So since I worked up the nerve to post about lack of commenting, I haven't felt like writing even once.

Not that I've felt like doing anything, since all week at school it's been an endless stream of people I like being furloughed. Both my next door neighbors will be gone next year, and we'll have so few staff left that I think their rooms might stay empty. My building has the youngest staff in nearly every department, so even teachers who have been there 6, 7, 8 years are being called in as people from other buildings bump them out. One of my friends came back from her meeting the other day sobbing, and it was all I could do not to sit there crying next to her.

I don't know even whether it's better to be one of the people staying or not. they'll just get rid of another huge batch of teachers next year, I'm sure, plus it's our contract negotiation year. We can't cover the number of math and science classes we have as of even now.

I just feel like, what's the point of anything.

Here's a little timeline for you:

2008 - 5 Times Miyata Didn't Believe in Love - 20 comments
2009 - Nobody But You - 20 comments
2010 - At First Sight - 27 comments
2011 - Party Don't Stop - 6 comments. Hm.
Debut Happens
2011 - Communication - 7 comments
2012 - Say Say Say - 4 comments.

All of those (except 1 Nisen) are Tamamori/Miyata, same pairing, same fandom, in a common fandom pairing, no rarepairs, no crazy kinks or anything weird. See that precipitous drop in commenting? Right as we get to debut and we have an influx of people and fandom should be getting a swell of writers and fangirls and excitement?

I've been trying to hold off posting about this because I'm already cranky from end of school year, and I know I'll just come off sounding like a comment-whoring jackass, but when a perfectly serviceable main pairing confession/get-together fic in a band-specific exchange gets 3 comments (which is exactly what happened with Say Say Say), then I have to say that we are once again totally overdue for The Talk.

You know the one I mean.

Commenting on fic makes authors happier. Happier authors write more often and encourage new authors to write, and then everybody has more fic. You can say I'm wrong or that I just want attention, but I've written in dozens of fandoms and I can tell you 100% the fandoms with the most active commenting have the most active authors. And don't tell me it's about size, because it's not. Hikaru no Go and Loveless both had/have totally respectable fic/comment ratios, just to pick two. Kisumai(/ebi/jrs) isn't tiny, and it certainly didn't get tinier over the last 5 years.

also, okay, I do want attention, fine. That's why I post things on the internet. It's not that I will stop writing when nobody says "thank you" or "I liked this," obviously, but did I write longer and better fic back when I got more comments? You bet. And after putting in so much effort for my Fic2 fics and having it turn out like Say Say Say, did I take a break and think really hard about putting energy into new things because I was discouraged? Yup, for sure.

And I'm a seasoned, reasonably self-confident author. New, nervous authors need more support if you want them to stick around, improve, and produce fic regularly. Authors with busy lives/school/work need impetus to put their energy into writing.

Lurkers make authors sad, and sad authors don't write as much, or bother setting aside time and energy to write at all. Here's the thing, guys, lurking is not invisibility. We can see you. There's LJ stats, there's counters, I can see accidentally via my stupid clicky pokemon, how many people are clicking into a fic, vs how many people say thanks. The generally accepted figure for how many people comment out of how many people read/downloaded/did whatever on your post, in any fandom, is about 10%. Right now I'm at ~2%, sort of, and that's better than pretty much all the kisumai authors I can name. It sucks. It's not encouraging. It doesn't make me want to plan new stuff or get excited.

And maybe you clicked a fic you didn't like, or firefox crashed your tabs, or you read on your phone and couldn't comment, there's reasons people don't comment, sure. But not EVERYBODY is busy/had drama/hated it ALL the time. And if you had enough time to read the whole thing, you really don't have the 10 seconds it takes to type "I enjoyed this" and then click a button? Unless it was like a je100 drabble, but that hasn't exactly been a hotbed of authorial support either lately.

The comment that drives me the craziest, and I hesitate to bring this up because it probably means I will stop getting even this, is that at least once every week or two, I get a pm that says "I read all your stuff all the time and i love it but I never comment because I'm too shy!!!" Oh, fandom, why. It's the internet. No one cares who you are. If it worries you so much, comment anonymously! Create a sockpuppet account! Like, it's nice that you at least say that one thing the one time, but see above, how steady commenting creates a community where authors produce better fic more regularly. Lurking produces nothing but posts from me about how frustrating it is to write when everybody's a lurker.

This is why Kisumai(/ebi/jr) fandom has so few fic-producing authors. It's because everybody wants to lurk. But you can't all lurk, all the time. We used to have a bunch of new authors trying stuff out, at least a couple fics on the comm a week. Now we have a fic/fanwork comm, and there's next to nobody posting. When I repost fics to the comm, I get like 1-2 comments out of it generally, despite the influx of random people it directs to my journal.

Guys, it's so bad right now that everybody I've talked to in the last 2 weeks about this, all longtime authors, have all said I shouldn't even bother posting about it, there's nothing anybody can do about it, I'm wasting my time and should just accept that our fandom sucks. It didn't used to suck, and I don't have to just accept that. This can totally get better again!

We need more authors. The authors we have need encouragement. If you like reading fic, you've got to learn/remember that the reason LJ works for fandom is that it encourages community exchange, and if that didn't matter, then we'd all be on Fanfic.net or Ao3, just in archives.

tl:dr - here's what you can do right now:
1. Comment on what you read, even if it's just "Thank you" or "I enjoyed this." you don't have to be witty or have awesome insight or anything, just say if you liked it. I swear to you, this makes everybody happier.
2. Write something! You really can! It takes practice, and we all had a first fic once. If everybody is too shy to post, soon we'll be down to zero authors. Fandom has to refresh itself, because in case you haven't noticed, we don't have a plethora of established, regular authors just hanging around at the moment. If you can string 3 words together, we'll probably love you.
3. Stop lurking. We can see you, you aren't hiding. You're just making fandom sad.

And if all this post did was make you think I'm a jerk, I can't stop you. If it makes you happy, you don't have to ever comment on anything of mine ever again, I'll live. But here's some people and things you really should comment on, especially if you've already read them and done nothing:

Reveals for Fic2, the all kisumai exchange, which was full of good and varied fic, and was not well-commented on at all. In particular the fic I received, Hesitation, is Miyata/Tamamori and deserves way more than the 2 comments it has. 2! Fandom, I am ashamed of you.
Here's a handful of fics I got for my birthday, all of which deserve comments and love because they were good reads. All kisumai except 1 Yara/Yamaryo.
Here's the Fanfic tag for kismyshowtime, full of authors who I'm sure would love some encouragement or just a thank you.

Title: Hush [Yara/Yamamoto]
Rating/Warnings: R
Summary: Butoukan goes to the onsen to bond; Yamaryo and Yara bond a little more closely than originally intended.
AN: Written for yararanger's birthday present. Happy birthday, kouhai~ Also this is pretty much entirely based on the 'plot' of the Go Guy Plus DVD Laun(dry), which is pretty much the cutest GG+ thing ever.

( Hush [Yara/Yamamoto, R] )

A shitton of teachers in my building, much less my district, are getting furloughed and everything is essentially awful at the moment. Everyone is melting down, people are crying in the staff rooms, the students are entirely insufferable, we have weeks to go yet and we have a staff meeting on Wednesday that's going to obviously be the worst meeting ever. There's nothing anybody can do except for have a bunch of awful and useless meetings. Next year won't be hardly better, since we'll be missing a ton of younger, really good teachers and our class sizes will all be huge, plus the city cut all kindergarten starting next year, so my district will have a TON of students transferring in from that.

Against the backdrop of that, I had one of those days where a ton of small, stupid things are really annoying, but you can't even complain about them satisfactorily because people have so much more serious problems. I ripped like half my thumbnail off and (unrelatedly) bled all over the back of my shoe without realizing, and I just got an email that CDJapan had my magazine returned to them, despite the fact that they have delivered the 1st 4 magazines of my subscription to here, and roughly two million other things, without any problem.

HAND OVER THE IDOLS AND NOBODY GETS HURT, OKAY.

And tomorrow is Anime Club day. ._________________. Maybe I'll wake up with appendicitis and then I can go to the hospital and just nap peacefully until school is over Orz

I wanted to make a master post for the 30 Kisses I posted in April so that it would be easier for me to link from the master fic post. So here you are, in case you missed any:

( 30 Days, 30 Kisses )

Hope you enjoy(ed) them!

Dude, updating the website is a complete mess because I let it go months and months again. And a ton of it is teeny je100 stuff, which always involves redoing headings and a bunch of other junk.

But I did unearth the Kis-My-Ft2 as Rainbow Brite Color Kids ficlet that I wrote snowqueenofhoth, which is one of my favorite random things ever. Senga turning Nika's frogs blue! funny~

Almost done, though. Except the 30 fics I wrote last month...hnn...

We started Coffee Prince at Drama Night last week, and i have to say that episode 2 had us just cracking up during the blind date sequence. The two leads are so cute! I don't like the other girl though, but that's typical. For me to even like the main girl is a pretty big achievement. I think I might want to watch You're Beautiful? But then again I might just rewatch Ikemen, haha.

Speaking of that, FujiKita drama! oh god, poor Taipi XD I hope they get to shove each other around at least. And I am super excited for face-squish covers~

This morning the asst principal made me cry in front of a cafeteria full of middle schoolers. That's the difference between the middle and high schools: the high school asst principal at least at the decency to make me cry in between classes.

so. yeah. tomorrow I have to show up super early to pick up my spirit shirt, because I got signed up for the tug-of-war at our pre-prom spirit day thing tomorrow. Just...I for real don't think I can do 5 more weeks of this. I haven't cried at school, about school, since my 2nd year of teaching, and I've never done it twice in one day. It was like that time during student teaching when my portfolio came back rejected and I spent all morning sobbing in the staff room, once I started I couldn't stop.

I can't even call off because being out is exactly what caused the problem at both schools. idek. uuuuugh.

Title: In the Darkness (The It's Only Natural Remix) [Soubi/Ritsuka]
Rating/Warnings: R, slight underage (Ritsuka's 16)
Summary: Soubi is having trouble sleeping, but only because Ritsuka keeps waking him up.
AN: Written for 2012 Remix Madness, remix of And In the Darkness Bind Them by midnitemaraud_r. Someday I'll reread Loveless like I keep meaning to.

( In the Darkness (The It's Only Natural Remix) [Soubi/Ritsuka, R] )

and while I'm reposting all the things, Remix Madnesses:

Title: Hitori Jyanai (The 6-Week Rule Remix) [Sakurai, Tsukioka]
Rating/Warnings: PG or so
Summary: For Sakurai, who has broken more units than anybody (except Shota), member-ai is in the small, quiet moments.
AN: Written for 2012 Remix Madness, a remix of Hikari Saseba by Estirose. Is it weird if the actual author remixes a fanfiction based on their original novel? Maybe that's a sort of jerk thing to do but...I...did it.

( Hitori Jyanai (The 6-Week Rule Remix) [Sakurai, Tsukioka, PG] )

I wrote this last weekend and then said i was holding it hostage until the_kouhai coughed up my birthday fic she swears is almost done, but that's going to be forever, and I'm sick of looking at this on my desktop.

so enjoy, I guess.

Title: Closer Than Friends [Senga/Nikaido]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 or so
Summary: Nagoya doesn't seem so far away, until Senga meets Nikaido.
AN: This whole thing kind of sprang up in my head whole during my shower Saturday morning, and for once I actually sat down and typed it out quickly, basically all at once except the last scene and a half or so. AU where none of Kisumai is in Johnny's.

( Closer Than Friends [Senga/Nikaido, PG-13] )

The very last of the 30 kisses, only a couple days late. I actually held up really well this month, and i am proud of me. During April I wrote 34,479 words, which is an average of 1,149 a day O.o it sounds crazy when I write it like that. I'm hoping to stick to my goal of trying to write 500 words every day, because it for sure has made a huge difference in the last 2 months.

Anyway, hope you've been enjoying these, and if you were waiting until the end to comment on whatever...here you are.

Title: Never My Love [Kitayama/Fujigaya]
Rating/Warnings: PG for kiss monsters
Summary: Kitayama and Fujigaya are the last two. They just hope an-an doesn't find out.
AN: 30 kisses, day 30. Not sure these two were worth saving for last, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

( Never My Love [Kitayama/Fujigaya, PG] )

You know what the only pairing I have left for tomorrow is, right? XD

Title: Cosmic Child [Hashimoto/Totsuka]
Rating/Warnings: PG (I guess? textually?)
Summary: Totsuka has loved Hashimoto ages, like everybody does, but falling in love with him is another story.
AN: 30 kisses, day 29. Can I just say that watching this moment on the ABC-Z tv special for real broke my heart. HASSHI. He loves them so much, seriously ;__; ♥ As much as I can't wait for him to become an adult truly, this stage right now where sometimes he randomly is a really awesome adult before reverting to Hasshi-chan form is something special.

( Cosmic Child [Hashimoto/Totsuka, PG] )

Apparently it's Fujigaya on TV day *l*

Title: Shake It Up [Fujigaya/Senga, Fujigaya/Nikaido]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: On the set of Kamen Rider Kiss, Fujigaya gives Senga and Nikaido a different kind of motivation for their "once friends now enemies" subplot.
AN: 30 kisses, day 28. Thanks to the T&T interruption, you get another 2-for-1, since I've only got two more days left to finish up the pairings list.

( Shake It Up [Fujigaya/Senga, Fujigaya/Nikaido, PG-13] )

Title: Oshare [Miyata/Fujigaya]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for Fujigaya the delinquent
Summary: Fujigaya and Miyata get a drama together.
AN: 30 kisses, day 27, a day late since I fell asleep at like 9pm last night. snowqueenofhoth suggested more Miyata-sensei, and Fujigaya liking that way more than he was comfortable with.

( Oshare [Miyata/Fujigaya, PG-13] )

Title: Road to Playzone [Tsukada/Hashimoto]
Rating/Warnings: PG for...yelling? idk.
Summary: Things between them haven't always been so smooth.
AN: 30 kisses, day 26. When they talk about how Tsukada and Hashimoto used to have pretty serious fights at the beginning, I'm always interested in what that was about. I'm glad it all worked out in the end ♥

( Road to Playzone [Tsukada/Hashimoto, PG] )

Title: Cherry Sweet [Kitayama/Miyata]
Rating/Warnings: PG for hotel bathtime
Summary: There's some benefits to having a third roommate during debut tour.
AN: 30 kisses, day 25. Sorry about the title, Leader, I couldn't resist :X

( Cherry Sweet [Kitayama/Miyata, PG] )

Title: T Song 1 Vs Exit [Tamamori/Senga, Miyata/Nikaido]
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 for boyfriend swapping
Summary: Senga and Tamamori compete with Nikaido and Miyata over who is most worth watching.
AN: 30 kisses, day 24. This is actually Tama and Senga's kiss although personally I have no idea which pair I'd be watching, haha. Also title fail XD but I really felt like obvs I couldn't call it anything else.

( T Song 1 Vs Exit [Tamamori/Senga, Miyata/Nikaido, NC-17] )

Title: For the Sake of Tomorrow, I'm Here [Goseki/Totsuka]
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: If Kawai and Tsukada are going to be so useless, then it's up to the pair of them in the end.
AN: 30 kisses, day 23 (one day late, oops accidental naptime). I was sort of struggling for these two, so hope it's okay. Not that it really seems like very many of you are reading the ABC pairings anyhow...

( For the Sake of Tomorrow, I'm Here [Goseki/Totsuka, PG] )

I love this song ;__; it makes me have all the feelings, seriously. And when I finally looked properly at the booklet, I saw the music was by Back-on, which explains a lot about my affections too.

I just feel like it's completely about them, with their footsteps to the future and turning their dreams into reality. SO CUTE. This is for real the shounen theme song to their anime, which maybe if we're lucky they'll actually make someday. Miyacchi, get on that, ONEGAI.

Also, I thought the line about course correction was super cute too, since you can also use it for adjusting orbits in space, like for satellites.

( Translation for Tabidachi no Uta by Kis-My-Ft2 )

headaaaaaache. I just woke up, not fair ;_____;

Remix Madness 2012 is live (link takes you to fandoms list). I wrote 2, in one fandom that's completely obvious, and the other fandom not so obvious because I haven't written in it in maybe 3-4 years. But I had a good time.

And then I crashed after drama night/skyping with swtjemz, and wrote not a single word yesterday. I don't feel that bad though since I've been so good for weeks and weeks. I'm off today (we have an off day for voting day since a bunch of elementaries are polling spots), so you'd think I'd get a bunch done but...hahahaha. We'll see.