prepare4trouble / Old fic (Reply)

I got a review earlier today on AO3 for a fanfic that I originally wrote in 2002. This was so long ago that in the original ff.net version, there is an author note that mentions my getting ready to move to Austria. So I was in my second year at uni which would have made me about 20. A while ago.

Anyhoo, the reviewer was a bit gutted that I'd abandoned the fic after three chapters. I was a bit baffled as that fic is not only finished but has a sequel. Then I noticed that I hadn't moved the whole thing over from ff.net. Oops. It's fixed now, and I told the review about it.

But reading it as I moved it over for me thinking. It's a pretty terribly written story to be honest. Not as bad as I expected it to be, but there is a lot I could do to improve it.

Should I?

Or is it better to leave it as it is and concentrate on new stuff? After all, that sequel I mentioned is incomplete, and when I finished the fic I was happy with it. Should I do student me the service of leaving her work alone and getting on with my own stuff, of should i edit and pick at the old work and make it better?

I honestly don't know what to do. I think I should probably leave it. I think I'd want future me to leave my current fics alone if she encountered them ten or so years from now. But on the other hand, surely it wouldn't do any harm to play about with some of the grammar?