ah, this is very good. and i think like... it's such a struggle to resist the lure of numbers and engagement affecting how you feel about your fic. I'm also with you in that some of my favorite fic I write ends up with some of the least attention & I think I actually use that as a bulwark against letting quantity rule how I feel about writing. Like it's a bummer that you can spend months on a thing and few people are interested in it compared to a thing you wrote in like a day and don't much like, but it's also like...a good reminder that fic can be good even if it doesn't have a large audience, that it's satisfying to do the thing you wanted to do. (Which I do often flatten into the idea of "writing for yourself" bc primarily...I want to be writing things I enjoy and feel proud of).