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circumference-pie · 3 years

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Fic writer meme thing! Thanks for the tag, @intyalote! I love mucking around with writing-adjacent introspection.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

54,055

3. Top five fics by kudos

Connect with friends and the world around you (NiF, crack)

Rock, Burning Up in the Air (DCMK, Kogoro & Conan)

Every Heart Sings a Song (DCMK, ShinRan)

the dcmk shipyard (DCMK, various)

Two (Guardian, Shen Wei & Ye Zun)

4. Do you respond to comments, and why?

I love getting author responses on comments I send on fics, so I always try to respond to reader comments on mine! And I don’t get so much that it’s overwhelming, or anything.

I’ve gotten much more comfortable responding to comments over these past two (three???) years I’ve been writing fic. I used to freeze up so bad. In delight, but also for fear of saying the wrong thing/not adequately conveying my brain-explody appreciation. Now I just say whatever comes to mind. :D

5. What’s the fic you have written with the angstiest ending?

Days in the Sun for sure. And even that has a lovely, hopeful ending... unless you know canon. >:)

Oh, though “Messy,” the ShinShi short in the dcmk shipyard, has a pretty angsty beginning, middle, and end.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Unambiguously happy? Probably Every Heart Sings a Song or its followup, Sensory Input.

I hadn’t realized how many of my fics were sort of in a not-quite-angst gray zone.

7. Do you write crossovers, if so what’s the craziest one you have done?

I’ve written one, a Chihayafuru x DCMK crossover. It’s not quite crazy, but with two sets of characters and canons it’s hard to decide where to focus.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have published about four lines of smut, but I’ve written a lot more for a WIP. It’s pretty vanilla M/F stuff.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don’t think so?

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep, the first part of touch (DCMK) is translated into Vietnamese here! The translator may or may not finish the rest.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I haven’t collaborated on the actual writing, but I’ve had really involved conversations that deeply influenced the tone and direction of a fic. And some of my betas have been really involved, too.

13. All time favorite ship!

Maybe... RoyAi, from Fullmetal Alchemist? They’re certainly my oldest ship that I still ship. I just love the trust they have in each other.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you will?

Ah, the faux-history paper on the events of Nirvana in Fire, unfortunately.

15. What are your writing strengths?

Derp? I used to really like writing dialogue, but now it doesn’t come so easily. At one point I would have said a lyrical writing style, but I’ve been consciously trying to write in a more grounded style. IDK, hahaha. I am a pro at using the thesaurus?

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plotting. Plotting. Plotting. How to rising action? What is conflict? The three-act story and Hero’s Journey are the banes of my writing existence. (I do like the brackets idea from Brandon Sanderson, though. That’s helped a lot.)

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m with @intyalote on this, unnecessary in the vast majority of cases. In non-dialogue, as well.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter, I think? Though I either didn’t publish them or took them down soon after.

19. Fave fic you have written?

Ooh, this is hard. I kind of have a love/hate relationship with allll of them. Maybe Days in the Sun and Every Heart Sings a Song*? Two of the longest.

I will tag @cortue and @privateeye-cj!

(* I have complicated feelings about Every Heart, because reading it now, I can see how badly I f’ed up the main character’s characterization. I did feel like her characterization was a struggle while I was writing, but it’s even more obvious to me now. But still. The fic contains some of my favorite lines.)

#circ talks #on writing #edit: added link for brackets

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omniversalobservations · 5 years

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Fandom Mashups Are On The Rise

Fact: Two fandoms are better than one. When your favorite fictional worlds collide, it’s a mashup made in fandom heaven. Fandom mashups are becoming more popular, with crossovers popping up in TV shows and movies, fan art, original cosplays, and even new collectibles, making pop culture hybrids a top trend in the geek world.

Fandom mashups have such a powerful impact because they join together two groups of extremely passionate fans — or two halves of your own geeky heart. While products and entertainment moments that feature themes from two separate worlds may be a little more niche — not every Dungeons & Dragons fan would get schwifty with Rick and Morty — they have the ability to draw fans from one property into another. And the most accessible way for companies to pull off this concept is with gotta-have-it merch — and lots of it. With the right properties and the right fan bases, the collaborations can be seamless and maintain the integrity of each brand.

Take FOCO’s line of Game of Thrones MLB Bobbleheads, for example. The cross-licensed series pairs Major League Baseball players and mascots with Game of Thrones characters and settings. The first series merges three distinct bobblehead styles — the Iron Throne, the Night King, and the Ice Dragon Viserion — with mascots and branding from all 30 MLB teams.

“We definitely think it’s an emerging category, this cross-licensed mashup that we’re going to explore,” says Matthew Katz, licensing manager at FOCO. “… We tried to make sure we had the right balance. You don’t want to go too far one way or the other because you want to capture the people who are superfans of either baseball or Game of Thrones, and then capture those people in the middle as well.”

The bobblehead collaboration started off as a partnership for MLB’s theme nights, during which every fan who walks through the stadium gates gets a promotional item, like a bobblehead. The promotion opened the door to a conversation on how to expand at retail, especially for people who couldn’t make it to the promo nights or desired a more high-end collectible than the ones handed out at the games.

A unique aspect of pop culture mashups is that it gives the creators a bit more freedom in playing around with storytelling. The Night King was an ominous Game of Thrones villain, but he’s a bit more lighthearted when he’s wearing team-themed armor and ditching his spear for a baseball bat made of ice with the team’s logo on it.

“Developing a non-traditional product line like this gives a fresh perspective and allows a fan who has love for both brands to get a refreshed look,” says Josephine Fusezi, MLB’s vice president of global consumer products. “Being able to play with key elements from both baseball and Game of Thrones gives the consumer something different and refreshing. It also gives us an opportunity to have a little fun with our fans.”

Response to the first bobblehead series was so positive that FOCO quickly developed a followup series in just six weeks, featuring characters such as the direwolf, the Kingsguard, and a White Walker, available now for preorder. New MLB theme nights began in June for a Netflix Stranger Things collaboration, too.

Fans will also know exactly who to call with Hasbro’s new Ecto-1 Ectotron figure. The Transformers universe already has heroic Autobots, evil Decepticons, and now ghosts! The iconic Ecto-1 Cadillac from the 1984 Ghostbusters movie is now a Transformers robot — a converting Paranormal Investigator called Ectotron. The figure comes with its own Proton Pack and Slimer accessory, and it converts between Ecto-1 and robot in 22 steps.

This year marks the 35th anniversaries of both Transformers and Ghostbusters, making it an ideal year to combine the best of both franchises. A five-part origin story from IDW Publishing will also be available this year, giving fans insight on Ectotron’s background.

“Brand anniversaries not only allow us to celebrate a franchise, but we can also tap into nostalgia around a brand,” says Tom Warner, senior vice president for the Transformers franchise at Hasbro. “The Transformers and Ghostbusters brands are filled with waves of millennial nostalgia as new parents share the toys and brands they loved as children with their own kids.”

Ectotron preorders sold out within 24 hours after the figure was revealed at Toy Fair New York in February, so additional preorders were made available. Fans should also be on the lookout for other potential Transformers and Ghostbusters collaborations soon, according to Warner.

“On the surface, the Transformers and Ghostbusters franchises may seem vastly different; however, they share more in common than one may expect,” Warner says. “Both have two passionate fandoms, sharing a mutual bond over out-of-this world storytelling rooted in science fiction. When combining both worlds, our goal was to create stories and a product that stays true to the origins of both brands.”

The Avengers movies are probably the most well-known, most popular crossovers, but they weren’t the first. Think of all the “most ambitious crossover event in history” memes that circulated around the time that Infinity War came out — and how we were reminded of Disney Channel’s That’s So Suite Life of Hannah Montana, which came out in 2006, or 2003’s The Rugrats Go Wild, in which the band of babies met Eliza and her family from The Wild Thornberries, on Nickelodeon.

Entertainment crossover content is so successful because fans of these franchises can see all of their favorite characters interacting in situations they normally wouldn’t, like when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles visited Gotham in Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019). In this movie, the heroes in a half-shell and the Dark Knight team up when Shredder joins forces with Ra’s al Ghul, and all of the heroes need to work together to defeat the combined might of the Foot Clan and League of Assassins.

These crossovers can also span multiple age groups, such as Sesame Street’s “Respect Brings Us Together” campaign. Two commercials launched in April featuring Elmo and Cookie Monster, one of which starred the notably at-odds Lannister siblings from Game of Thrones. And if anyone can convince Cersei and Tyrion Lannister to get along, it’s Elmo.

Fan demand for this type of content is loud and clear, as is the case with The CW’s DC Universe. The network has created crossover content yearly since 2014 through its DC TV shows, starting with Arrow and The Flash. At the time, in December 2014, the two-part Arrowverse crossover between the two shows was the most-watched December telecast in seven years for the network, and the most-watched episode for both shows since their respective series premieres.

In 2016, the network’s #DCWeek event delivered The CW’s most-watched week in six years, featuring a four-night DC crossover between Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The CW’s fifth-annual Arrowverse crossover last year, Elseworlds, introduced Gotham City and Batwoman into the mix, and concluded with a tease of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, set to air this fall.

The ratings for The CW’s crossover events clearly show that fans crave this content, and it’s safe to say we can expect more of it in the future.

Pop culture mashups also come from the most important community: the fans themselves.

While manufacturers and entertainment companies have the power to bring pop culture mashups to the masses, fans can express themselves through cosplay and fan art — without the shackles of licensing rights getting in the way. And here, creativity is key. Out-of-the-box fan mashups, including one-of-a-kind cosplays and stunning illustrations, all have one thing in common: They fuse two things that would likely never be together otherwise.

Eric Proctor is a digital artist at TsaoShin who draws vibrant fantasy pieces, with a heavy focus on pop culture artwork. His gallery features bright, fun, and whimsical pieces that incorporate characters, such as Stitch from Lilo & Stitch and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.

“For me, the crossovers are a Venn diagram where the two circles completely overlap of things that I absolutely love,” Proctor says. “So, any crossover that I’m currently doing is going to just be just that I love A and I love B, and I’d love to see A and B together.”

Proctor is currently working on an ongoing Grumpy Cat and Disney series, which had accidental roots. Proctor bought a new rig and tablet for his illustration setup and was practicing with his new equipment. He sketched out the iconic The Little Mermaid scene in which Ariel is singing on the rock with water splashing around her, and because he doesn’t like drawing people, he drew in Grumpy Cat as a last-minute decision. He showed it to his friends, expecting to delete it, but then people asked him what Disney scenario he was going to put Grumpy Cat into next — and the series was born.

“I say that I love both of those things, but one of the things I felt so guilty about making that particular series is that I really, really love Disney, but I’m putting Grumpy Cat in a scenario where it’s just ruining it,” Proctor says. “It’s this little bit of dark humor where you’re like, ‘I really love Disney, but honestly if Grumpy Cat was in it, this is probably what would happen.’ So it’s taking something that’s a little sacred and then ripping it to shreds a bit. I think the humor was one of those things I had to play around with.”

Proctor is currently working on his next Grumpy Cat Disney installment, a Cinderella-themed piece titled “Bippidi Boppidi No.” It will show the scene from the animated film in which the fairy godmother grants all of Cinderella’s wishes, but with everything completely ruined, such as a pumpkin dress, Lucifer the cat being the size of a horse, and other mishaps.

“It’s one of those situations where it’s so easy to imagine a lot of those crossovers together; they seem so real and fitting that it just feels like a marriage of two ideas that you’ve enjoyed both of those things so much,” Proctor says. “For me personally, when I look at a crossover that just succeeds so well, I just get so happy because someone else saw the thing that put those two things together and they made that real.”

With pop culture mashups, fans get to express themselves in a whole new way, and manufacturers and entertainment companies are taking note of the increasing fan demand and creative potential. The possibilities are limitless.

Source: The Pop Insider

(image via DeviantArt)

#unofficial #Beauty and the Beast #Grumpy Cat

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