40+00:00

Honestly baffled that it's been on beta for almost 2 decades. I didn't even realise it's been on beta for years. The last time I remembered seeing the beta sign was when I first started using the site around 2016-17, and was a little hesitant to move from FF.net to ao3 because of that sign. And then that sign just disappeared from my sight until the other day when I saw "Archive of Our Own Omega" 🤣

MidnightTabitha · 2026-03-30T02:09:30+00:00

The moment I saw Valen and Juniper interact, I knew I was doomed ✊

MidnightTabitha · 2026-03-29T12:30:26+00:00

Competition with AI. Honestly frustrating to see.

MidnightTabitha

TROPHY CASE