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#i despair seeing people say they read 20 fics a day and comment on zero of them
mannatea · 1 year
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🔥 fandom
I find myself missing the days where fandom was a private experience more and more, by which I mean to say: I miss the concept of "friends only" journals and blogs. I miss when the pace of the Internet and therefore also fandom was slower. I miss when memes stayed relevant for months if not years. I miss when a new person entered fandom and everyone and their grandmother would outdo themselves trying to befriend them. I miss the community feeling of fandoms where you were almost proud to be a "contributing member" whether that was as a writer, a reader, an artist, an extremely cool contributor with other crafts, or a supportive friend.
I absolutely hate huge Discord servers where things are so busy and nothing stays on topic for long, and someone is always spamming @ everyone and there are so many people you can't form a bond with any of them. I hate how posting anything in fandom now is posting it publicly; it's no longer some fun write-up you did for your friends but something you have to also check over to make sure it's suitable for the entire fandom to read.
I hate how fandoms in general have moved away from giving creatives feedback on their art, especially authors. There are more people reading fanfiction than ever before but almost no one comments, not even to just say thanks, not even in some larger fandoms. This goes right back to missing the community feeling of fandom. I understand wanting easy rebloggable content, and I very much get having almost nothing in the proverbial tank at the end of the day to say witty things, but if you read something and you enjoyed it: say so.
I think people have forgotten that fandom, and sharing creative works with fandom, is a social experience, and this gets truer and truer the older you are and the better your craft gets. You don't get good, solid writers in fandom by ignoring them. They cannot thank you for your kudos. They certainly cannot thank you for your silence. If we were all after money we would strive to write professionally. If we we wrote merely for ourselves we would let our stories rot on our hard drives. Writers in fandom are looking to share and socialize with an audience. That has been the backbone of fandom and all creation in fandom for as long as fandom has been around.
And it feels very much like that is slipping away into anonymous obscurity where nobody wants to take the time to make a connection—however fleeting.
And then people wonder why their favorite authors stop writing. They legitimately do not understand! They express sadness. But when you go look at the stories they're sad about losing, they never took the time to even give the author one word of encouragement, and no writer writes forever for free.
Fandom has always been a delicate balancing act of those who make gifts and those who take them. The thing about taking a gift, though, is that you say thank you for it, and in fandom spaces giving thanks functions as a link. It's what keeps things balanced. It's what spurs further creation and further thanks. On and on, back and forth.
In recent years, with the Internet moving so fast and fandom along with it, we've lost those slow and meaningful connections.
Take heed:
You cannot marvel in the halls of creation for all eternity without giving something back. Eventually the walls and shelves will be bare and there will be nothing new to behold.
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wastelockwoes · 4 months
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20 questions for fic writers
I stole this from @chipper-daily 💚
I'm also terrible at tagging, so if you see this, consider yourself tagged :3
1. How many works do you have on Ao3?
Oh lord. Public - 21. Actual total uh... Oh fuck, 30 fics.
2. What's your total Ao3 word count?
378,162
3. What fandoms do you write for?
Currently IZ, I doubt that'll change anytime soon.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Suck (IZ, ZADR, NSFW)
Ready to Burn (IZ, ZADR, NSFW)
Get Down, Make Love (IZ, ZADR, NSFW)
Twisted Transistor (that's right, that's mine lmao) (IZ, ZADR, NSFW)
Seven Minutes In Heaven (IZ, ZADR, NSFW)
If you're sensing a theme, that's cuz you're right. I have brainrot. I wonder if anyone from my Silent Hill fic days even follow me on AO3 anymore lmao.
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I do! Unless I just genuinely can't think of a reply (i.e, someone makes a request for what they'd like to see happen in an In-Progress fic, and I know it's not gonna happen but don't want to accidentally come across as rude. If there's nothing else for me to reply to, I won't respond to that comment. Sorry!)
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
For IZ, it's Post-Blue for sure. For Silent Hill, despair and die has the worst ending of the two fics I wrote by far. Sorry Henry <3
7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Weirdly enough, I think most of my fics have happy endings? I say weird, because I'm not actually a happy ending kinda guy, but I do like to provide some sort of resolution since fic is predominantly something people turn to for entertainment.
That being said, I'd say Suck is probably my most hopeful ending, and that things genuinely stay pretty good for the lads in that AU barring the light kidnapping incident that occurs in the sequel.
8. Do you get hate on fics?
I have been wonderfully blessed so far, which means now I've written that and manifested it into the world, someone is gonna leave me an absolute ripper of a hate comment. Worst thing someone ever did was ask for an update on Suck after less than a month, while also calling me stinky.
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Nah.
JK, I write a lot. If you're over 18, go check it out yourselves <3
10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
Oh boy. Yes, I actually do enjoy writing crossovers, even though I never read them. I wanna write an actual IZxSilent Hill crossover sometime soon, but for now Prisonic Fairytale is the closest to achieving that (and desperately needs updating soon, sorry orz)
BUT, my first ever IZ fic was actually technically a crossover. The plot of Love Is A Verb is based on the film Wristcutters A Love Story, though things diverge a lot and the ending is very loosely based on both the film and the original novella that was based on called Kneller's Happy Campers. I only don't have it tagged as a crossover since I diverged so much from the film's plot halfway through the fic, and no characters from the film appear (or do they...?)
If you check that fic out, please mind the tags. There's a lot of very heavy themes in that fic.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
If I have, I have no idea, and tbh I'd probably rather not know.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
I have not!
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
The wonderful @chipper-daily and I currently have something in the works that you're all gonna love >:3c
14. What's your all-time favorite ship?
If you couldn't guess by now, it's Zim x Dib.
15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
Oof. Honestly, my Foodcourtia fic Enemy of the Fugue State. Because I started writing that as a total stream of consciousness kinda thing with zero outline, and my brain put on the breaks half-way through a goddamn sentence and I'm not sure how to get to where I wanna go next.
This isn't to say it's abandoned by any means! Just that I might need to go back to the drawing board with that one.
16. What are your writing strengths?
I like to think I'm good at writing dialogue?
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
I could be way more descriptive tbh.
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
All about it. Alas, I'm monolingual, so that's not something I can experiment with myself. Unless Dib or Zim ever go to France or Germany and need to ask to borrow a pen or something. In that case, I'm all set.
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Final Fantasy 7. It was terrible, and no longer exists. Cloud and Vincent got married at the Gold Saucer and that is literally the only details you'll ever get out of me. I was 13 xD
Tho getting super technical, the first 'fic' I ever wrote was a class creative writing assignment in Year 5, where I wrote about Digimon.
20. Favorite fic you've written?
I love all of my fics, else I wouldn't have written them! That being said, my favourite published fic is definitely Love Is A Verb 💚
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bookworm-2692 · 4 years
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Reader ask meme: A10, B6, C4 and D2?
Questions are from here!
A10: Who did you have your first fanfic-related conversation with? What was it about?
I… don’t remember? First irl conversation? Or online? Online would be someone from the Salad on Dreamwidth in the comments section in like 2014??? Real life… maybe my sister @adrift-in-eden or my friend @lebannabell or another friend who doesn’t use tumblr. Or maybe… wait I remember when I was young and my dad downloaded these “James Potter and the X” ebooks (here is the first on Goodreads), as well as Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality or something? It’s only now in hindsight that I realise they were fanfic lmao. I read the James Potter ones, I remember enjoying them. My dad talked about the Methods of Rationality all the damn time! He found it absolutely hilarious, tho I never read it. I think those would have been the first conversations about fanfic, given that I remember not knowing that term in those days (a couple of months ago my sister and I were talking about this fic at the beach in the ocean and my dad overheard some and started talking about Methods of Rationality again (bc we tried to make him go away by saying “hp fanfic” but he didn’t and instead started relating to us) and it wasn’t until that moment that I was like “hey that’s fanfic… those James Potter ebooks were also fanfic… wtf”, so I clearly didn’t know the term fanfic back when I first read them). 
Looking on the Goodreads now, JP1 was published 2007, JP2 in 2008, JP3 in 2010 and JP4 in 2013. JP5 wasn’t published until 2017. I definitely read 1-3 all at once, and definitely did not read #5. From the title on the Goodreads I feel like I recognise #4? Nope ok so I went into iBooks, and I have 1-3 but not 4 or 5. So my dad downloaded them somewhere in 2010-2013? I remember being disappointed it stopped at number 3 lmao. Trying to work out exactly, but all the other ones of his I read were published in 2008 so that doesn’t help. It was definitely after I read the whole series, and I know I started after the last book came out in 2008, and had definitely finished the series multiple times by year 5 or year 6 (2010/2011). So I would’ve read my first fanfic in maybe 2011 or 2012 lets say, at the age of like 12 or 13, and the first fanfic conversation would’ve been with my dad, and would have been about that fic he sent me lmao
B6: What is your favourite story trope? Why?
Um idk about trope?? But I really like stories where it’s like… one tiny thing changed, which changes the entire plot. Canon divergence fics. For Want Of A Nail I think it’s called on TV Tropes? Like all the NDRV3 fics where (spoiler alert) Akamatsu isn’t executed, because Saihara lies that he killed Amami and Monokuma rolls with it, or because he actually killed Amami, or instead Chapter 1 goes as canon, but instead Saihara is the second victim, or changes to Chapter 5: Saihara is Ouma’s hostage, or both Ouma and Momota are in the Exisal, or if they play by the rules in Chapter 6. I also really enjoy when canon mentions a thing happening, but not in any great detail, but then a fic goes over that event in great detail. For example, the First Nonary Game in Zero Escape, or the events of VLR from Phi’s POV, or the audition process in NDRV3 and showing how they actually “become” their characters. Also wasn’t it mentioned somewhere that Hongou went through Gordain’s Game? Dammit this is almost turning into a rec list from me. I guess I just really like long detailed fics with a good plot? 
Since some of my favourite fics didn’t manage to fit into the above: (Danganronpa) after the events of DR1, Naegi is kidnapped by Ultimate Despair, (Danganronpa) a time loop AU where we see the loops that lead to the canon timeline, rather than that one being the first one, (Harry Potter) Salazar Slytherin’s brother crawls out of his portrait during Harry’s fifth year ready to be the competent teacher Hogwarts needs (here is my longer recommendation to this fic that I posted a few days ago), (Harry Potter) Harry gets adopted by loving Muggles as a baby and raised in a loving home, (Harry Potter) Draco and Harry another others are 24 and professors at Hogwarts, this expands on the ideas of wizarding Lords and Ladies and has super amazing worldbuilding/characterisation, (Harry Potter) a series of wonderful “what if AUs”, (Harry Potter) 19/20 year old Harry wakes up in a 14 year old Slytherin body in 1942 - deals with Slytherin politics in such a Gryffindor way, it’s absolutely beautiful, (Harry Potter) a Muggle becomes the Weasleys new neighbour, and they all think she’s actually a witch, (Zero Escape) the boys are playing DND over Discord and now a real life mystery is occurring, (Zero Escape) snippets leading up to Dcom, and also during the experiment, (Zero Escape) a look at what happens after ZTD, and how they try to continue saving the world (it’s very good), (Zero Escape) random scenes from every timeline, (Zero Escape) a complete AU, Crash Keys are doing crime, it’s good stuff, (Zero Escape) the story of 1904 Phi (also really good)
I’m now getting tired but if you want more fic recs then please just ask! Also if you have your own fic recs please send them to me!
C4: What thing that fandom loves do you actually kind of hate? Why?
To be honest? The shipping. Like I’m not an anti-shipper, I’m not trying to stop people from shipping. You do you boo. But I just sort of dislike when shipping gets shoe horned in unnecessarily? Similar to how I dislike romance subplots and love interests being added to mainstream media “for the sake of it”. If it’s needed for the plot (or extremely well done) then it’s absolutely fine. But if it has no bearing on the plot, or is badly written, or feels OOC or something, then it annoys me. Generally it’s fine though, but.
D2: Who/Where did you get your last fic rec from?
I think my sister?? When she was reading a lot of Harry Potter fic, she’d send me the best of them and I’d open the links and just have the tabs open until I got around to reading them. I was at uni and busy, so I just kept on accumulating links, and she wasn’t even sending me every single thing I read! She’s since moved on to reading another fandom (and hence hasn’t been sending me any fics in a while), but I still haven’t caught up on all she sent. Some of them were really good though, super amazing.
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