I see, It truly is tragedy as old as time honestly and you have my pity, Not to belittle you but to come alongside you.
Seeing this second chance is wonderful and if you're really dead set on it, Be my guest.
Don't take the community so personally, It's a little rough around the edges and to be frank, You came off as very "Angry angsty fanfic writer entitled to an audience" at first.
Seeing all these things in a new light however, I see that you're someone passionate about your work and trying to bring more media to a Fandom you're truly invested in.
A writer who's got their second breath coming and a genuine reinvigorated.
I'd say embrace the time you have, Don't rewrite EVERYTHING, Instead think of how you'll entice both new and old viewers and continue moving forward.
I came in already frustrated from being denied the chance to advertise on Royal Road because it's a fanfic. I haven't meaningfully slept in a week. I was hoping for a "we're all in the same boat, here's one or two things that we tried that might marginally help" and it felt like right off the bat it was like "where do you get off wanting readers for your story?"
Nearly without fail the readers I have say it's among the best - if not the best - fanfiction they've ever read. Some say it's better than stuff like Worm. Probably 10% of my readers say they come from outside the Ranma fandom, and they have validated time and again that the story is welcoming to people without fandom knowledge. And so I find myself in this place where, impostor syndrome says "don't believe them, you're not that good, nobody outside Ranma wants it" and everybody loudly says "but yes you are" all over my discord, all over the comments. It puts me in this place where I am like "well okay let me try to do something real with this" and then the boot of reality comes crashing down without even giving it a chance, with the assumption that I must just suck, and the basic disrespect to repeatedly misgender me as the icing on top. I don't know how I managed to be cursed with both a giant ego and zero self confidence simultaneously, but here I am. I want to believe what the reviews and the readers say, but it's like "Well if I'm so good then where the hell is everybody? Is it a marketing thing? Is it a "hit the bottom of the well" thing? Do I believe the hype people are saying about me? Do I not?"
I'm in an extraordinarily vulnerable position here, eating anti anxiety meds like they're M&Ms, just to wade back out to get my teeth kicked in some more in the hopes of getting one or two nuggets of wisdom that will help me catch even 1% more of a wave I've waited my whole life for and will likely miss anyway.
This is the biggest, most ambitious thing I've done in my life. And I just want somebody to give a damn about it, and I don't know how anybody calls themself a writer or an artist of any kind, and doesn't understand that.
I've been trying to create something I can use that looks more manly, but they all either turn out as buff furries or women (since that's what my readers tend to like). plus, most of the art is r18, and I can't use hat for the pfp.
