It is that most glorious of seasons right now when the maple trees outside my window are in the midst of changing colours.  I watch the winds of autumn play with the red, gold, and orange leaves which, more and more, with every passing day, let go of the branches they’ve clung to so the breeze may carry them where it will.  What was once green and vibrant and bursting with life, has now taken on that last richness of colour before giving way to the new which will come in springtime. 

It’s been over three and a half years since the original Eternal Love:Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms drama first aired.  I was a latecomer to it, only discovering the show, Tang Qi’s novel, and the early fanfiction works inspired by it about a year later.  

I started writing my very first 3310 fanfiction, The Scales of Atonement, in April 2018; a springtime, when all was fresh and bursting with life and the fandom was still in its heyday.  I remember the excitement and the debates on the comment boards whenever a chapter was updated.  Reader engagement was so high and there was no lack of motivation to write.

And through the grand summerlike season of my fanfiction writing, that engagement was a driving force that got me to create and compose those stories clamouring to get out of my head.  

Fast forward more than two years… the seasons have passed… the number of readers has greatly declined, the pace of view counts slowed to a crawl. There are no longer debates or discussion. 

When Netflix brought the original drama into their selection in early 2019, new viewers were introduced to the story and a new wave of fanfiction readers happened by. It was an influx of warm, fresh air that carried the fanfic stories over for another year.

Time passes and interests change. People have moved on. Yesterday’s vibrant passion has become the stuff of nostalgia; its colour having peaked and now fading, like the autumn leaves outside my window, like the peach blossoms in my daydreams. 

New fanfiction readers still come on occasion, but they are fewer and fewer. Those readers who stay on and continue to vote and comment are a precious treasure I cherish.  No words I come up with can ever adequately convey how valued and appreciated they are.  If it weren’t for them, my 3310 fanfic writing journey would likely have ended long ago.   

Nothing lasts forever. I know this.  I know this very well.  But it’s not something easy when it comes to the Eternal Love fandom because it’s not about embracing change.  It’s about letting go.  It is about being that leaf that has ripened to its richest hue and that the wind is calling to be carried away, to allow for the new to come in.

There has not been a single day in the last two and a half years when I haven’t been thinking about what I’m writing in a fanfiction story.  But fiction it is.  And as much as I would wish to be able to script real life, that is a cosmic pen I cannot wield.  I have my sad moments, seeing numbers wane and fewer and fewer comments made.  But life goes on and my imagination is primed to go.  Let the future begin. I will pick the most beautiful and fragrant petals that I still may and press them with care within the pages of the last 3310 stories that remain for me to pen.  I hope their scent of heaven will linger there with their beauty forever preserved, as forever preserved they will be within my heart.