Open Letter: Well-Wishes

[Iakobos]

To Matthew,

I am new to this forum, but I’ve been aware of NoFP for years, ever since just about 2015. I want to wish the Authorlord well. I hope your health is stable, I hope your finances are in good shape, and I hope that, in addition to managing all that, you are finding time to write. I look forward to your next update of this work in particular as it is the one which means the most to me. You’ve had hundreds of people praise you for this work at this point, I know, but I want to do more anyway: In my mind you’re writing the quintessential Harry Potter fanfiction, in that when I think of the efforts that make the hobby of reading and writing fanfiction rewarding to pursue, your story is among the first rank of those efforts, and is absolutely first in the Harry Potter fandom. I want to say that I just so happened to be idly browsing through some Harry Potter fanfiction tonight, and I recalled yours almost instantly, and I received a rush of nostalgia at the hours I had spent enjoying this work. I remember so much of it, so clearly. It is easy to remember, because it in so many ways illustrates the best that Harry Potter fanfiction, and fanfiction in general, has to offer. I want you to know that your work here has affected me in a way that will remain with me for the rest of my life; I don’t know how that effect might manifest, but I know it is there. It might manifest like this: I can imagine that if I have children of my own who happen to read Harry Potter and start reading some fanfiction about it I would direct them toward this one in order to present them with the best the fandom has to offer.

I want to encourage you. I don’t know best to do this beyond the personal account I have given above. I know you are committed to this work, so it is not necessary for me to say “I want you to know that I love this so that you will be motivated to work on it.” I know you are in many ways a disciplined writer, who persists in your craft through great adversity, so it is not necessary for me to encourage you to pick up the metaphorical pen, as I believe it is the great desire of your heart. I suppose I want to offer you a sort of amorphous feeling of warmth and well-wishing. I don’t think this feeling can be expressed in any sort of traditional “message of encouragement.” But I want you to know, though I don’t know you and we will likely never meet, that your work has affected me, and that as a result of that work I wish you well in all things.

Be well,

-Iakobos