#livejournal and ffn at basically the same time

[broomsticks]

finally getting to this (TY to @billsfangearring for the rec) and thinking that the entire thing should be mandatory listening for anyone and everyone who wants to participate in fandom. I learned so much about fannish history, zines, fandom on the internet, the creation of FFN — also hell yeah to whoever of the podcasters is a snarry/ tomarry shipper — but mostly seconding this very hard

maybe i’m especially in my fandom history feels thanks to femslash february & @lumosatnight’s HP femslash history thing, but — this basically yall, i’m so emotional. (timestamp approx. 2h15m in).

fanlore article: An Archive Of One's Own (post by astolat), a proposal that astolat posted to her LiveJournal in May 2007.

First, why fanfic is not illegal and why YOU should stop saying that it is even if you don't agree, by cesperanza. Please read it. That said, the people behind fanlib (talked about many places, see astridv here) don't actually care about fanfic, the fanfic community, or anything except making money off content created entirely by other people and getting media attention. They don't have a single fanfic reader or writer on their board; they don't even have a single woman on their board. They're creating a lawsuit-bait site while being bad potential defendants, and they deserve to be chased out being pelted with rocks. But even if they were, which I doubt is going to happen, because hey, they have people and money, we're still left with this problem: we are sitting quietly by the fireside, creating piles and piles of content around us, and other people are going to look at that and see an opportunity. And they are going to end up creating the front doors that new fanfic writers walk through, unless we stand up and build our OWN front door.

every time i think i cannot love ao3 more i find even more to love and respect about it & everyone who contributed to creating it. what an empowering story this is, you all, about taking OWNERSHIP and mobilizing the community and building the places, MAKING the spaces you want to have. being the change you want to see.

and this list of desired features —

- allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult - giving explicit credit to the original creators while clearly disclaiming any official status - making it easy for people to download stories - options for people to post [recursively transformative works inspired by] the original story, all of which would automatically be linked back so you could see the kind of interconnecting 'web' of how our work is interrelated - automatic rec lists (just click on a story to add it to your rec list) - mentoring: collect up writing advice, fannish history, acafandom, and create a simple FAQ (integrate a wiki?)

!!! these values!! HISTORY and COMMUNITY fucking HISTORY and COMMUNITY.

what we’re doing is LEGITIMATE, it has VALUE and it is REAL.

it is alright if not everyone cares about everything or indeed the same things, it is alright if no two people see things the same way or perfectly align in fandom interests and preferences and headcanons, but there is so much to celebrate and uplift about each other. we have so much in common. so much.

also happiness has meaning and catharsis has meaning and exploration has meaning, art has meaning and creativity and individual expression is meaningful, for the creator if no one else , and is worthy of celebration and love if only because life and living is fucking hard, yall.

ahhh i am so sad and angry (that this was our fandom history! that it was such a struggle! that even now there is so much infighting! that some things i love are not as popular and widely loved compared to other things (that i also love!)) — but i’m also so touched and SO grateful that this is our fandom history because wow is it one of triumph and empowerment and community collaboration. it was dreamt and then proposed and then built, from scratch, and we’re adding to it every day.

and then the timeline stuff (the post was made may 17th, 2007! the domain names were registered may 30th! the first donations came in september 2007 and the site was operational as we know it in 2009!) holy shit!

ahhh i love fandom and all this gift economy and joy.

p.s. there’s also a part 2 with olderthannetfic(’s fandom backstory lmao). which i’ve only just started listening to so expect a similarly in my feels post about that in uhhhhhhh two months

#fandom history #ao3 #talkinfanfic #fanficmaverick #fandom meta #fandom podcast #fandom love

[hua-fei-hua]

sometimes i see posts w/people begging ao3 authors to anon or orphan works instead of deleting them, and like, i get the sentiment, i really do, but i think that there's a bit of nuance to each of these three acts that should be considered a bit more.

all three are a method of disassociating a work to your name, obviously, but orphaning is the only method that permanently revokes an author's agency over the work. deleting is the only method that revokes the reader's right to public access. anonymity is the midway point between these, but i think i can understand why one might choose to delete or orphan instead.

a while back, i was poking around livejournal, and i saw a link to a fic rec on ffn, but when i followed the link, the work had been deleted. through the wayback machine, i found the author n read the explanation on their profile: essentially, while the work had been extremely popular, they felt that it no longer represented the kind of stories they wanted to tell, especially since looking back, a lot of their jokes were in poor taste, and the thought of leaving that up for other people to find was not one they liked. so they deleted it.

a lot of readers also seem to lean on the argument, "there will always be people to whom your work has meant the world; please don't delete it (as it hurts those people)." it seems to hang on the assumption that the author is deleting out of shame, external pressure, or just hatred for their own work, and that they should remember that art has value beyond their own perception. and also don't hurt the readers as collateral.

but sometimes, as dick of a move as it is, the point of taking a fic down is to send a "fuck you" to the readers, because it is a sign of the author's ultimate agency over a fic. one could theoretically place their work into an unrevealed collection and achieve the same effect, and i know that's a thing that happens too, but the point is that the author has control over their own work, and that includes taking it down on their own terms.

my impression of why we have orphaning is bc ao3 was made in a different time, when being in fandom and writing gay porn abt fictional characters could get people fired from jobs and everything, and sometimes, due to wank, people would receive threats on their job based off the fic they wrote. people used to delete out of fear, even though they didn't want to actually take their fic away from the fan community, so ao3 gave us orphaning to remove all association and link back to the author while keeping the work up for others to read or enjoy.

of course people use it for other purposes now, too. sometimes you change fandoms, and the old one was cringe, or problematic, or you just want to start over for other reasons, and you orphan all your prior works. sometimes you have a wip that lost its spark, or has served its purpose to you creatively despite never being finished. to the orphanage with it! basically, my impression of orphaning is that it's for letting go (or preventing your own real-life murder).

anonymity is offered as a solution to those who wish to remain in control of their works whilst also dissociating their name, and that is very much a good solution for people who want to leave up their things but are anxious about orphaning.

but more than that, anonymity offers protection for people with a history of being harassed, yet wish to continue publishing. it offers the ability to thank those who leave appreciation on your works. it lets you surprise people with gifts when you're shy. hell, it can even help with an obsession with hits and kudos, since you have to jump through a few extra hoops to see your stats instead of it being right on your author page.

i guess the point is, these things can broadly overlap when it comes to "what to do with this fic i wrote but don't want on my profile anymore", but there's nuance to each one, and if an author wants to delete a fic bc it best fits their situation, then we should accept that, mourn our losses, and move on.

#long post #sorry i just hate seeing posts on my dash that are like 'GUYS don't DELETE your work when you can ORPHAN or ANONYMIZE it!' #i understand that these might be lesser-known features and it's good to tell people abt it! but sometimes you hate your audience #or the idea of leaving something like that up makes you sick #and like. i get it we all have fics we love that have been deleted w/o warning. that's the author's prerogative. #downloading fics has always been a thing; and an author deleting their fic from ao3 doesn't remove it from your hard drive #if you lost smth w/o a backup then. i guess that's a lesson moving forward. sorry for your loss. #花話

[sapphire-weapon]

It’s interesting reading your posts on livejournal because I was in fandom back then. I was a huge fan of Eponine from Les Mis and basically you couldn’t ship her with anyone or it was seen as OOC. I wrote a lot of genfic about her like you did for Leon but it wasn’t fulfilling because I wanted to write shipping fanfic for her but if you did you’d get hate in your reviews on FFN. I thought that because that fandom was such a small community that it was specific to that fandom but I guess other fandoms were like that back then and I’m glad I just casually played RE4 and didn’t look up stuff for it. I think it would have really been hard to ever play the games now if I had such a negative fandom experience because I have little love for Les Mis anymore and I can’t even enjoy the musical like I did before entering that fandom.

i mean the LJ era was the same era wherein "MST-ing"/"sporking" fics was common practice, and fandom_wank was a huge deal. it was literally everywhere. i think, because i knew that, i didn't see RE fandom as being any more or less hostile as anywhere else. it was just... this is what being in a fandom is LOL so i dealt with it.

this didn't start to go away until about 2011-ish, by my reckoning -- which was about the time that fandom migrated to tumblr.

[veliseraptor]

FFN-to-AO3 Fic Transfer Project Stats

I told you this was going to happen!

So for the past...several weeks-ish I’ve been working on transferring the previously uncrossposted works on my old fanfiction.net account and my old livejournal onto AO3, for archival purposes, which came out to include, in all, moving 403 works (366 from FFN, 37 from Livejournal) from between roughly 2006-2012. Me being the person that I am, I went “oooh statistics” and decided to do some fun with numbers about it.

One caveat that this still does not as yet represent a complete record of my fic writing posted online from 2006-present - there is still a substantial gap of fic that’s only on Tumblr right now and thus unaccounted for in this analysis.

But with that set aside, here is Lise’s Fanfiction Output By Some Numbers:

Total Works Archived on AO3: 924

Total Words Archived on AO3: 4,360,945

Number of Distinct Fandoms Represented: 48 (counting the MCU, DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and Doctor Who/Torchwood each as one)

The first thing I was curious about was trends of how much I was posting year by year, which I decided to look at both in terms of word count and in terms of number of individual fics. Taking the first first:

It is important to note that AO3 only counts words in a multichapter fic posted over time in the year that it is completed; this is most noticeable in 2018, when Life in Reverse was finished and which therefore gets all 200,000+ words tallied to that year alone despite the fic itself actually being written over the course of six years. There’s no real way to compensate here but that is the most significant outlier; Tear My Castle Down and Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains are also skewing 2020′s data higher.

However, even with that there’s been a clear overall increase in the words I’ve posted over the years since I started, particularly beginning in 2011. Tracking by life events, it’s sort of funny to me that I can track “college-first starting full-time work-pandemic in terms of spikes and dips.

Then, when it comes to the number of individual fics posted year over year:

This mapped onto the first graph tracked with what I expected, more or less, which was to say “early on the trend was a lot of shorter fics, later on fewer but longer.” Notice the 152 posted in 2009 still totaling less than 20,000 words over the year. I think those 2008-2009 years in particular also marked me doing a couple different fic challenges, most notably 50_darkfics but also a lot of short writing for the westerosorting Livejournal community. The sudden drop after 2012 to a level that’s stayed pretty consistent since I would guess marked the end, more or less, of me doing that kind of numbers-based work (where I was trying to write a lot of short things in a brief period of time, or trying to fulfill a challenge, rather than adhering more to my own schedule).

I tried - I am still trying - to work out a good way of visualizing the word count distribution by fic by year (i.e. in 2009 how many of those 152 fics were between 100-1000 words, etc.), but have been struggling, most likely because there is (a) a lot of data points that I’m trying to map and (b) a very wide range. What I currently have looks like:

which is not exactly a very coherent looking/readable graph, though it gives you a sense of how front-loaded the distribution really is (mostly between 144-7800). Out of curiosity I tried cutting out some of the earlier years to see how that might change the shape:

Overall, basically the same, but it does become more visible how the larger buckets only appear for the later years - there is 1 2012 fic above the 221-10133 word bracket. Underlining, then, the shift in my writing trends from “many short oneshots” to “fewer longer works,” which I knew but now I have numbers and also (roughly) a timeline.

Finally (at least for now) the other curiosity I had was about what I think of as “fandom-cycles” - the rate at which I’ve moved through fandoms over the years, producing works for them and then moving on. I was curious about if and how much they overlapped, and what was a “typical” runtime for a period of high production in a single fandom. 

I cut this graph down to what I think of as my “major” fandoms.

This one looks a little crazed and is therefore harder to read, at least up until 2011-ish when I really started to become a “one fandom at a time” kind of gal - prior to that point there was a lot of overlap/simultaneity. One more than others, but multiple fandoms in activity at the same time (witness in 2009 the peaks for both A Song of Ice and Fire, The Silm, and Doctrine of Labyrinths). Black Jewels Trilogy had a shorter duration than I thought it would given the psychological influence it’s had on me; Wheel of Time shorter still, though it stuck around for a solid four years (compared to Death Note, which lasted about three).

My favorite thing about this graph is the way you can see the overlap of one fandom tapering as another takes off - most obviously, of course, with the MCU/Untamed overlap there in 2019, but it’s there with Supernatural and the MCU, and with A Song of Ice and Fire and Supernatural. It’s a visual representation of me moving out of one fandom and into another. 

(Also love seeing that little spike of Doctrine of Labyrinths coming back as the MCU wanes in 2019. There’s the reread! And also me trying to get everyone else I know into it.)

In general my fandom lifetime heyday, historically, seems to have been about three years, prior to the MCU, which lasted far and away longer than anything other than the Silm, which, while I wasn’t writing a lot for it or consistently, has been a presence from 2009 to, irregularly, at least 2020. Interesting way of seeing a fandom that is, if not a main squeeze these days, a relatively consistent presence in my fanfiction life, even if just barely. The only other fandoms to show this kind of longevity (disappearing and then popping up again years later) are Doctrine of Labyrinths (disappears 2014, pops up again in 2018) and Wheel of Time (disappears in 2012, pops up again in 2017 and 2018). This kind of makes me wonder if, at least for me, book fandoms have a longer “shelf life” than their more visual counterparts. This would make a certain amount of sense, as I have more of a historical habit of rereading than I do of rewatching (The Untamed has been a major exception), but could also be an artifact of bias from the fact that for most of, I’d say, the front half of my fandom career, my fandoms were primarily book-based over movies or tv shows.

So that’s what I have so far when it comes to Fun With Numbers: Lise’s Hobbies Edition. I might poke around more (the most insane idea I’ve thought of is looking at word count distributions within fandoms, i.e. where have I been writing the longest/shortest fics, but that is...probably not something I need to spend the time manually gathering the data for) but at least on a preliminary basis...voila.

I don’t expect the Tumblr crossposting to make a huge difference in terms of overall trends, except perhaps in terms of the number of fics per year - I wonder if that number has been in any way artificially deflated for later years when I transitioned in posting methods - it used to be I always would have posted the short things I’ve put on here to FFN or Livejournal, and now I’m less likely to. So it may be that those latter year numbers are only actually lower because they are no longer accounting for the short works that used to be getting posted by default.

Perhaps will revisit once that stage of the project is completed! That sounds like something I will probably do.

#fun with numbers #i should have a tag for when i do this #fic transfer project 2k22 #confessions of a frustrated writer

[drowningbydegrees]

Fanfic Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @lokibus! <3 <3 <3

How many works do you have on Ao3?

54. I've written quite a bit more, but I just can't be bothered to carry over most of the fics from my LJ days. Also, once upon a time I had a super insecure streak and I went on an orphaning spree, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What’s your total Ao3 word count?

Apparently 457,241! Kinda same as above.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Though I Try Not To (The Witcher)

I'm so weirdly pleased about this. I fell into Witcher fandom totally by accident. I don't usually do fixit fics, but I couldn't help myself. This is, I think, the only fic to date where I've started posting as a WIP and actually followed through and finished.

Where All Roads Lead (MCU)

If there is one plot device I'm just eternally a sucker for, it's time travel shenanigans. This was one of the two time travely fics I wrote for Stucky fandom.

For The Space of a Heartbeat (The Witcher)

I'm honestly really surprised by this? This was totally just a self indulgent spur of the moment kinda thing, and it's only a couple thousand words.

Even in the Dark I Know You (The Witcher)

Okay, I lied. There were two WIPs I actually followed through and finished. This started as a random oneshot for a whump week thing, and then the prompt for the next day fit so well with a follow up chapter that this just turned into a whole story. I really enjoy subverting tropes and with witcher biology I see a lot of sensory overload kinds of fics, so I decided to play with the idea in reverse.

Even if it Hurts (Even if it Makes Me Bleed) (The Witcher)

So, most of the time when I settle into a fandom, there's one fic idea that I feel like I cannot leave without writing. For Witcher fandom, this was that fic. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about soulmates as a romantic concept, even more so when you're involving characters like Geralt, for whom fate is so often a double edged sword. This story was very much an excuse to dig into what soulmates mean for personal agency under the guise of a narrative. XD

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Admittedly, I do this with embarrassing inconsistency. Basically, what happens is: * Something gets a good response. * I respond to a few comments and then find myself overwhelmed (mentally, not as in there are a truly overwhelming number of comments). * I step away for a bit. * A month later I realize I still haven't replied. Cue paralyzing indecision about whether it's too late to reply. * Rinse and repeat.

I do want to! And I'm working on it. I've gotten a little better about it, but my apologies to anyone who I haven't responded to. Please know I'm not intentionally ignoring you. ;_;

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

Oh hmm. I had a reputation for a really long time as primarily an angst writer, but pretty much all my stories have a happy ending for some given quantity of happy. I guess it kind of depends on how one qualifies that.

Noonwraiths and Other Woodland Forest Creatures maybe. It's got a got a pretty fluffy ending.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

It's a tossup.

I, The Paradox, which is my other time travel fic from my Stucky fandom days, with a paradox (shocking) that lands Steve with two versions of Bucky. For plot purposes even! It's not a particularly smutty story. It ends sort of ambiguously. There's a sequel outlined that was meant to resolve said ambiguity, but alas, it's still sitting in my WIP folder.

Truth in the Periphery. It's a psychological horror story I wrote for an event. I think it's the only fanfic I've ever written that was really intended as a hurt/no comfort kind of story.

Do you write crossovers?

I haven't, but not because I specifically don't. I've just never had an idea that felt compelling enough to follow through on.

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Maaaaybe once or twice a long, long, long time ago, back when FFN was still the best option for posting outside of LiveJournal. I don't think it was even about the writing. I think it was someone was mad that my much younger self tried to sneak smut onto FFN.

Do you write smut? if so, what kind?

I have such a love/hate relationship with smut in my own work. I used to write it a lot because I felt like I had to. It was until I came to terms with being more or less ace irl that it occurred to me why I didn't enjoy writing it. Weirdly, I like reading it just fine.

The thing is, while I don't really care for the physical aspect of it, I like the emotional touchpoints of it, so I do still write smut sometimes. It just tends to be a little cursory in terms of action details and heavy on character dynamics.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. But I used to RP a lot, and it's always been a lot of fun, so I wouldn't be opposed to the idea!

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

Oh shoot. From a romantic standpoint that varies so much depending on what fandom I'm currently feeling enthusiastic about. It's pretty much always a specific character that draws me to a fandom, so I think the most consistent ship I have is favorite character/unconditional love and support. XD

What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

The sequel to I, The Paradox I mentioned earlier.

What are your writing strengths?

If there's one thing I feel like I have a consistently good handle on, it's emotional impact. I put a lot of thought into why people make the choices they do and how they relate to each other, and I would like to think I'm reasonably adept at leading readers to the emotional response I'm going for.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions. I'm just forever in awe of people who can just write settings/action naturally. It's a constant effort for me, and it's the thing I always feel like I fall short on. I can write navel gazing in my sleep, but an action scene? Pfftttt.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Very situational. Kind of like in movies and television. I don't have any kind of always x or y opinion on it though.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Inuyasha. It was back when I didn't have a computer of my own and would write at the library, so the only record of it was the site I used to draft and post to that is now defunct. No one is happier about this than I am. 😂

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

I think I'm genuinely pretty proud of everything I've written in the last couple of years, but if I had to pick right now, it'd be It Doesn't Break But it Bends. It's a time loop fic. Someone left "Recommended but you will sob." as their bookmark note for it and I think that might be my crowning achievement in fandom.

Tagging (if you want!): @mikkeneko @goodheavensgwen @writinglizards @plotdesigner And anyone else who wants to <3

#things I'm tagged in #my fic #about me

[kleenexwoman]

tagged fandom survey

I got tagged by multiple people, so

How many works do you have on AO3? Sixty-nice. NICE.

What is your total AO3 word count? Oh I'm definitely not calculating that.

How many fandoms? On AO3 I have the MCU (I do count that as one), X-Men movies (which are a different studio even if they're the same aggregate universe), Good Omens, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Man from UNCLE (I count the movie and TV series as one because I only saw the movie because I liked the show), the Pendergast series, and a couple of odd one-shots like Les Miz, a Sherlock/H2G2 crossover, Mission: Impossible, and two fairytale stories based off songs. So that's 8 main fandoms, 4 smaller fandoms, and 2 that are basically originals. And of course I'm not counting stuff I wrote that's on Fanfiction.Net that I haven't transferred over to AO3 although I probably should if I can log in--I wrote stuff for Pokemon, Smallville, Star Trek, Animorphs, and Harry Potter as a baby fan, along with some I likely don't remember.

Top 5 fics by kudos: "Semi-Charmed Life," a Man from UNCLE movie fic that takes a highly unserious look at sex addiction: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4619289. I inspired a cross-stitch with this fic. Title inspiration: 3rd Eye Blind. "Like Water Flowing Underground," a Back to the Future fic that takes all the "Marty not fitting into his well-adjusted rich family" angst I wanted to and puts it into a story: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296938 Title Inspiration: The Talking Heads, "the whisper of the wind and the words of the woods," an MCU fic where Thor is actually a god and takes Steve to watch him end a drought: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406564 Title inspiration: Korpiklaani "Kisses Like Awkward Flowers," an MFU (TV) fic I wrote for a Down the Chimney holiday fic exchange: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5416481 This is about as cute as I get. "Stay Silent," a BttF fic I wrote in the Livejournal days that was inspired by a comic DrWorm drew: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452638 This might be as cute as I get, actually. The fic unfortunately doesn't have the picture. I had no idea you could do that when I uploaded it.

Do you respond to comments? I didn't used to, but now I'm generally trying to. Etiquette has changed.

Angstiest ending? "five uncontrolled experiements in runaway fission" straight up ends with Holtzmann dying of radiation poisoning: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7738957

Do you write crossovers? Occasionally. I'm more likely to sneak in a subtle cameo or make a reference than I am to write a traditional crossover.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? I wrote a fic for "The Giver" (on FFN) that was extremely mild Asher/Jonas that freaked a lot of people the fuck out. I wrote a Smallville fanfic that someone called a "spayed-feminist rant." I got a lot of hate behind my back for my George/Marty stuff but very little to my face. Someone fucking HATED the way I used Hebrew on an X-Men fic that they argued with me for multiple paragraphs about it. And recently I got a comment on that Bucky/Tony "Good Place" fusion prompt fill that read "go fuck yourself retard" from "stuckygirl" which really just made me laugh because who does that anymore?

Do you write smut? What kind? Oh yeah I write a lot of smut. It's about half M/M with the rest split evenly between F/M and F/F.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I have never had my work stolen before!

Co-written a fic? Several, and it was always a fun experience! I used to write smutifc with DrWorm over IM and post it to a secret alternate Livejournal we shared. I've co-written Pendergast smut as well, lol, but it's not on AO3. On AO3, I've co-written one fic with Anakin McFly about tea and one with @iwilltrytobereasonable about friendship :)

All-time fsvorite ship? Looks like I've written more Illya/Napoleon fics than anything! They are honestly a very reliable ship--there is never anyone in the show as important to them as each other. Their relationship changes and grows over the course of the show, so you can write them as senior agent/younger agent, two people getting to know each other, boyfriends who adore each other, boyfriends who are getting really frustrated with each other and are at the point of having an actual rivalry, two highly competent and devoted partners who are everything to each other, MARRIED, exes reconciling, or you can have an AU where they hhhhate each other because Napoleon is a con man and Illya has Issues and make it into a movie if you like.

First fandom you wrote for? My FIRST EVER EVER fanfic that i posted online is now the basic concept for "Star Trek: Prodigy." I in turn ripped it off from "Space Cases." Who the fuck DOESN'T want to steal a spaceship with their besties?

Favorite fic you've ever written? how can you ask me to choose among my many, many children? this is so hard. uh, I think if I ever chose one fanfic to put in a published anthology of fanfic for a fandom it would be "Feather": https://archiveofourown.org/works/33363 It's a Pendergast fic I wrote for Yuletide and I'm really freaking proud of it. It came out even better than I wanted it to and expressed all of the themes and motifs I was struggling to articulate.

[nightklok]

(Metalrat) *kicks down your door* Picklegail!!! For the ship ask. :D If not them, uh... Pickles x Toki?

For all i’ve been talking about Picklegail recently I haven’t done an ask like this for them so hell yea :D

What made you ship it?

Honestly-it was two things;

 What really got the gear in motion, was spite-

I had noticed that during ship asks like this one, people would jot down Pickles/Abigail as a NOTP which is totally fine to do so but seeing that for the first time made me wonder why that was the case? (I didn't feel like even the show’s canon gave a good reason tbh but honestly, that’s probably the case fdsjdkf-) I searched the highs and los of AO3, FFN, and even Livejournal hoping to find some Pickles/Abigail fics but according to my searching and friends who have been around awhile, no one wrote fics on them? It honestly felt like there could be potential if people gave a chance!!

My conclusion, in the end, was to simply ship them instead of labeling it as a NOTP and not thinking much of it-and boy I fell down the rabbit hole fast-

And second, I had honestly always been intrigued by the ship but never took it farther than a passing thought until recently. I am taking my sweet time rewatching the series but rewatching hatredy made me wonder if things would’ve been different if Pickles had worn the blue suit in Going Downklok to make her laugh? I do think it would’ve been a nice callback to that episode since that episode was basically just Pickles having anxiety and low self-esteem over not being funny and having one person who could laugh at his attempt at a joke? that’s cute-

And yeah with those things I began developing them and pretty pleased with where I am now-

What are your favorite things about the ship?

trans male/strong female, tol female/smol male, bi female/bi male representation is needed-

Abigail and Pickles are both stubborn people who do in the end just want to get shit done quickly enough to move on. They both have extensive knowledge of the industry and I think he would be the easiest person to have recording sessions for (and obviously because less time in the studio means more time with her doing ‘fun’ things like...playing Animal Crossing) Pickles being an emotional person to begin with being with someone who does seem to be serious or not be as expressive through emotions is such a good match to me. I feel like Pickles could bring Abigail out of her comfort zone enough to learn that she doesn’t need to be entirely serious around the boys and that sometimes a little emotion is what helps get through to them the most.  

Abigail I feel can unintentionally get Pickles to become a bit more responsible and focused on what he needs to do. They are both grown adults and they definitely know themselves quite a lot better so it’s best to let the other do what they’ve done before unless they ask for help or they notice that maybe there’s an easier way to do things. She’s very punctual about things which in turn would get Pickles to start doing the same-it became an easy habit to pick up on but it’s just the little things that help them improve each other!

There is also something about the music producer and former 80s hair metal singer that makes me feel some type of way-the potential history of them together, the fact that it seems implied Abigail had been in the industry for quite a long time too! I feel like they could begin a genuine friendship based off trading stories about the industry, subtly telling good stories they heard about the other in between but they never downright say it until one of them slips the name and guess that’s been their version of flirting all along

And also, I recently realized that there are some really tragic undertones of pairing them together since Pickles never even seemed to pursue any relationships of any kind even though it’s implied he would’ve wanted to? And Abigail is an amazing singer with clearly years of vocal training under her belt, she managed to get into the music industry but yet as a music producer. And Pickles is just as amazing as well, but yet it’s clear that the fame hadn’t really worked to his favor. Am I spoiling a wip that will be finished in 5000 years? Yes, yes I am

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

Since I am the captain of this ship, all my opinions are popular. But I guess in general (if you want to) give ships you never thought much about a chance! Spin a wheel with different characters and see if the first two results will be a good ship. You might be surprised by the results!

#thejollybeardcollection #this was so long im sorry i dont even think i got all my thoughts on the ship #since a majority of what i feel is based off future wip fsljk #hope this makes sense! #picklegail

[sabulana]

Fifteen Years of Fandom and Fanfiction

It has been fifteen years to the day since I posted my first fanfiction online. 

Which is kind of. Wow. 

Like really. Wow.

And now, because I get long and rambly at this point, the rest is under the read more

I never thought I would last this long. I was reading Final Fantasy 7 fic at the time, because that is one of my Forever Fandoms, my first real fandom, the one I can always return to and it just feels like home. 

I admit, I wasn’t very good. I was fifteen. I hadn’t attempted writing any fanfiction before. It wasn’t my first attempt at writing, but it was the first thing I ever shared with anyone. 

(The first thing I ever tried writing was a story about a talking hamster named Tallulah. It lacked any kind of plot structuring and I was basically just rambling on the page, but I loved it. Half of it is scrawled in pencil on wide-ruled pages, and the rest was typed on an old typewriter that everyone in the house could hear my using. My grandad used to stop in my room and ask when I was going to get published whenever he heard it.)

Anyway, this first fanfic I wrote is still up online. It’s still terrible. It’s short and badly written, and in the entire fifteen years it’s been up online, there have only been 524 hits recorded on Fanfiction.net and only 1 review, which was posted a couple years after the story went up online. 

The story can be found here.

What followed after was what every teenage girl writing fanfiction does: creating OCs! I had a couple fics with a bunch of different OCs (girls and guys, but mostly girls, and mostly they were all the same) and I was trying to write them all at once and .... yeah, none of it went well. I’ve taken those stories down now, but I still have the email alerts of all the reviews. (I still do this. Even if my stories vanish from the internet, I will always have the feedback I got. That’s how much it means to me.)

I have a folder in my Yahoo email with 859 emails of reviews, good and bad, and another 107 reviews in my gmail account. 

I remember people asking me questions about things they felt I should have included in the chapters, but that I was trying to wait to reveal until later. I remember being told there were too many characters to keep track of. I remember people being mean, and people trying to be helpful and people who liked it and encouraged me to keep at it.

I branched out into the Jak and Daxter fandom after that. More terrible writing, but my first attempts at romance, at ‘teh yaoi’, because it was 2004 and I was that kind of person. It’s embarrassing, but at least I know that now. (God. I’m so embarrassed by my past self. I feel I need to apologise for her constantly right now).

Jak and Daxter is another one of my home fandoms now. I made so many friends during the couple years I was so active in that fandom. I’ve lost track of most of the friends I made since. Some vanished altogether, some ventured into other fandoms and we grew apart, but I’ll never forget them. And of course, there’s my dearest @ecojak who I’m still friends will even now (love you bby!) and not to forget @pantlesswerewolf you were there too, right?

My experience of Jak and Daxter fandom was completely different to that I experienced in Final Fantasy 7 fandoms. For one, I had more contact with other writers. We had forums to talk on. We all reviewed each others fics and offered help and advice. There’s a chapter of what was one of my favourite J&D stories somewhere that’s dedicated to me as I was the mother-figure to all Jak/Torn writers, or something like that. I was 16 at the time, and I’m still incredibly touched by the gesture. 

I also got banned from FFN a couple times, first because they decided that one of my series should have been a multi-chapter fic when I hadn’t intended it to be that way at first. It was just going to be a couple of one-shots. Then there were more. And then I got banned. :/ The second time was because I wrote a songfic and didn’t take it down when FFN banned songfics. 

(Do people still do those? I have no idea. Oh well.)

Most of all though - I improved my writing. I kept at it. Even when people didn’t like what I was writing, other people did. More to the point, I enjoyed writing. I loved the games, and I wanted to show it by writing more stories, and sharing my love in that way.

I sort of faded out after a while though. I went on holiday for two weeks without internet, came back to find there had been some bullshit drama in my absence and... I don’t remember much of the rest,

I moved on.

I played new games, I read fanfiction in new fandoms. I contributed a bit. I stalled on writing fanfiction, but I was introduced to roleplaying on Livejournal. I’m still sad to have had to give that up, but I had a year of internet trouble and it just wasn’t possible to keep up. Now though, I don’t think I would throw myself into it again like I did before. It was a lot of fun, and it really helped me with things like character development and really getting into characters’ minds but it also consumed my free time completely. I did little else for years of my life.

But now I am an adult, and I must do Adult Things, like work and pay my mortgage and organise my wedding and shop for food because stocking the kitchen is now a thing I must do if I want to eat. (Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to wander into the kitchen and think ‘there’s nothing to eat’ in front of a fridge and cupboard full of ingredients I bought and then remember that I’m the moron who forgot to buy snacks? Ugh...)

But fandoms keep calling me. I still write fanfiction, even after 15 years. I make friends and read awesome stories that are posted online for free because other people around the world want to share their ideas and love for these games, books, movies, tv shows, whatever - just that same as I do. I keep improving, too. Compare my latest story with my first. The difference is obvious. The difference is why that embarrassing first story is still online - a marker of how far I’ve come. 

And yeah, there’s plenty of stuff out there that’s better than the stuff I’m writing now after all my improvements. But I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as I am now (at least, compared to that first story, yes?) if I had given up. If I had let a few bad reviews drive me away. If I let people tell me that fanfiction was just a waste of time - why do something if you’re not making money off it, after all?

I have started my own original novel though. I’m putting 15 years of writing practice into it. I’m putting in all my years of reading and learning from example into it. It’s not finished yet, and it’s not perfect, but it’s better than my rambling story about Tallulah the Talking Hamster, and I would never have considered even attempting to write it if not for fanfiction.

My point in all this? I’m a 30 year old woman who is not ashamed of writing fanfiction, who is glad to write fanfiction, and is really quite proud of how far I’ve come in terms of skill right now. I mean, yeah, who doesn’t have wobbles of self-confidence, but that’s why I’ve kept every single review alert I’ve ever received in my inbox.

So if anyone out there reading this is just starting out in fandom - any fandom - go take a look at that first fic. Maybe you think you write better. Maybe you think you could write better, if only you weren’t afraid to try. Maybe you do write better, and you’ve never written a story before in your life. My point is - do it. Even if you think you’ll fail. Even if you get some negative feedback. Write, and keep writing. Draw, and keep drawing. Make cosplays and edit videos and do whatever it is you do and don’t stop. Because you’ll never get better if you stop. 

#writing #fanfiction #fandom #would really appreciate this being read #though i'm sorry for the length #it's a little personal #but i wanted to get this off my chest #i got sappy at the end #sorry about that

[olicityficbang]

Olicity Fic Big Bang 2017

Important Dates:

Sign-Ups Open: Wednesday, February 1 Sign-Up Deadline: Tuesday, February 28 First Check-In: Friday, March 24 [10,000 words due] Beta/Artist Assignments By: Saturday, April 1 Second Check-In: Friday, April 21 [20,000 words due] Third Check-In: Wednesday, May 17 [Rough Draft Due (un-betaed/unedited)] Posting Begins: Thursday, June 1

*All deadlines will be strictly enforced! Anyone that does not contact @runawayminds by each deadline will be removed from the OFBB.

_______________________________________________________________________

- If you need some inspiration, check out the Olicity Prompts Blog for a variety of pictures, quotes, and song prompts, as well as prompts from users on Tumblr.

- All ratings are allowed.

- No non-DC crossovers or RPF.

- Fanart is welcome (includes all formats and medias - which includes vids, manips, traditional art, digital art, movie-style posters, and book covers.).

- Any character or ship bashing will result in immediate removal from the ficbang.

- 25,000 words is the minimum length for each story. There is no upper limit. Stories can be written with a partner or by a single author; the minimum word count is still 25,000 words, no matter how many people are involved.

- Participants must check-in with admin and have 40% of the word count (10,000 words) by the first check-in, 80% of the word count (20,000 words) by April 21, and have the completed story, with at least 25K words by May 17. Authors will receive an email 7-10 days before each check-in. First and second check-ins will require a simple response with your current word count. Failure to meet word count both times will result in your removal from the OFBB. The third and final check-in will require a copy of your unbetaed fic to be emailed to the admin. No exceptions!

- Stories must have at least one beta reader. If you do not have a beta when the fic bang begins, you will be required to submit a detailed summary by the day of the first check-in (March 24).

- Sequels are great! If you write a sequel to something you’ve written in the past, include a link to the original story in your author’s notes, so people can read from the beginning if they haven’t already.

- This challenge is for new stories. If your story has appeared online, it is not eligible for this fic bang.

- In order for your story to qualify for this challenge, you cannot post it anywhere online until the due date. On that day, you can post it wherever you’d like - FFN, AO3, Tumblr, your personal website, or anywhere else - and link to it here. Just don’t put it up before the reveal. (Posting details will be given closer to that time.)

- Rough drafts are due on May 17. A rough draft is a document with a beginning, middle, and end; it must be complete, but does not have to be beta read at this point. Stories must be submitted by this date.

- If you’d like to sign up with another author, a specific beta, or a specific artist, you will fill out the same sign-up form on Google Docs as the rest, but be sure to indicate who you’re working with on the form. Make sure to follow the OFBB tumblr - all check-ins and reminders will come through here, so you’ll have to watch us to stay informed. We’ll send a confirmation message no more than 48 hours after we get your sign-up

- If you have any questions please contact me through the OFBB Tumblr Ask Box.

- Finally, Sign ups close February 28 so be sure to submit your sign-up application by then!

Thanks to the Marvel Big Bang on LiveJournal for the basic format of these guidelines!

#OFBB 2017 #OFBB Guidelines #OFBB Rules #admin: runawayminds

[veliseraptor]

got tagged for two fic writer memes yesterday! the one from @ameliarating first:

How many works do you have on AO3?

509.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

3,432,24. dang! that’s a lot of words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I have written for...counting the MCU as one fandom, on AO3 I have written for 32 fandoms, including at least one work in:

MCU, The Sillmarillion, Caliban Leandros, both DC and Marvel Comics, the book Barebacked by Kit Whitfield, Doctrine of Labyrinths, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Black Jewels, Dragon Age, Lucifer, Dexter, Temeraire, Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Supernatural, A Song of Ice and Fire, Greek Mythology, Lymond Chronicles, Merlin BBC, Code Geass, Good Omens,  Death Note, and White Collar.

this is not a comprehensive list of every fandom I’ve ever written for, because it is not including ones that live only on FFN or Livejournal.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Life In Reverse tops the list (11066), aka my 200k Loki-centric post-Thor AU fic that I wrote between 2012 and 2018 and with which I have a decidedly complex relationship at this point. I love it but also I no longer think it’s my best work but also I credit it with teaching me a fuck of a lot about writing and writing longer projects in general.

With Absolute Splendor is rapidly catching up, to my astonishment (6559), despite having been posted for less than half as long. Aka the wedding planning fic that’s really just me mucking about in my Jiang Cheng and my Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian feelings, at length.

some good mistakes (4618) was my first foray into the Untamed version of “characters who hate each other going on resentful roadtrips together, feat. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng.” I have gone on to write others and will continue to write more.

Unraveling (3069) is a little bit of a surprise but also not - it was originally just sort of WWP stuff for my ‘what if people remembered that blunt force trauma is a really bad thing actually’ problem that pops up sometimes, re: Loki at the end of The Avengers, and then it kind of turned into a whole thing. I personally think it’s the weakest of the installments of the series it belongs to, but it is the first one and also the one that gets least into the broader family dysfunction and depression stuff that probably is less everyone’s thing (but is what came out this fic that mattered more to me, personally).

I am a little surprised to see Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains (3068) here too! I was expecting one of the more...idk, mainstream concepts from the MCU to win out? But I also wasn’t expecting two Untamed fics to make it here, either. But I am stupid proud of this fic even if it is very extraordinarily unfinished. This is one of those unfinished fics that will nag at me unless and until I finish it, at least a little, because the concept - if I do say so myself - is so goddamn good and I think I was executing it pretty well, too.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Pretty much never. I was never very good at it and now I’d feel like I had to go back and reply to all of them and I just. I can’t do that. and when I do try to just start at the beginning I get overwhelmed very fast and start avoiding it.

Basically I decided that if it’s a decision between wrestling with myself to reply to comments versus actually doing more writing I’m going to end up landing on the latter as feeling both more doable and more productive.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably it’s The Worlds Forgotten, the Words Forbidden for sheer level of “so then what was the point” of it all. but like. I’ve definitely written a few extraordinarily miserable fics, and by “a few” I kind of mean “a lot.” Other nominees I’d put down might be nor autumn falter (for currently personally making me suffer most), once there was a way to get back home (for I think having the ouchiest summary), and Waiting for the Summer Rain (which remains one of my personal favorite Supernatural fics I wrote).

but like. there are 43 fics I have marked with Major Character Death warnings and every single one of those, pretty much, has a downer ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written several though not in a long time! My craziest probably remains the Morgoth/Cthulhu short I wrote that actually got sporked because someone took it seriously (???) enough to do that. But the craziest that actually has any merit, (I’d argue) is probably the Maeglin/Viserys one.

not linking to either, if you want to go find them I don’t think it’ll be that hard.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, a few times on a few different things. More if you count “people who seem to like the fic but love telling you how much they hate the female characters you’re writing about in it” as ‘hate’ which I would but isn’t, you know, quite as straightforward. If I had a nickel for every time someone bitched about Jane in Life in Reverse, though...lots of nickels.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sure do! But what does ‘what kind’ mean, I don’t know how to answer that question. I feel tempted to just put in my “Mike’s Hard Kinks” image edit in this space.

I guess usually I tend to write smut that at least involves a little bit of a kink? I don’t think I’d feel comfortable writing entirely kinkless smut. I think I’d feel weird about it, the same way I do when I write really nice fic, generally.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I did back when but I don’t remember anything about it. I feel like it was one of those mass data scraping things where my fic happened to be among those caught up in it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! several actually, mostly into Russian and Chinese. every time it happens I’m immensely flattered that someone wants to put in that kind of work on something I wrote.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I think I’d be very, very bad at it.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Depends on when you ask me! I could probably give you a top five but then I’d remember six that I forgot to mention five minutes later. I guess if I were to think about ships that feel like they hold very special particular places in my heart... Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Steve Rogers/Loki, and Min/Rand come to mind.

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

oh god do you want the whole list cause honestly I could just like. screencap the entirety of my “in progress” folder with a crying emoji watermarked over it. and that’s not getting into the fics that are like...half formed babies in my consciousness but not anywhere on paper.

and also I just hate to admit that I might not finish something.

you know what? the Lucifer/Good Omens crossover I started would’ve been a lot of fun. I’m probably never going to finish it, but it would’ve been great if I had. I know other people did it too but my contribution could’ve been amazing.

I can say this very boldly with the near certainty that I’m not going to finish the fic so no one will be able to disagree.

(...also the Last Herald-Mage fix it. that was going to be a good fic too, and also will probably languish unfinished forever.)

What are your writing strengths?

I’m pretty sure dialogue is my strongest point. Dialogue and emotions, which is why I always end up just wanting to write about characters talking and having feelings at each other.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing action sequences throws me into conniptions every time I have to do it and I will take drastic actions sometimes to avoid doing it at all, which probably weakens the work as a whole.

Also, I don’t plan ahead and this means I write myself into corners kind of a lot. If I wasn’t writing long, dense fic it wouldn’t be a problem but here we are.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I tend to avoid it unless it’s in the context of, as in CQL/MDZS fic, leaving certain terminology untranslated. I’m pretty sure I almost never write full exchanges of dialogue in a different language than I’m using for the narration within a fic, and generally speaking my reaction to other people doing it is at least mildly negative.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter was technically the first fandom I wrote for, but it was a crack fic I wrote to make my friends laugh more than anything; I tend to count Wheel of Time as my first actual fandom for which I wrote my first actual fic.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

some days the answer is “all of them” and some day the answer is “I don’t like anything I’ve written in my entire life” and I never like giving this a definitive answer. yesterday I reread efforts in a common cause (the bound copy!! thanks @spockandawe) and you know what, that was a good fic and I’m proud of it, so I’m going with that one, for this meme, today.

tagging: @mostfacinorous, @jaggedcliffs, @silvysartfulness, @mikkeneko, @kasasagi-eye, @curiosity-killed, how many people am I supposed to tag for this one anyway

#lise memes #confessions of a frustrated writer