They paved paradise

This isn't the first time this has happened, so I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm still stunned and horrified. Fic that I loved, that I re-read multiple times when I was feeling low and really needed it, has been removed from the web because of interpersonal problems between fandom people.

I know the fic belongs to the writer. I do.

But that doesn't make me feel any less horrible when I discover something that I love is gone and I can never get it back. That doesn't happen with published fic, after all. There might be limited editions, you might have to pay a lot of money for a battered copy, but you can almost always GET a copy.

When the fic gets taken down, it's gone forever.

I'm sure some people will roll their eyes reading this, thinking that I'm being overly dramatic, that it's "just" fic.

But those stories were more than that to me. I'm genuinely devastated.

Eta - Yes, it's my own fault for not saving them. That just makes it suck more.