Entries tagged with fandom: reflections

Entry tags:

Farscape: fic time travel

So, I've been delving into the deep past of FFN (and backdated Ao3 stuff) to find stories that were posted when Farscape was an ongoing fandom, to read stuff that's based on the same canon I'm caught up with. And I have a few recs, but first, some thoughts on the time-travel aspects:

I made an effort to at least browse most things, if something was very long/not engaging/clearly unfinished/a crossover with a fandom I didn't know I probably didn't finish. But at least I was curious. (FFN didn't have a "Complete"/"In Progress" toggle when I joined in late 2005, I remember that one being added, so a lot of older stuff that predates that feature you just have to figure whether or not it's "complete.")
it looks as if there was once more formatting allowed (different fonts, sizes, people posting their email addresses without it being censored), later updates I think removed those options but left the existing fics backwards-compatible, as long as you don't edit them anyway.
there seems to be more (completed, not WIP) longfic, on average, than I'm used to. Obviously it'll vary a lot per fandom.
there's also a lot of crack/songfic/baby's first fic, but then again, there are lots of baby's first fic in 2022 as well! I don't want to ding the overall quality just because it's old
a lot of this was clearly crossposted from forums, and there's often some "you can archive this on your own site if you want, just give me credit, my e-mail is ..." The concept of a mega-archive like FFN and especially Ao3 wasn't as obvious as it feels now.
anyway, feel free to ask for more specific recs if there's some particular theme/mood you're interested in, I took notes, but here were the overall standouts:

"Ask Me Tomorrow" by Kitsah. 29k words. Post-Season 1. John and Aeryn have a chance to go (back) to Earth, but even though it's the real Earth and not a simulation, things don't work out. Since the disappearance of Farscape, the astronaut program has shut down. There's a lot of Washington DC description, and the author clearly knows the city well--I recognized metro stops, etc. from my time there. This was impressive to me because this was written in early 2000, it's not like you could have just gone to Google Maps or Wikipedia to get the places right! So either they lived in DC at some point or are just very methodical. :)

"Between the Worlds" by Ann Brill White. 11k words. Early-S2. After the Gammak base stuff goes down, Aeryn and Zhaan invade John's memory to heal him. John/Aeryn, unsurprisingly, but it does justice to the John/Gilina relationship as well had brings some closure.

"By Any Means Necessary," also by Ann Brill White. 35k words (4 chapters). Post-S2. Zhaan's goddess resurrects Aeryn, but she's now Scorpius' prisoner and being manipulated by him. Lovely imagery of how the goddess metaphorically sees Moya and the crew, and the POV back on Moya of Zhaan checking in on the others (D'Argo being D'Argo, Pilot being Pilot, etc.) was well-done. Note, lots of dub-con.

Anyway, onwards to S3!

Entry tags:

A truly hot take

( Unpopular fanfiction opinions, beware )

Entry tags:

Contrapositives

Almost a year ago I wrote this

This also goes for "I love fandom A, but if you hold position Z [on an RL issue that doesn't really come up in the work], then you're not allowed to like it." Sometimes a diffuse work of fiction is going to appeal to people with different beliefs and behaviors, and you can't really prevent that! It's fine to say "I think this position is reprehensible," period, unrelated to your opinions on anything else. But trying to police who is allowed to enjoy the same things as you is sort of a backwards no-true-Scotsman fallacy.

The contrapositive of that is "If you don't hold bad-and-wrong position Z, then you totally should get into fandom A." Usually in the context of "because the creator of fandom A is a super progressive and good person!" And that's, like, also a problem, because just because someone has some similar opinions to you doesn't mean they're going to find the same fictional tropes enjoyable. (Again, especially when the issue in question isn't really related to the work of fiction.) I will repeat that it's not my place to gatekeep, so anyone should feel free to get into or out of any fandom for any reason. But if I see a bunch of people flock to my fandom because "I heard it was produced by a morally righteous person," I'm not going to be super enthused. Partly because that's often in the context of "everyone is either the best or the worst," so the goalposts may shift against that creator soon. And partly because it has all the enthusiasm of an "eat your vegetables" kind of fandom, except that these vegetables aren't even in the fandom in question. (Though it can sometimes occur in a similar context of "this pseudo-'representation' counts and is valid, this other pseudo-representation is unacceptable, I have said so because I am the ultimate decider.")

Ah well.

Entry tags:

fandom: reflections

Crossposted gripe

Posted this on Tumblr a couple months ago, last paragraph new:

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

fandom: reflections

I'm not saying I'm an oldster...

...but my FFN account is old enough to register for an FFN account.

Merry Christmas Eve if you're celebrating!

Entry tags:

fandom: reflections

I want humor! But no. But yes!

For my last couple fic-exchange requests, for the "optional details" sections, I've mentioned things like "I like humor." Which, I'm realizing, is probably an unhelpful thing for me to say. (If for some reason you've been assigned to write for me and are browsing this journal; don't worry! This isn't about my request specifically, it's just me rambling. I like to ramble.)

What I like is dry humor. Wit. Puns. Things that make me roll my eyes or slap my knees. Humor that pokes a hole in the fourth wall. Brick jokes that tie everything together.

There would have been a time, early in my fanfiction career, when I would have said I didn't like humor fics. And by and large, my tastes haven't really changed. So what did? My vocabulary. "Humor," as an FFN genre, became conflated for me with a certain type of crack-fic; adventures of pranksters for pranking's sake. The adventures of the Weasley twins or the Marauders of Harry Potter made me wary--I don't want to read a story where nothing happens except some people playing tricks on others. Similarly crack-fics, where characters are just running around on sugar highs, I really don't like tricks that rely on sort of physical, sensory descriptions of humor--X tricks Y into touching some icky gross substance is definitely a squick for me, I'll backbutton out of that kind of thing.

For reference; here's a list of summaries from literally all the English-language Animorphs fanfiction sorted "humor" on FFN posted during one time period in early 2006 (I joined in late December, 2005).

"okay, so ive decided to turn this into a story! what happens when you wake up and things... aren't how you left them? A FUNNY READ OR SO IVE BEEN TOLD!AND YES! UPDATED! PRAISE ME!"
"The Animorphs get sucked into Fuedal Japan with Inuyasha and Co. Now they have to stop Naraku who has gone to the future and teamed with Visser 3!"
"Chappie 1 O.K Second shot at an Animorph fic. This ones kindof wierd......It is about a Vampire and Andalite. Tragety comes later. Lots of death! :D"
"One Shot.Jake & the Animorphs go to the mall but have an unfortunate encounter with the police.Please R&R.My first fanfic.Please don't flame constructive critism is gratly appreaciated.Thanks."
"I havent updated for a long time, and i'm sorry, so to mae it up to you, I uploaded the rest of the story! :D"

Can you perhaps guess why this genre didn't "take" for me?

In the fandoms where I'm currently active, either this kind of fic isn't as popular, or I'm not browsing in the right places to tune it off. There's still, however, a long list of places where I don't enjoy humor--it's the same as places where I don't enjoy any plot device. Humor relying on the false premise that everyone in a certain demographic or certain scenario has the same principles and the same worldview can make me freeze up and uncomfortably silent. Humor that assumes everyone has the same motivations and goals in life. That relies on identity politics to belittle or to stereotype, regardless of whether you're picking on a majority or a minority group.

And yet I love my wordplay; I love clever characters like Lee Jordan (who I really started loving after realizing how much he had in common with another jokester, Marco from Animorphs), I love bits of potty humor thrown into a story whose author is too right-wing to speak for me in every regard, I love fourth-wall-busting winks thrown into a story whose author is too left-wing to speak for me in every regard (and I still enjoy both of those stories without having to agree politically with everything they say), I love blink-and-you'll-miss-it nerdy one-liners and stealth continuity nods. And when I have to ask for something in my exchanges, well--I don't want sex, I don't want implausible and unconvincing romance, I don't want you showing off how pretentious and deeper than the original author you are, I don't want a crossover with a fandom I don't care about, I want...I don't know. "Humor." Whatever that means.

Current Mood: grumpy

Entry tags:

Grumble grumble (fest musings)

( Cut for whining )

Entry tags:

fandom: reflections

2012: fic braggery

Compiled from various forms going around.
( My first year of fests. I am somewhat of an overachiever. )

Current Mood: excited

Entry tags:

fandom: reflections

Seven Years

I've been writing fanfiction since before I knew what the word meant. But Christmas Eve marks the anniversary of me signing up for Fanfiction.Net and really plunging head-first into this virtual world. I've had fat years and lean, but there's always something new to smile about.

2012 was the year I immersed myself in the world of fests on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal (after lurking on the fringes for quite a while, but never committing--I'm not sure whether it's more not wanting to look like a bandwagon-hopper or just being afraid it would be too much of a timesink). Either way, I'm glad that I've joined up at last and just as glad that book series finished for several (or more than several) years still have these communities going strong.

I'm probably going to participate in the fandom

snowflake_challenge early next month, so I can ramble on some more about that. Their suggestion to make a masterlist of one's fic (say on Ao3), "Because your works are important, too. Even those early ones that you'd rather forget about." is oddly terrifying--all my fic is on FFN, so I'm clearly not making much of an effort to hide the old/bad/incomplete stuff and I agree Ao3 is easier to navigate. So why do I freeze up at the thought of copying-pasting it over when I have an alternate pseud and backdating for this purpose? Just, can't bring myself to do that. Oh well.

And looking ahead, this was also my first year in the Yuletide exchange! So very psyched. According to Ao3, I wrote 13,010 words in five stories, spanning a range of Ratings, Relationship Types, Warnings, Characters, Relationships, and of course Additional Tags. Here's hoping they're half as fun to read as they were to write! :D