#you don't get ao3 house style without ao3 itself and you don't get ao3 without strikethrough and livejournal etc

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

#this is probably my most pretentious fanfiction defense squad post but it's difficult to express in other terms #like. people talking about ao3 house style (not always by name but clearly referring to it) as a result of fanfic as a form #and not the social/cultural effect of ao3 as a fandom space #you don't get ao3 house style without ao3 itself and you don't get ao3 without strikethrough and livejournal etc #and you don't get those without authors and corporations trying to exercise control over fic based on law (often us law) & myths about law #and you don't get those without distinctly modern concepts of intellectual property and copyright #none of those things have fuck all to do with form! #anghraine rants #fanfiction #general fanwank #long post #thinking about this partly because the softer & gentler versions of fanfic discourse keep crossing my dash #and partly because i've written like 30 pages about a playwright i adore who was just not very good at 'original fiction' as we'd define it #both his major works are ... glorified rpf in our context but splendid tragedies in his #and the idea of categorizing /anything/ in that era by originality of conception rather than comedy/tragedy/etc would be buckwild #ivory tower blogging #anghraine's meta

[3wizemen]

Rapture - Chapter 2

word count: 2597

rating: mature

read on ao3

previous chapter

- ☉ -

The rest of the weekend passed easily, moved along by beer and TV. Miami Vice had come to the Family Video on VHS, and Robin and Steve had spent the better part of the weekend watching it. Robin loved the way the characters dressed in that show. If only she could get her hands on some of their colorful suits.

Sadly, instead, she was now donning the new uniform required of them at the Party Palace. A polo shirt covered in baby pinks and blues, the back boasting the place's logo. It was cute, Robin supposed—a big silvery castle with the dragon, unicorn, and lion mascots smiling big in front of it. The same logo was advertised on the breast of the shirt. Robin turned around in the mirror and grimaced. Do it for the two bucks, Robin.

"Breakfast's ready, Rob!" Steve's voice came from the kitchen, gliding along on the rich smell of some good cookin'. "Hurry up, I don't want you eating in the car again and getting syrup everywhere!"

"That was one time, Harrington!" Robin gave herself one more rushed look in the beat-up vanity she'd found sat out on the side of the road weeks prior. Mascara's fine, eyeliner's fine. The rest? Eh. There was no use fretting over trivial things like appearance when she was clad in the Party Palace's finest, anyway. The act of putting on makeup was a feat for Robin.

Steve was sitting in the armchair, poking at a plain pancake without much interest. A plate was already set out for her, two pancakes and a bunch of scrambled eggs piled together and covered in syrup. After moving in together, her best friend quickly learned what Robin's favorite breakfast was and made it whenever he felt it essential enough to or felt like practicing his pancake shapes. Today, they were almost hearts. Almost. "Thanks, Stevie," She said as she picked up the plate and went to sit on the couch. They really needed to get some stools for the kitchen island, small as it was.

"Ready for work?" Steve asked as Robin began cutting up her food, swirling his pancake around on his plate.

"I dunno," shrugged the other. "I mean, look at these uniforms," She motioned to herself, then to Steve, who was dressed in the same getup as her. He was rocking it ever so slightly more than her; a common problem.

"I know," Steve laughed. "And I mean…those robots, man. I don't know how long I'm gonna last."

"Gross."

"Eugh, not that way, weirdo," Steve scrunched up his face. "I mean, like, they're creepy as shit."

"Whatever you say," Robin shoveled some pancake into her mouth, then waved her fork at him. "I mean, we've faced down literal wizard Satan, Steve. You can put your big boy pants on for some robots."

"You can't tell me those animatronic things aren't freaky," Steve huffed. 

"Okay, sure, I'll admit that wittle Stevie thinks the wobots are scawy."

He wasn't wrong , but boy, did Robin love giving Steve shit for stupid things. The Party Palace had somehow thought it a great idea to bring in three show animatronics to fit its new fantasy theme, which was a bold choice in itself after the whole Hellfire scandal just a few months ago. The robots were the mascots; a big red dragon, a crowned lion, and a near-sickeningly feminine unicorn. They weren't pleasant to look at—Robin had gotten a good look at them when she and Steve went in for their interviews, and she really couldn't wrap her head around why any kid would enjoy them. Their plastic faces, pelt-over-skeleton bodies, and sightless eyes weren't too appealing. Maybe they reminded kids of Disneyland or something. Robin had never been.

The haven for Robin and Steve's kids had been turned into some Medieval Times/Showbiz hybrid—some of the arcade machines and cabinets had been cleared to make room for tables suited for big parties, even a few booths for smaller groups. The arcade games themselves had mostly been replaced with more kiddie-style ones, and a big stage had been constructed to house the three big robots. Said robots watched over all patrons of the fine establishment, their blank faces seeing all. The decor had become that of a fairy tale castle, with big murals depicting shiny castles with princesses and knights fighting dragons, all with weird arcade motifs intertwined. Robin found herself staring at these murals half an hour after breakfast as she and Steve waited for their boss to come and tell them what to do.

"You think we're just supposed to figure it out for ourselves?" Robin leaned in and muttered to her best friend.

Before Steve could respond, a tall, skinny man strolled in from the back. He looked kind of like a Hawkins Brian May—he had big, black, curly hair tumbling down to his shoulders, framing a gruff face with kind brown eyes, and was dressed in similar garb as them. The only real difference was the name tag fastened to his shirt that read Derek Quest - Owner . "Hey, dudes!" said the man, a big grin flashing across his face. "Welcome to your first day at the Party Palace."

"Thanks," Steve said, and Robin nodded in agreement. 

"No problemo," Derek reached into his pocket and then retrieved a name tag with a flourish. He slid it in between his fingers to reveal that it was actually two, each one bearing one of their names with the subtitle Party Person printed in an ostentatious old-timey font. "Welcome to the team, Party People. I'll be doing your tour, since no one else is gonna be here for another hour and a half when we actually begin opening."

Derek let the pair follow him to the market stall-esque register and prize counter, where he enthusiastically explained the ticket prices for various shit-quality toys and candy along with the dollar-to-token ratio. Manning the counter would be the majority of their job, he said. However, they still had to see the whole deal, so he then led them to the show stage, as he called it, where he discussed the animatronics with even more enthusiasm.

"These here, they're the main attraction, my friends," Derek said, wonder seeping into his voice as he approached the show stage, leading them up a short, roped-off stairway and through drawn curtains to stand level with the robots.

The robots were a lot taller than Robin thought they'd be—they were partially obscured by the tacky castle-y decor cluttering the stage, so it was hard to make out their true size. The things stood at least five and three-quarters feet. It was kind of freaky to stand next to such large, humanoid things that were just…standing there lifelessly, but they seemed kind of cool, in a fucked up way. It was strange to see something like this in Hawkins. It piqued Robin's curiosity for sure.

"So, this is King the Lion, Diana the Unicorn, and Rex the Dragon," Derek motioned to each as he fondly introduced them like he'd introduce a close friend. The machines were set up in a triangle formation, with the lion in the center flanked by the dragon on its left and the unicorn on its right. Each held a prop—the lion held an ornate scepter, the unicorn a lute, and the dragon a horn. "They're great, right?" He said, grinning.

"They're really something," Steve said, obviously unnerved, but Robin was already taking a few steps around the animatronics to survey them.

Upon initial inspection, it seemed like the robots were just fur suits draped over some kind of machinery, judging by their skin-and-bones appearance up close. Their feet didn't appear to be mechanized, but it looked like their torsos, arms, and head could move around. It was interesting to look at—it was like a big Halloween costume, but stranger, with more pieces hiding beneath the disguise. "Did you build these yourself?"

Robin was still inspecting the animatronics, but she could practically hear Derek light up when asked. "I did! It took years to finalize their designs, but I think I finally got it down…they look good, don't they? I wanted to make them look like the mascot costumes kids like, but able to operate on their own, and perform a pre-recorded number. And you wanna know the best part?" 

She turned to him and nodded, withholding a smirk as Steve shook his head at her behind the other man, who was oblivious to his discomfort. She found the man's excitement almost endearing, in a weird way. She often got excited about things people weren't very interested in or thought were odd, as did a lot of her kids. There were stranger things going on than a man who spent his life trying to build the ultimate children's entertainment robot, after all. At least he had a somewhat wholesome goal.

Derek's grin widened and he took a step toward the closest machine, the unicorn, Diana. "I named her after the princess, you know. Thought it was a royal name, and Princess Diana's kind of hot," He commented with a chuckle as he pulled apart the back of the unicorn's fur coating, tearing apart metal button clasps to reveal the mess of wires and metal rods within it. It felt wrong; like he was disrobing it. "This here's the endoskeleton. It's what gives her structure and lets her move. It's like our bones, hence the name," He said happily, pulling at parts of the thing's inner workings. Robin and Steve watched as the unicorn's arms fell slack and loose, as did its neck, its heavy head lolling to its chest. Derek withdrew two mechanical bone arms and what looked a little like a spine. "All three of the animatronics have removable spines and arms so that they can be operated as puppets. I want to eventually make them wearable, you know, like full suits that can have their whole skeletons taken out and put back in whenever," As an example, he stuck his own arms into the now empty suit arms, moving its hands to wave and give an energetic thumbs up.

"Oh, jeez, that's really cool," Robin said, and she kind of meant it. It was cool to see the crazy things other people got up to, and it was nice to know her now-boss seemed to be passionate about the whole deal instead of just being in it for the money. Unlike her and Steve, who was looking rather disgusted at the sight of this man ripping the bones out of the fuzzy mascots.

"Isn't it?" Derek smiled. "I feel like it's such a cool concept that places like Showbiz haven't really explored. I mean, the suits and the animatronics are just always separate. It's a waste of material and money, really."

Robin nodded along as the man continued enthusing about his creations, but Steve eventually butted in, "So, are we going to have to…operate the puppet parts? Or even do repairs on these things?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Derek shook his head with an entertained smile. "I'm the only one I trust to work on these machines right now. And until the place gets more attention and I can afford to hire more folks, you'll have to be on the floor, not up here. I may eventually need you to do some maintenance, but that won't be for a while, and you'll need some extensive training beforehand."

Steve deflated with relief and Robin chuckled. Derek motioned for them to follow once more and led them to the back, where they were shown the snack bar-turned-kitchen (of course, they wouldn't be cooking, but it was good to see the lay of the land), the break room, and, lastly, the storage room.

The storage room was a weird place—it seemingly doubled as Derek's workshop, with a few folding tables full of toolboxes and animatronic parts hidden within a maze of boxes, extra chairs, and retired arcade cabinets. "I know it's a bit messy, but I sadly don't have room in my apartment for all my tinkering, so I've set up shop here, for now," The older man shrugged. "Those boxes over there labeled ‘STUFF' are all the extra merchandise, and these ones called ‘FLOOR STUFF' are things for the floor area, like tablecloths and napkin replacements and stuff like that. The ones labeled ‘SHIT' are actually cleaning supplies."

"Good system," Robin remarked, and Derek laughed. 

"Oh, before I forget!" The older man went and reached into one of the ‘STUFF' boxes and withdrew two paper crowns, the laminate made shiny to take on the appearance of gold. They were kind of like Burger King crowns but instead bore the castle logo of the Party Palace. "The last part of your uniform."

"Oh, man," Steve said with false excitement, and Robin almost snorted. No, no, she had to be the good one, as she always was in every job she worked with Steve. Always the straight man, ironic as that was.

- ↻ ⧖ ↺ -

After receiving their crowns, the brand-new employees of the Party Palace Pizza Place were dropped by the counter by Derek and left to their own devices to figure out the registers and read through the prize catalog for the last fifteen minutes before the place opened right at 11:30.

Robin was pressing buttons on the register and making receipts just to see how fast it would take to print them (the Family Video register took way too long to print receipts) as Steve got the lay of all the prizes set out above and beneath the counter. Derek had retreated to the back, saying he needed to unlock it to let the kitchen staff in, so they were on their own in the empty arcade.

She could see Steve scan the large room for him before leaning over and incredulously whispering, "Were you really interested in those crazy robots, or just humoring him?" 

"Is it so bad that I admire a man with hobbies?" Robin didn't look up from the register, typing BOOBS out with 8s and 0s.

"Bullshit. You admire no man, Buckley."

She turned to glare at him. He'd been good about not telling anyone about her little secret, but boy, did he make her nervous when he commented on it, even when no one was around. Habit, she guessed. "I mean, I just think it's fun for people to have weird hobbies, you know? Just like the kids and their D&D."

"I guess, but that's just a board game. This is like, this guy's making whole robot things," Steve said conspiratorially. 

"Oh, come on, if you hated it so much, why'd you decide to work here?"

"It's two more bucks an hour," Steve replied quickly. "And once you left, Keith would have had my ass anyway."

"True," Robin nodded, then bumped her friend with her shoulder. "But come on, get over yourself, Harrington. They're just a bunch of machines, just like cars and toasters are."

"Cars and toasters don't have blank, unseeing eyes," Steve said lightly.

"I think they're kind of cute, in a fucked up way," Robin shrugged. "Kind of like Gremlins."

"Not at all like Gremlins," Steve said, and the clock reached 11:30. Open time. 

Robin watched him switch on the open sign and gave him a two-finger salute. "To our first day in the Robot Gremlin Kingdom."

"To our first day in the Crazy Robot Place," Steve rolled his eyes, moving back behind the counter, where they stood at attention, heralds of Party Palace fun!

#ronance #stranger things #fanfiction #read on ao3 #animatronics #fnaf #steve harrington #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #post s4 #3wizemenrapture

[olderthannetfic]

Hello! This may be an odd question, but I figure you've seen this situation a handful of times so I wanted to ask you. If I wanted to publish original fiction on AO3, and then later decided to publish it as a monetizable product, would that be an issue? Would I have to take it down from the site, or would that be more dependent on the publisher contract (if any)? Thanks for your time!

--

AO3 doesn't care what you do when you aren't on the site. You'd want to be careful not to talk about the for-pay aspect on AO3 itself, but other than that, the AO3 end of things is fine.

Publishers are going to vary in their approach. I've always been told that the big, mainstream publishers just won't touch anything that has been previously published online. There are exceptions like The Martian, but even in that case, the author self-published for money and was a bestseller before regular publishers were interested.

If you dream of a conventional publishing contract, I would not suggest the AO3-first approach.

The intermediate option is to go with a small press. A decade or two ago, these were a good option for more niche work. These days, they struggle hard to stay open because they really can't offer you a lot of extra value. It feels like every day I hear of another one messing up in a way that leaves book rights in limbo. In terms of mainstream cred, these aren't much different from self publishing. The big advantage would be if you don't want to do cover art or find your own editor--but I've also been extremely unimpressed at most of the cover art coming from small publishers, so...

This type of publisher might well consider works posted to AO3. I assume most of them would want you to take the work down, but it would be up to the specific contract. I would go with an indie publisher if you are writing in a niche you cannot easily market yourself and you find a publisher who is known for that. I'm not sure what niche that would actually be. Memoir with a narrow target demographic, maybe? Esoteric nonfiction, certainly, but you wouldn't be posting that to AO3.

Now, if you're writing what I strongly suspect you are, you should forget about all of the above. The current market for fandom-y sounding queer speculative fiction is selfpub.

A huge portion of the authors make money primarily through Kindle Unlimited, and an indie publisher would just eat up their profits without providing them any real benefit. Big publishers might be able to negotiate some good deal with Amazon, but dinky ones won't. If you're writing m/m, you're unlikely to get a movie deal anyhow, and if someone does approach you, you can look for an agent at that point.

If you're writing f/f, it does seem like a couple of the small presses have a devoted fanbase, but they also seem to have a pretty strong house style that you may or may not fit.

If you're writing mixed-sex poly, trans stories, or something else queer that isn't m/m or f/f, the small press that handled that was <3. It's dead. Other publishers will probably not be interested. I am seeing some trans m/m popping up in the selfpub kindle unlimited space. You could also track down the few findable examples of these other types of queer writing and see who the publisher is.

Not that you asked about all that, but basically, I suspect you will want to selfpub, and that means the answer is: Do whatever you want.

Will a free AO3 version harm the market for a paid selfpub version? Probably more than it would harm something coming out from a major publisher with a marketing budget. On the other hand, if you put the thing on KU, that's an all-you-can-read program, so each book is essentially free for a reader. You might not even have to take the AO3 version down to still make money.

Anyway, my advice is to give some serious thought now to how much you actually want to monetize later.

If you're pretty sure you do, I would plan for that from the beginning. OTOH, if posting to AO3 is the only way you can get yourself through a complete draft, then it doesn't matter whether it's a good or bad strategy since it's the only way you'll have a product at all.

If you're really just interested in posting to AO3 but you don't want to completely cut off the option of monetizing later, then you're good to go. AO3 doesn't care what you do as long as you aren't posting about it on the site.