WRITING!
Fanfiction
Self Indulgence...
AO3 authors across the world unite underneath the free pass of self-indulgent writing.
Anything they produce that they perceive as deviating from the accepted standard of fanfiction, will come with a hazard label attached to the bow - a variation of "this is really self indulgent, sorry". Yeah, of course it is. You are writing a story that you yourself want to read. Iiiiiiimagine my shock! That's quite literally what fan fiction is!
This nothing statement serves as a pre-emptive apology to the prospective reader, a warning that whatever you're about to read is what the author really wanted to write. Who in the hell is this warning for? "Local schlomo looks for yaoi, sees penis gay, crushes windpipe in a pearl clutch". Man, people who write the nastiest shit I have ever read don't even tag it as self-indulgent. That's what the dead dove declaration is for.
The Self Indulgent label is just a disclaimer for the author to hide behind, because as a warning it is completely useless.
So? Women write most fanfiction, and women are more prone to embarrassment and feeling like all behaviour needs justification and explanation. Besides, prescribing behaviour for conduct on an internet archive for what is essentially gay porn for socially maladjusted bisexual women is a fool's errand. Now I'm no fool, but the patterns that emerge as one scrolls through AO3 are of great interest to me. I do believe that there is genuinely valuable insights to be gained from analyzing AO3 conduct. However, if the sole reason you read fanfiction is to analyse social cues, you are most likely too autistic to pick up on any of what I'm talking about.
Works with this label often come bundled with numerous authors notes on every chapter, where the author profusely apologizes for their work, be it chapter lengths, time between chapters, quality of writing etc etc etc. Often with very antiquated internet speak and tumblr lingo like "drops this garbage and rolls off into the sunset" "leaves this on ur doorstep flies off into the night" "HJKDSHK JUST TAKE IT" Brother, enough with the theatrics. You are proud enough to post it, so leave it at that. This dilly dally wishy washy contradictory behaviour of saying one thing and doing another isn't exclusive to AO3 of course, but the specific flavour of cognitive dissonance on the site is at the least intriguing in its persistence and predictability.
... and Shame!
Labelling work you produce for fun as self indulgent is unnecessary. By definition, self indulgence is the driving force of the hobby as a concept. Therefore, every work you make for yourself should be incredibly self indulgent, which means the label carries no weight.
Labelling work you produce for fun as self indulgent, as you post it out of free will on a de facto anonymous website without any popularity incentives or algorithms to play to is even more unnecessary. If you let shame take a hold of you, you will self-censor and curate your work to fit other people's expectations. Ssssssssssnoooooore! Limiting your creative output to humour strangers! Pathetic beyond belief! Why create anything at all if you treat yourself as a machine that pumps out MORE of the accepted standard? Make whatever you want to make, and when you decide to show off your work, straighten your goddamn back and be proud of what you've made, moron!