The Great AO3 drought of 2023 has struck hard. I find myself here, on grounds once beloved and now vastly unfamiliar, a fallen soldier left to wander the wastelands of my past. I tried to be strong. I tried to hold out, to wait, but without my silly little skrunkly blorbos, I cannot. There may be specks of gold in this forsaken place. I can only pray that I don’t draw pyrite from these murky, scattered waters.
This account has laid uninhabited for years, only occasionally glimpsed at in moments of intense nostalgia, weakness, and heartbreak. Now, I rise into the old armor, not like a phoenix from the ashes, but the smoke of a candle put out. I wander these halls, no sense of direction or purpose, stumbling in hopes of regaining a sliver of the glory I saw in the fields of AO3. It was a wretched place. All sites of fanfic are. But there were sparks of paradise there, if one knew where to look. Here, there is no map. No guide. I pray to find paradise, but paradise is buried so deep beneath this ashen dirt that I may waste away before I reach it. I became reliant on tags and relevancy, and that makes my dishonorable return sting even harsher.
I come here, to these war torn lands, a warrior stripped of my metals. Show me no mercy, for I wish to keep my shame. It is all I have left.
