have been unavoidably detained by the world

Fri, 01 Jul 2022 21:10:25 GMT

I was chatting with a friend and...I wonder if there are any Fandom Trumps Hate style fundraisers right now. Personally I would really like political ones (Stacey Abrams for example) but I would also fundraise for orgs that are specifically targeting the stuff we're losing - abortion, related women's health, miranda education, uhhhh environmental protection....

I get that this would take time to set up, I'm just SO unplugged from fandom right now I realize I wouldn't see it. Not sure going back on tumblr is the right move, but I'll keep it back of mind.

(I also want to say that I recognize that fandom-specific fundraisers are a way better bet than "all the fandoms" fundraisers but I seriously doubt anyone is going to do a HP-themed fundraiser anytime soon, and my other fandoms are....Torchwood? Inception??? Animorphs???? Lol yeah right.)

ETA: Saving the Marvel Trumps Hate link here so I can come back to it in the fall, just in case it runs this year. I wonder if I could manage a fic, or if I'll find something to donate. I was periphery in Marvel movie fandom, for a bit. I liked Coulson.

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Wow I had more to say than I thought haha (on Astoria Malfoy and fandom)

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 02:23:29 GMT

So I've gone back and picked the second fic to post. I posted two parts of it and then just...failed to post the rest (it's a five times fic). I THOUGHT I had finished it but actually part 5 is pretty unpolished, so going back and working through it is going to be tricky. (It's, uh, 45 pages long on google docs. So it's a decent five times fic, and I'm excited to actually finish and post even if it isn't perfect.)

( Some musings about what went wrong, just as a record for myself I guess. Reference to fictional character death below. )

This is all a long way to say that...I got hurt, in fandom. It wasn't a big hurt, objectively, but it hit me hard. And I think it's why, as DESPERATE as I am for recognition in fandom (what fic writer isn't??) I'm also pretty scared of being noticed. I haven't reached out to my old fandom friends, even if fluff is exactly the kind of stuff they could like.

Right now it's almost like I'm a fandom of me, my beta, and the really excellent people who encourage me even though they aren't in my fandom at all. And I'm so, so happy for each and every one of you, you have no idea. ♥

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Discord and CC

Tue, 21 Jun 2022 23:23:54 GMT

So I've always found Discord really overwhelming as a platform, so while I joined every Cursed Child fan discord I could find, I rarely actually could bring myself to check them.

But I took today off of work for a sick day (got REALLY sick over the weekend) and by the end of the day, denied the chance to mindlessly scroll facebook and twitter and tumblr, my brain was rested enough to be like "hmmm, what's happening on discord?"

The two CC discords are dead, is what.

Not completely surprising I guess? The last convo in the "fic rec" part of one discord was a bunch of people yelling about a fic request where someone used some invalidating language about a (sometimes headcanoned) bi character, and then it DEVOLVED into a "top/bottom" fight.

And the last thing people seemed to talk about was the change of Cursed Child from a two part show to a one part show, which, uh, I legit still cry about sometimes (shut up, my fandom soul is fragile and soft) so THAT WAS A FUN THING TO REREAD.

And then all the conversations sort of stopped ages ago and, IDK, on the one hand, it was a pretty toxic and difficult fandom for me in a lot of ways, so maybe it's a good thing. On the other hand, as I'm pretty uncomfortable on tumblr and twitter, it would have been nice to see if I could find people on discord to talk to, because my CC fandom friends drifting away from this fandom and my brain? My brain is still eaten alive.

(...I mean, WHO AM I KIDDING, I still follow the AO3 feed for Torchwood fics, I don't really leave fandoms so much as "sometimes I'm LESS into this thing than I used to be.")

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Thu, 29 Dec 2016 04:55:23 GMT

Being in fandom means watching your heroes die. Like, that's what it means to be a fan of things, a lot of the time. Because creators and actors and the real people the bring life to the things that we love are all human and especially when you're young, they are older than you are.

My first year collecting comic books, Julius Schwartz died. When I was little, I actually thought all authors were dead, as if that was a prerequisite for being published. So, you see, I started fandom with death from the very beginning. And I don't think a year has gone by since my active fandom days where someone hasn't died, although some of them (eeerrm, Terry Pratchet?) are people I'm aware of even in the greater fandom space as I haven't necessarily consumed much of their work.

I think being a fan expands my universe in the real world, by giving me glimpses of people and places I may never know or visit that aren't fictional, that are real too. And death comes along with that reality.

Which I suppose is a very long way of me saying that Carrie Fisher died and memorials to her have rightly consumed my internet feeds. And I'm not sure what I can say or add, but it shouldn't go unnoticed. The things she did as her own person were in many ways more courageous and more complicated and nuanced than her iconic role and I'm glad the internet is recognizing her for that.

Also, Sam said a lot of this but way, way better.

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~fandoms

Fri, 09 Dec 2016 00:04:20 GMT

I just read my first Inception fic that concisely has the military backstory take place after Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed and it was just a tiny, little detail that fired a million pleasure-circuits in my brain. This fandom and it's attention to world-building details is amazing.

Seriously, how is Inception fandom still cranking out magic??? Sometimes I want a "Unified Theory of Fandoms With Active Fanfiction Cultures" to figure out what is the magic click combination that leads to fic-creation and longevity. (And then I remember that I don't' want to watch Supernatural and also I am incredibly picky about my fanfiction and the minute the magical combination is unlocked, it will be utilized by our capitalist society to suck every possible dollar from the fandom collective.)

And then I think, eh, let some things stay a mystery.

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Oh, wow, I have a "fandom: merlin" tag. What did I post????

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 21:41:59 GMT

I recced Pairing: Merlin/Pendragon last night to a friend because they were talking Merlin fandom and I was like "WELL I LOVE THIS ONE FIC?" We are both waiting for Check, Please! to get going again.

Making fandom friends is like a scary wire-balancing act where you WANT FRIENDS HIIII but also you probably don't share all your fandoms to the same degree so you aren't getting all their references and they aren't getting all of yours but you are so excited to be chatting with them an you want them to be your instant BFF but not in like a creepy way.

Anyway, now I'm re-reading the fic.

Oh my gosh, it's like a time capsule of a particular time in fandom. This fic should be the Library of Congress, it's a valuable artifact of FANDOM HISTORY.

V-gifts! I forgot about v-gifts! Probably because I never figured out how they worked.

And man, I could use the notes option on facebook. That way I could save notes on the jerkfaces I meet in groups so I would know to avoid them when they try to friend me.

...not that I ever used LJ notes in real life. Because I never paaiiiidd.

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I'm dating myself. Dating myself as TOO YOUNG.

Mon, 31 Oct 2016 14:52:41 GMT

copperbadge just gave an oral history of fandom on his tumblr and HE EXPLAINED WHAT WEBRINGS WERE FOR.

I literally had no idea wtf webrings were supposed to do when I stumbled on them circa...somewhere between 1999-2002? I remember just being really puzzled at them and poking at them and giving up on them entirely as something I would Never Understand. (No, really. I was so exited by them because they were about Things I Was Interested In, but I could. not. grock.)

I recognize how lucky I was to get into fandom post-ff.net (as much as I complain about it now.) It really informed my early fandom days of copying out giant swaths of fic and printing them out in teeny tiny print with the narrowest margins so I could inhale them on the morning bus rides to school. It's also been a great preserver of so much of the fic that would have otherwise been lost on personal servers and even LJs.

I love fandom, fandom culture, and it's weird, underground, oral history.

ETA: I recognize that a lot of fandom spaces are full of youths making the olds feel unwelcome, which suuuucks, but maybe it's the people I follow and the fandoms I've been in, but I still feel awfully young in fandom. Yes, even as the youths do things that mystify me and I find out that my fandom lexicon is completely outdated (lemons? squick? disclaimers???). Or maybe it's that I spend most of my time in old/closed fandoms. Or, really, it's probably that I am a fanfic snob and absolutely end up reading stuff by writers who have honed their craft -- unlike me, my stuff is adequate at best -- and I sorta wait for people to learn to separate between paragraphs when different people are speaking before befriending them. (I am a snob, write what you like.) So, in the end, still feel young, and it's wildly comforting to know there are people with rich, full, awesome lives still bopping around in fandom squee with us.

...is squee an outdated term too?

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ALL THE FIC

Sat, 22 Oct 2016 23:34:00 GMT

The problem with getting back into fandom is that I have three windows open with probably around 70 tabs and I can't close any of them what if I miss a fic or a meta or a link somewhere interesting???

Plus, I've somehow gone from desperatly digging around the internet archive for some recced Harry/Ginny Harry Potter fics (yes, I finally found ones on deleted and purged journals WHYYYY) through some Due South nostalgia and now I'm reading a huge Captain America modern veterans-with-PTSD AU.

What.

I also now save fic links in:
My excel spreadsheet of doom (still labeled as Torchwood recs ha ha)
Random TextEdit Files (mostly labeled)
Diigo (ok, I only save meta in Diigo)
Evernote (because I am now terrified of deletions)

So good luck to future me who wants to find anything! My fandom saves are just as messy as everything else. *confetti*

ETA: AND NOW I'M READING CHECK, PLEASE FIC, SM I BLAME YOU I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS.

Also I might need a pinterest account to save all the fic. #fandom

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I should assume every idea has already been thoroughly explored by a million Harry Potter fans

Wed, 05 Oct 2016 15:20:32 GMT

HAHAHAHA.

Ok, so when I wrote that last fic I was literally just trying to channel the "Narcissa Malfoy is all about family, that is her redeeming quality, hmmmm," thoughts in my brain. (Plus some "Harry is an awkward turtle who is determined to be A GOOD GODFATHER SO THERE.")

BUT. thoroughly

IT TURNS OUT.

There is a whole subsection of Harry/Draco fic that circles around Teddy. From first glance, it looks like a lot of these fics either use the Andromeda and Narcissa family ties to get Harry and Draco to spend time together AND/OR use Teddy to give Harry/Draco babeez because Ginny is out of the picture.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I feel like I'm going to accidentally trip over shared fanon a lot by accident, as I'm kinda reinventing the wheel over here. I only ever hovered in the gen spaces in Harry Potter fandom, which meant I missed most of what was going on, and even now I'm frankly trying to dig up more gen and canon-ships. So I'm missing the giant bulk of Harry Potter post-Deathly Hallows fic altogether.

I mean, I only found this because I went through most of AO3's "Teddy Lupin" tag after I posted. There is some really gorgeous godfather!Harry fic out there, all of it in the Harry/Draco tag as far as I can tell. LOLZ.

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Alert!

Sun, 14 Aug 2016 23:43:27 GMT

JSTOR is a Harry/Hermione shipper! D:

Actually, I share almost no ships with JSTOR? I guess depending how you define 'ship. I will only accept Poe and Finn if Rey is in there too.

And John/Alexander Hamilton only works if we acknowledge that I can simultaneously ship Alexander/Eliza. CAUSE I SHIP IT INTO THE GROUND.

...

...

...

Bucky/Natasha. *runs*

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LOLOLOLOL

Fri, 04 Mar 2016 00:29:58 GMT

So, I follow this one Inception fic writer on tumblr because I really like a lot of her stories and she updates fic snippets on her tumblr and I don't have the patience to wait for it to get to AO3 ten months later. She has built some really interesting universes, that kind that I sometimes think about walking to school.

A few days ago she asked if anyone had headcanons of her work and I was like "OH BOY DO I."

So I sent her an anon message mentioning that I have headcanons for this slow-build fic universe she has. She said I should share them. For science.

And now.

Her followers.

Are asking about me.

I have a nickname.

And I've never written any of them down? I have headcanon daydreams in a lot of fandom universes, but actually building a fic involves time and editing and I'm teetering uncertainly between just hiding away in my anon-ness (no one will find this here, it's livejournal) or actually just jotting down my ideas and sending them over. I know how those other fans feel. But in case it isn't obvious yet, I haven't written fic in a while.

*teeters*

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I am going to do the thing!

Mon, 07 Sep 2015 21:20:04 GMT

I want to post more. So, here is to more posts, less second-guessing, less editing *cough* and the five people left on LJ/DW that aren't in online RPGs.

I realized over this Dragon*con that I'm not remember the usernames of new fandom people as well. I've always had a pretty hard time with names (and faces) and fandom can be kind of an overwhelming place with so many active people that it can be confusing. I normally take a looooong time to get into a fandom, which can give me time to distinguish individuals as I go.

But I've been lurking around Inception for, gosh, over two years now, and I've still only remembered dozen or so names.

I think it's a little bit from the new fandom platforms. I used to remember people using a lot of visual cues, like their default user icon, their journal layout, etc. Tumblr users don't utilize userpics the same way, and the layouts are either super-plain or horrible.

But even more important, AO3! I think the layout to AO3 is fabulous and the downloading options are the best thing ever, but there is very little to distinguish the author while I read. Just the username on top, which I TOTALLY skim by sometimes.

I think there's a cultural shift that comes from putting the fic in a seperate place from the meta, the journal, the messy thought and the unbetaed flash fic. It's not necessarily a bad thing! AO3 is, for lack of a better term, a lot more cleaned-up than LJ. It's easier to find the fic you want and just zoom past all the other junk.

On the other end of the spectrum, tumblr is so jammed with junk that even when I know that people post flash fic or ficlets or dabbles and what-have-you on their tumblr, if I'm not constantly checking and saving (and I'm TOTALLY NOT) I won't find it again. It can feel that if it's not "clean enough" for AO3, it won't get archived.

There's a part of me that even misses the really messy ff.net days, when for lack of anything else, people basically wrote journal posts as Authors Notes at the beginning of their fic chapters. I would sometimes know a lot about the writer's personality, thought process and sense of humor (remember when authors used A/Ns to reply to comments? :D) before even reading the next chapter.

By contrast, AO3 notes tend to be fairly minimal, sometimes to frustration.

Of course, ff.net also had the "lack of distinguishing visual characteristics of the fic layout" problem, and I memorized very few writer names on ff.net, and I was never much active in fandom there either.

But at least people filled out their profiles on ff.net. On AO3 and tumblr, I may never know anything about anyone!

__

OH! I also want to post about LJ BNF culture. I had some really interesting discussions.

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Dead Authors EVERYWHERE

Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:26:30 GMT

"I don’t think that the author’s voice should be privileged in matters outside the text." - John Green

JOHN GREEN, IN THAT MOMENT IN TIME, YOU WERE PERFECT.

*

I might link to that from now on whenever the internet tells me my interpretation of something is wrong because of the ~wriiiiiiter~ or something. I'm not WRONG. I just DISAGREE with you.

Also, if you listen to the end of the video you are once again reminded that John Green's brain is ridiculous. JOHN. THANK YOUR EDITOR.

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January 15

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 23:41:56 GMT

Oh, I have nothing to say today. I don't even have to energy to go back through my giant pile of half-finished posts to pick on out and finish it before posting. You know those days you have so many things you have to do that you just sort of stare at the list and then it's six hours later and nothing has been done?

Welcome to my life.

Hopefully I'll be able to pull something together for tomorrow. I have to start drafting my response for the 17th, but after that I have days and days of nothing but my own inspiration.

You know what, I'll take this opportunity to say something about fandom, actually. Sometimes I disappear for a while, sometime I take a long time to respond to a comment, or take a long time to comment on my flist or fics. And a lot of that is because it's sometimes just Too Much. If fandom, the place I go to be happy (by and large) becomes a burden on top of other burdens, it's the first thing I walk away from for a bit. Lots of reasons for that, but I think an important one is this: I DO NOT want fandom ruined for me. If something in fandom makes me really unhappy, I'll just avoid it for a while, and maybe come back and examine it when I can establish some space. That goes for things I enjoy but just don't feel up to handling as well.

I know I've been enormously lucky in my fandom life. I've been reading fandom!wank for years, and I know it's just sheer dumb luck that I don't get enmeshed in some of the crazy. I also like to think that I've managed to meet some really wonderful, awesome people in fandom, and no one has ever shamed or guilted me for taking time off, even though I know I've left conversations hanging.

Another essay about fandom with no ending or real thesis! Oh well, you guys are wonderful and you aren't going to yell at me if you don't like it.

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January 10

Fri, 10 Jan 2014 18:41:21 GMT

So, I might be Hooked on Kickstarter, but I've been a casual fan of Dean Trippe since Project Rooftop and the Butterfly webcomic.

(Fun fact: I found Project Rooftop before I knew what Project Runway was. I really only keep up with TV when I feel like it.)

So as I was poking around Kickstarter (can Kickstarter be a fandom? Because I can't stop checking for interesting projects) I saw Dean Trippe's name and clicked immediately.

He's Kickstarting an expanded hard copy of his webcomic short "Something Terrible." It's…well, it's about his personal experience with child molestation, and how comic books, superheroes and SF/fantasy characters helped guide his life in a positive direction. (It touches a bit more eloquently and powerfully on my ideas from yesterday, the way that fandom can really shape and emotionally impact a persons life, although his relationship with fandom and mine are very, very different)

He's trying to hit $22,000 so he can bump up all of the books to hardcover and still keep the leftovers he orders at $10 retail, to keep them fairly accessible.

This might not be your cup of tea or anything, and I totally understand people not wanting to read this story. I'm just trying to help get the word out.

If you want more information, he links to some more information from his Kickstarter updates page and he wrote a really fabulous article for Huffington Post about his experience and the webcomic.

***

In less fraught news, the Anime News Nina Kickstarter is ending in less than a week. I can't honestly recommend this one to anyone who wasn't at some point a pretty involved anime fan. Because I read the original webcomic and it is VERY inside baseball.

It's hilarious and witty but many of the references demand a certain level of understanding of the anime fandom, especially the con circuit. If you want to check it out, you can see the webcomic on the Anime News Network website. It's a bit rough at time, fair warning.

But if you do have any experience in the anime fandom, check it out!

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January 9

Thu, 09 Jan 2014 22:34:15 GMT

I’m writing a later post, and I realized that I was getting really upset while writing it. And I wanted to backtrack and sort of examine where this was all coming from.

I think I’m going to start with John Green. I don’t always agree with him, but sometimes his words are just so right: “…nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’.”

Fanndom is enmeshed in the unironic celebration of the human consciousness. Which is frequently wonderful and lots of fun. But it’s also very emotional, a lot of the time.

We joke about feels and devastation and loss in fandom. But we also sometimes admit that a particular character can pull us through a really hard time, or inspire us when we’re alone, or make us smile when nothing else will do it. We celebrate fictional birthdays and we help others because we’ve been inspired. These things affect us in our everyday lives.

Fandom is delicate.

And I think it’s delicate because it’s so emotional. Fandom, by and large, struggles to maintain respect for that emotional investment. We set up warning systems and ways to ensure that a person reading a fic or meta will know before going in if this is going to impact them emotionally. We try to provide emotional support for each other in all sorts of situations. Sometimes we fail – when a fandom is mean or uninviting, people might be turned off from it whatever their feelings on the source text. Fandoms can and have bullied people away. Sometimes people leave fandoms because they can’t handle it, and fandoms can kill a love for a character with other emotional stuff.

When a fandom is warm and fun, people might be drawn in regardless of the source text as well.

We tend to make fun of people who flounce from a fandom for certain reasons. We also understand when a person untangles themselves and walk away for other reasons. If you’re only watching a show for the rush of positive emotions you associate with a certain character, it’s ok if you walk away when that character is killed. It’s also ok for other people to stay.

When fandoms get into really horrible screaming matches, it’s sometimes hard to see the other side. But the other side is generally making these comments because it’s hitting them in the feels, as it were. Their reasons might be bad and their arguments might be awful, but I once argued that some of the (really bad) anti-Gwen people in Torchwood fandom were probably getting a lot of catharsis from other issues out through their ranting. I didn’t agree with them and I also felt bad for the other side of the equation, the people who adore Gwen and were really hurt that there were such vile things being said. I don’t think both sides ever reconciled so much as the hubbub died down with the fandom. (Warnings were my only real solution there. I didn’t read anything marked “anti-Gwen” but you bet I appreciated the heads-up.)

I just want to point out, I suppose, that these feelings are genuine. I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I can thankfully see something and say “nope” and walk away from it without consequences. I know what is going to make me sad or unhappy and when I should avoid it. In fandom, it’s been an important skill.

The worst, though, is when I’m really struggling with my feelings on a topic. Like when I can’t read fics about depression, because it’s too close to home. Or when I have to walk away from a fandom because it’s making me unhappy. Or when a fic writer writes something that just sours all of their fic for me. Maybe I shouldn’t be so sensitive?

Or maybe this is one of the dark sides to unironic enthusiasm. (I’ve seen much darker.) I have coping mechanisms in place and I handle it ok, and despite the crying jags that seemed to have hit a lot of people after COE, most people get by with some hyperbolic joking and moving on with life.

I dunno where I was going with this. Getting a post out a day means I don’t always have the time to really organize my thoughts. But I also don’t have the time to back out and never post.

Fandom is full of feelings, and I suppose I just wanted to acknowledge how fragile and thin the lines between the good and bad can be.

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I am actually writing stuff.

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 23:46:25 GMT

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.]

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My inbox is an odd place

Thu, 22 Aug 2013 17:24:12 GMT

I've been reading the ICV2 email newsletter since high school. HIGH SCHOOL.

ICV2 is an industry website, mostly aimed at comic book realtors. Back when all I wanted in life was to intern at DC Comics (high school) someone recommended I sign up for their email list and I haven't looked back.

It's fascinating stuff. The background is really my most favorite part of media a lot of the time, and it gives me a different view from the fan-based stuff I'm reading otherwise. Plus, it gives me another place to keep track of the comic book industry despite that fact that I haven't been collecting on a monthly basis in over five years.

Anyway, they've been publishing these articles by this guy named Rob Salkowitz, and I'm finding myself nodding along to everything this guy says.

This week he put up an article about how brick-and-mortar stores can combat internet price wars for comic sales and he said the ~*magic words*~.

First and foremost, comics retailers are not just selling comics; they are selling the experience of comics culture--and that experience is one of the hottest commodities on the market.

YES. YES YES YES YES YES.

I can't figure out why my LCSs don't seem to tap into that, or at least not frequently. They have occasional signing or promo events, but why don't they have a weekly comic round up meeting? Or a "Comic Collectors Anonymous" support group? Or "let's complain about what DC is doing this week!" meeting? SOMETHING. ANYTHING.

(A space focused on getting the women crowd could do a "tea and comics" weekly meeting, with focuses on fanfic. The batslash fans are EVERYWHERE.)

When I was wandering around in Toronto at the beginning of the summer, I stumbled across a comic shop with a CAFE inside. And I was like "THIS IS THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD CAN I GIVE YOU MONEY?"

I don't know if they used that cafe space well, but the potential was breathtaking.

___

In conclusion, the OTW posted the best guide on "How to be a fan" I have ever seen. Check it out!

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All enthusiasm above the cut!

Mon, 12 Aug 2013 14:53:25 GMT

So, my roommate, batyatoon and sdelmonte have all heard my excited rambles about how I would really love to run or help organize a fandom convention dedicated to the back-end of the fandom, i.e. fanworks, forums, fan discussion, fans etc.

And I haven't really seen anything like that* so I was super excited today when I heard about KudosCon, which is a fanworks convention. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(*Last year there was a idea floated about doing a fan-track at Dragon*con. I would have totally loved to help, but D*C shot it down. Boooo.)

Now, there is no way in heck I can make it to Bloomington, MN, especially considering I am blowing all of my con-energy this year into a last Dragon*con hurrah, but I'm hoping it starts a trend and it goes well and stuff gets recorded to put online. And I'll even scroll through tumblr for con reports when I feel up to it!

Lookit!. It's so shiny and fannish! Their "about" sidebar is all "and this person did THIS fannish thing!" :D Tickets start at $40, and you can purchase them on Kickstarter.

Addendum: They don't EXIST yet, and they already have some form of a diversity statement and a harassment policy. And a privacy policy! Which is SO SMART for a fanworks con.

( Slightly negative thoughts BELOW the cut! )

All that junk said, I would seriously love to attend every. single. panel at this con. For serious. Gah, I want fandom meta.

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Today in "Things I Learned from Fandom:" Firearms!

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 19:39:35 GMT

Look what I just found! A Fandom Guide to Firearms from the Inception fandom.

I mean, I know at least two of you on my flist know waaaaay more about firearms than me BUT THAT IS NOT HARD. MY EXPERIENCE WITH MOST WEAPONRY IS KINDA PALTRY.

I...once...shot a bow and arrow?

I think at one point I might have held an unloaded rifle. But I honestly don't even remember. It was not a formative experience. Basically, I know so very little that looking up stuff is just confusing and unhelpful. (See also: Programming, Sports.)

SO FANDOM META LIKE THIS IS MY FAVORITE. I LEARN SO MUCH. *saves*

(Also, I know this guide is circa 2010, but Torchwood is from EARLIER than that, so I don't want an up-to-date guide. This is BETTER!)

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How to Prepare for Long Trips, by Eldarwannabe,

Thu, 30 May 2013 13:53:21 GMT

So, I'm going on an extremely loooong bus ride, and I figured I should invest in some good long Torchwood fic to pop on my nook. I went to AO3 and sorted by wordcount and started browsing.

Now, I'm well past being "picky" about my fic. No, I'm in the "grouchy and particular" stage most of the time, with occasional swings back to a desperate read-anything-mode. That doesn't last long.

So I'm snatching up copperbadge, amand_r, kel_reiley, blue_fjords, kaydeefalls, etc. I feel like I'm having a reunion or something! Um, on my nook.

I STILL LOVE ALL YOU GUYS. THANKS FOR POSTING TO AO3.

I suppose I should put kudos or something as a late thank-you? I could comment, but it won't lead anywhere. Hmmmmm.

(Hey, nancybrown, did you know that Into Gethsemane is your longest Torchwood fic? I didn't, and I was startled when it was the first one I saw with your name.

hab318princess, You wrote the longest Torchwood fic on AO3 from anyone on my flist! YOU DESERVE AN AWARD.)

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Meme!

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:59:10 GMT

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.

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There are four fandoms in this post and not one of them is Torchwood

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:06:30 GMT

The other night my roommates and I tried to watch Bronson (mostly for Tom Hardy.) I kinda liked it and wanted to finish, but it didn't make it past the "half-hour test" for the others -- to artsy and WAY too violent. I'll get back to it when I can.

So instead I convinced them to watch Four Brothers with me. Four Brothers! That's another one I came to via fandom. There was a lot of crossover writers with The Outsiders fandom back in 2007 when I was obsessed with S.E. Hinton, so when I finished reading everything in The Outsiders section on ff.net (YEAH. THAT OBSESSED) I wandered over to Four Brothers.

Rewatching it, I realized how badly it fails the Bechdel test, but it did inspire me to dig up this one fix-it I never finished.

I forgot the rules of finding decent fic on ff.net -- you start by finding one good writer and looking at who they favorite and who favorites them and start branching out. Normally it takes a really long time before you explore one entire bundle. (And only go through the actual fandom page if you're empty-handed and desperate.)

And now I'm browsing through a Four Brothers bundle. Let's be honest -- it hits the "brothers who will do anything for each other" AND "families of choice" buttons. (It is only now, while I'm in a canon with a very blatant family of choice, do I realize how many Inception fics stapled "Family of Choice" onto the Inception team. It's arguable, I guess, but their connection was far looser than some fics made them out to be. Huh.) Any day now I'll have to check what all the actors have done in the last few years.

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Because you can't leave kudos for a fic posted on a blogging platform.

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 20:50:43 GMT

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.

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Wed, 27 Feb 2013 03:54:24 GMT

Someone just commented "lol there is no more Torchwood fandom" on fandom!secrets.

Well, the fact that there are always fics cluttering up my AO3 dreamwidth feed speak otherwise, but THIS SHALL NOT STAND.

*cracks knuckles*

I'm organizing my life, so fandom life should be in order as well, yes? And now you guys will get to see what my To Do lists look like.

( Cut for possible spoilers as to my posting future? )

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