have been unavoidably detained by the world

(Apologies in advance for some of the upcoming posts, guys. This week is going to be very busy.)

There are lots of times I wish that fandom would explore serious platonic love more often in stories. Obviously this is a cultural thing in general, not unique to fandom. But I'd give lots of love to more "besties eating ice cream" fic alongside the 300 ~new~ ways two dudes can do it.

And I mean, the funny part is that I've been blessed with some lovely Ianto-frienship fic over the years. Possibly because ongoing ensemble casts with canon gay couples are less likely to break up the canon couples when they explore character relationships. And Inception fandom tends to have some fun ideas about Arthur's friendship with Dom (and/or Mal.)

But in the spirit of friendSHIPPING, I've started to draft some "Friendship kink meme requests." Feel free to add your own. :D

( A and B are two characters in a show/movie/book/video game of your choice. )

I stumbled on a quote nandamai posted posted on LJ:

"I can't complain when the free work of someone's unpaid imagination is rough around the edges, because they are still doing it for love and I still love that they are doing it, misplaced commas and all."

Biggest reason this quote is inspirational is I always feel like I'm walking the line between "decent" and "crappy" in my writing. I've been really struggling with this recently and it's probably one of the reasons none of my writing has been getting posted recently. I know full well my grammar usage is not fabulous (every semicolon you see in a fic has been put there by a beta. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.) and I have some problems with showing/telling. Also, commas are like fairy lights, sprinkled through ever story.

And sometimes I get back beta comments and I just don't know how to fix the story problems or I'm just too ashamed to send it to a beta in the first place and I psych myself out of writing things in the first place. And this happens all the time.

I sit on fic for months trying to go over it and fix it and then I just...do something else instead.

And when I think my fic has too much id? Don't even get me started.

And I know I can be wildly picky as a reader and I trip around fandoms that are FULL of these amazing, amazing, brilliant writers and I know I'm not putting in that kind of time/effort and I theoretically could/should and…

And reminding myself that the fanfic bar is kinda low helps.

Of course, then I found the original post and it's not as encouraging? But I think I'll take this one out of context, just this once.

[Also, posts like this are encouraging, but there's this thread of "write crap, and then you'll be better later!" I'm not saying it's not true, but it's still a form of pressure. I want to remind myself that even if I never get better, that's ok too.]

I follow the AO3 Torchwood fic feed on Dreamwidth (BECAUSE I DO, OK?) and I would loosely estimate that a little more than a third of the stories posted recently have been crossovers. Which I guess makes sense, if the fandoms for those shows are still going strong.

(I have no idea how strong the Supernatural fandom is these days, but I can say that it's not as in-your-face as it used to be!)

And another third or so seem to be people just reposting their fic from elsewhere. Which is FANTASTIC, because I'm getting lots of really awesome fic onto my nook without having to try and make epubs on my own.

Because having all the fics in a series in one file was GREAT, the time spent getting it there was totally not worth it.

The other third of stories haven't piqued my interest at all, so I have no made up informal data. :D

ETA: If only Batman worked in my office.

From a bunch of people, but most recently pocky_slash.

I currently have 48 works archived at AO3*. Pick a number from 1 (the most recent) to 48 (the first thing I posted there), and I'll tell you three things I currently like about it.

*And there are at least a dozen short fics floating around LJ/DW. Sorry? In the unlikely event you are planning on requesting a specific fic and you legit want them, just give me what you can remember and I'll dig it up for you. /guilt.

I like reading comments on fics (one reason I favor LJ/DW fic reading over AO3 when I have a choice) and I'm starting to notice this interesting trend when writers reply to comments.

If the commenter is a stranger/more distant from the writer, the writer's response tend to address the specific points in the comment, or trend toward a generic and enthusiastic "thank you!" It seems that the writer really does appreciate the comment, but they're on unfamiliar ground and stick to the easier answers overall.

Meanwhile, if the commenter is a friend of the writer, the response to the comment might have little or nothing to do with the comment! I've seen comments that are basically friends going "WRITER, YOU ARE SO GOOOOD. <3!!!!" and the writer replies with a thesis about the work, and the thought process, and the bits they weren't sure about, etc.

Either one can start conversations, and obviously the first kind can be the beginnings of a friendship, but it's still kinda cool to watch.

FANDOM: Actually a ginormous sociology experiment.

Hello, my name is Eldarwannabe and I am mildly addicted to Inception AU fic. To clarify, I've not seen Inception. Although I suppose I should fix that at some point*.

I've found fics because I stumbled on a few AU recs and I figured "Why not? Don't need to know background for AUs!" and then fan interpretations of Arthur hit a whole lot of my Ianto buttons, so I kept reading them, and here we are!

I DON'T KNOW EITHER.

Well, I sort of do. I've run through a good solid chunk of Torchwood fic, and sometimes I want to read something utterly new, with few preconceptions and unlike Merlin and Teen Wolf, I'm wandering around blind and giddy And unlike Avengers, I don't care about the slash because I don't care about the characters. It's a slightly older fandom, so there's lots to dig through.

AND MOST OF ALL there are a lot of really well-written gorgeous AUs. Which is virtually all I'm reading as I haven't seen Inception.

MY LIFE I DON'T EVEN.
___

* - This is no longer true. I wrote this post a few weeks ago during hiatus, and I wanted to preserve the original sentiment. I CAME TO THIS FANDOM FIC-FIRST.

Ianot is having a conversation with Jack.

YES. IANOT.

At least his nickname is still "Yan." *snicker*

I know it's not AO3's fault that I haven't been able to load a page in three weeks without constantly refreshing, but it's certainly not endearing them to me. This may sound harsh, but if your site cannot handle the load, SLOW DOWN YOUR GROWTH. Limit how many fics a person can upload a day. Slow up on the invite codes. (Limit each person to two Avengers fics an hour/snark) They've said it's not a money issue, so they need to find other ways to limit traffic. *sigh*

So I'm back to browsing fic on LJ-only because if I get more than two 502 errors in a row, I give up. I just have no idea where the reams of sappy Coulon fix-its are outside of AO3. Lucky I've got a few hundred Torchwood fics saved in my rec list. *opens*

It's one of the reasons I keep cross-posting to LJ/DW and AO3, even though the Archive is much neater and prettier. I like it in so many ways, but ARGH. *headdesk*

(It is a good motivator for me to finally finish my master post! Should get on that.)

I informally challenged myself to post a fic a week back when I managed to finish From the 82nd Summer of Love and so far it's been working! (Look at all the fics! Weee!)

Sure, they've all been uselessly short*, but I'm posting something, ok? It's partly because superstitiously I think that if I just. keep. posting. this fandom won't die and partially as a distraction from my thesis work. (Are you sick of hearing about it? I'm sick of working on it.)

But I realized that I'm not posting any Jack/Ianto. And as most of my stories (except challenges) that I've been working on have been old ideas that I'm fixing up and finishing, I checked my WIP folder. And...wow, for a shipper I have very little in the way Jack/Ianto stories. I've got a few Lisa/Ianto and some stories with Jack and Ianto ineracting, but nothing really shippy. (Unless you count my enormous and unfinished BigBang which had Ianto, for reasons explained in the fic, kick Jack out of his personal life for a bit. No, he doesn't shack up with another dude. I'm tired of that trope.)

So I wrote a completely new drabble for this week! ... And it is NOT HAPPY AT ALL. I mean, it has Jack/Ianto but apparently my fear of writing girly fluff has made it impossible for me to write them even remotely happy? O.o

It will be posted in the next few days, probably, as editing drabbles is an exercise in patience and also I've noticed that posting on a weekend is a good way to guarantee no one sees it.

___

*I'm sitting on a longer fic that I will give a last look-through as a reward for finishing the ginormous project-that-shall-not-be-names. Long for me is, of course, over 5,000 words. :/

(I think if I changed all of my summaries to "IANTO'S NOT DEAD IN THIS ONE" I might get more readers. Which will be hilarious when they click on my gen pieces in which Ianto fails to appear.)

I started writing my answers to this meme FOREVER ago, but I'm trying to catch up on stuff.

Meme: Comment and request words, and I'll give you five words that remind me of you off the top of my head. Then you can post your words and thoughts and whatnot. Yadda.

Have you seen these words? I think analineblue lives in my brain.

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