Bit (dare I call 900+ words a BIT?) of a rant here. You can go away if you want. I'll put up a new chapter in a few hours. Forgive the raw text, typos, and grammar. I'm not pasting this on Grammarly.
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I'm working on next chapter but I felt I had to come out, abuse my readers a little bit to raise awareness to one little tidbit.
Everything below is my opinion or impression. I might be wrong, but I'm gonna rant anyway. This is your chance to CTRL+F4 and close the tab (not the browser, that uses ALT). CTRL+W might do the trick too.
A lot of my fellow authors (here in RR) are having mental health issues. I struggled with them last year, stayed 50 days away from work, took chemicals that messed up my whole body to try and help. I think I'm okay now (not good) but there's one thing with staring at the depths of depression, it leaves an impression. It's easier to slide back into that dark place that hurts but is eerily comfortable. To escape whatever facet of reality is hurting you.
I'll use only one example: Azarinth Healer is more than one week without an update. Please go and check what Rhaegar said.
I would like another chapter of AH. I would like if @Zethuron also took the first comment. I have a running gag about that and the end of this reality. Just a joke, unless it really ends. Then who's to blame won't matter anyway. Rocco's Basilisk and all that (just to be safe, I'm working on it!)
We are in exceptional times, with a deadly virus that's killed more than a lot of wars. Yet, there's the struggle between Internet toxicity and engaging one's readers. Razzmatazz from Dungeon Item Shop does it with aplomb. Others, not so much. I'm at a fault here. Sorry, but I'm only human. And very flawed at that.
I'll share with you my opinion as a consumer of the other fictions and not as an author: Giving an author shit is completely absurd. If you want to dictate what you read, go hire one. Void Herald wrote a fiction on commission, it's immortalized on the front page of this site. Otherwise, read it or don't. Mandatory XKCD: 386.
No, most authors don't care about your opinion unless they say they do. Yours will probably fail at the crucible of Sturgeon's Law anyway. They do care about your appreciation, and it is an entirely different beast from an opinion.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
I don't read reviews. I've read a few on accident, but I skip that. Reviews are a good thermometer either for an author that is trying to sell his work (so he knows if he's reaching his target public) or other readers trying to find something to read. Regarding my own work, I'm neither. I'm not tough enough to take the negative ones (but I accidentally read the one that complains that I _____ children and found it hilarious, IMO that guy missed the point entirely), and again, Sturgeon's Law. I believe the time reading reviews and worrying about the bad ones is best spent writing more bad isekai.
I also avoid the comments, but I feel guilty about not engaging people there. I need to feel extra tough to look at the comment section. Again, this primate here would rather bash plastic keys in a least random fashion to make more bad fantasy. I also have a huge queue of ideas that want to come out into digital "paper". The times I jumped from one fiction to another was because one of them became too loud in my head. Did I mention I once had to take psychiatrist-prescribed medicine? I'm trying my best to stick to ILH until the end. Yet I see I still have 65 lives to go to reach my target goal of 100. Boy, oh, boy. What a tangent I rambled on.
Are you still here? Thanks.
Anyway, go and give some awesome (spoiler alert: all of them are) content creator that publishes their work for free (even if they take Patreon and paywall some content, you still get a free version). If you go and massage Rhaegar's feelings and get him to post here again, you have my thanks. And please, fight back against internet toxicity. Report comments that you consider even borderline offensive. Let the mods decide.
Too many fictions (better than mine) are dropped because the author had mental health issues, or the act of writing became too bothersome for them. Most aren't doing it for the cash, and we lose a precious thing every time this happens. Regarding mine, I really wish I could finish all of them. Sometimes they scream at me, wanting to break free from the cage of my psyche but I won't run two fictions at the same time. I struggle to keep one going despite life, COVID, and everything (42!) trying to drag me away from the keyboard.
Do it now. Pick another author, and send them a nice PM telling how you appreciate what they are doing. Because to me, they are doing the awesome. Even pirateaba (lowercase, they write the name like that) with their 4,686 patrons. Which was a loss for RR, but that's another story.
I would also like A_Man_In_Black to bring Skyclad back. Awesome story, bro. It deserves more chapters. And many others I won't bother you by listing them here. Suffice to say my follow list has over 50 fictions with months since last chapter.
Go.
Give an author some love. They need all the support they can get.
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I'll post an ILH chapter in the next few hours.