To the guest reviewer who thinks I have nothing better to do in my life than to make you happy, this is for you.
Anything you recognize as canon, owned by another, etc. is not mine.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Long Island, there stood a camp. This camp housed mystical beings called demigods, the mortal offspring of Greek gods.
Within this camp lived a son of Hephaestus, Leo Valdez. Leo was a normal demigod who enjoyed Hephaestus-standard activities such as building weapons, setting things on fire, and spending all day in the forges. He had many friends and half-siblings that loved to hang out with him.
But Leo also enjoyed his free time on the internet. Even though technology was forbidden inside the camp boundaries, Leo and his family managed to sneak onto their own self-built computers and do as they pleased. Most of them checked Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. But Leo was into fanfiction.
You see, before he was caught up in a quest that led him and two friends to the camp in the first place, Leo had frequented a site called . He was a fan of certain stories and had taken it upon himself to write quite a few of his own about his favorite character Arya Stark from Game of Thrones. He wasn't the best GoT fanfiction writer, but many people loved his creative stories revolving around Arya. He did it for fun, not attention. He wasn't getting paid to do it, and there were no deadlines, and it made him happy.
Then he got caught up in life. He had to go on a quest to rescue his least favorite goddess, Hera, with two friends. He befriended an awesome dragon, found a bunker, and began working on a flying warship that would carry him and six others to Greece, ensuring they save the world from its personification, Gaea.
Needless to say, his posting became fewer and far between. Of course, he still found the time to write about Arya and continue the stories he'd started; he was just updating at a much slower pace, now. A new Game of Thrones season was about to begin and Leo thought he would have at least one of his stories updated by the time it came out, but with his new busy work, it was not going to be a thing. Most of his readers understood when he said he'd become very busy now that he had a job (though he couldn't say what he did, as the mortals wouldn't believe him), and they waited patiently for him to continue even when he said he was running out of steam with Arya because he was so busy. But there was one, one fateful day, that didn't get it.
This one was a guest reviewer.
Leo didn't, by any means, give up on his stories. He simply took a longer time with them. If there were guests that did not have constructive criticism about his stories (or if the blatant stupidity of their hate posts didn't make him laugh) he simply deleted them.
But this guest was persistent, posting hateful reviews on the same story over and over:
"So the new season come out this Sunday and you still haven't finished any of your stories you said you would. You must have lost motivation and stopped giving a s*** about your audience to not have updated any of your stories in so long. You used to be a great author but now not so much."
"Guess you've ditched all your stories since you haven't updated in so long"
"You suck for not focusing all you attention on your Arya stories. But since you haven't updated by the time you said you would guess you lost motivation and have abandoned them"
"This account must have been abandoned since the author hasn't updated in so long"
"Guess you're never finishing these stories since you said you'd be done by now and aren't. You're a lazy a** piece of s*** that should delete their f*** account because this wire had no place for authors like you that abandoned their stories"
As much as Leo disliked being harassed by a guest, for apparently not focusing his entire life on writing about Arya, he did the most sensible thing in the world…
He deleted the reviews, because it was a guest, and moved on with his busy life, continuing to work on his stories in his spare time, posting when he believed they were ready to be shared.
Because, really…Leo could bet that this same person didn't email George R. R. Martin personally and demand he write faster because he was taking too long to update the series. So why should he care if this guest thought they were entitled to do that very thing to Leo, who wasn't getting paid to write or have fun at all?
THE END
A/N:If you couldn't tell, this story was a metaphor. I wrote it to prove a point, not as a serious story.
Except for the 1st and 3rd review, those are word-for-word what I've been getting lately by the same guest and I'm FUCKING SICK OF YOUR SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT.
I'M FUCKING SORRY I HAVE A LIFE THAT DEMANDS MORE THAN FANFICTION. EXCUUUUUSE ME FOR HAVING OTHER INTERESTS AND WRITING STORIES ABOUT SAID INTERESTS THAT AREN'T ALL ABOUT LEO. Because HOW DARE I write a couple stories about my second favorite superhero?
To the rest of my lovely readers and polite guests,
I apologize for my exceedingly slow, almost non-existent posting lately. For this week, to be fair, I thought I was going to leave today to go on one of those no-internet trips which wouldn't end until mid-July at the earliest. I had spent all week packing and trying to get things settled, but then, last minute it got delayed to later this month.
For the rest of the time, I've just been busy and can't seem to get inspiration for Leo at the moment. I'm hoping that ToA will inspire me again with some sort of mention of him. Yes, I said I wanted to have at least one story done by now, but I've been so busy and held up that it just didn't happen.
I know you guys have been waiting months for updates to your favorite stories, and I am very sorry I'm not delivering. No, they are not being abandoned. No, I haven't lost my love for Leo and the rest of the HoO cast. I don't want to say I'm going on Hiatus because that wouldn't be true, I'd still visit Fanfiction to read more awesome stories and favorite them.
I've just…run out of steam at the moment. My job is tiring and demanding, my life is hectic, and my interests are not just about Leo. I love other things besides writing, which is not a crime.
I will continue to update AT MY OWN PACE, and all I ask is that you guys be patient with it. The stories will get done, even if it won't be as fast as you might like :(
EDIT: Thank you Lara for that review. I've actually been very patient about this, and have been ignoring/deleting to the best of my ability. But, sometimes you just have to, especially when he's doing it every few hours of every day.
I also needed a reason to put up the apology to the rest of my readers, anyway, and this was the fastest.
