#I've had a lot of interactions with the HP fandom over the years

[greentrickster]

One of the most oddly strange parts of my life is that I actually spent several years playing at being wizards and going to wizard school with my friends in a world that was based on a book I read... but it wasn't Harry Potter. That one hadn't been published yet, leaving my fantasy-loving self to obsess over Wizard's Hall by Jane Yolen. Found it in my teacher's little classroom library in second grade, read it multiple times, found a hardback copy at a bookstore sale, still own that copy. It's bound in plain blue with a darker blue spine, and the words 'Wizard's Hall' stamped on the cover in silver, and on the spine too in all caps, along with 'Yolen', also in all caps. I threw out the dust jacket; it was inferior. The plain blue and simple silver better encapsulate the words inside. It is still the best book I own.

And like... regardless of the everything that's come out about HP's author since, I enjoyed that series while reading it. I enjoyed Hogwarts.

But I attended Wizard's Hall.

[fandoomrants]

Okay, so I'm fully into my HP obsession again (honestly, I don't care what anyone says or how much the world tries to cancel this fandom. This is my childhood, it's a part of me that's always there and I eventually go back to between the other things) and therefore, the Marauders era's obsession.

And like, I've always loved them for some reason. Honestly, when I found fandoms and stuff and saw they're actually almost a fandom on it's own, I was so happy and relieved that I'm not the only one. (I realised at one point that I love HP yet I've never read a fic that's not about them from this fandom...)

But I've been thinking about some things and also came across some random videos summarizing what we know about them (because there are so many hcs that most people accept as common that it's easy to forget the real facts) and now I have so many thoughts I need to share because they haunt me.

-They were like... Big jerks. Especially James and Sirius. Mostly them, tbh. Like, not only because we see them from Snape's perspective in memories and he hates them but because, well, they were mean. Especially Sirius (he's my absolutely favourite character but still), he's done pretty shitty things. I think James mostly had beef with Snape but they were overall kinda bullies.

-Even though I love Wolfstar just as much as 90% of this fandom (I mean the Marauders era), I think they're a famous ship just because we get to see interactions between them while alive and not just flashbacks but I don't think they were really close back in the days. James and Sirius were the ones extremely close and maybe if we had seen extended Marauders' interactions or they were eventually all alive, then most likely Wolfstar wouldn't have been that popular.

-I'm 99% sure that the great friendship between Lily and Remus is completely fan-made. I believe Remus was the most reasonable (but nobody can convince me he wasn't the mastermind behind 99% of their pranks at the same time) and wasn't into being mean with anyone so it's possible that they were interacting on much better terms than her and James (I mean, until they got together) but I don't think they could have ever been called friends.

-In fact, canonly, Sirius was taller than Remus. (What a shock, right?)

-Lots of people say stuff like "Who was the fifth guy in their dorm?" and there are many theories about it but do we even have a proof that the four of them were in the same dorm at all? Nope.

-Now that's my personal opinion but... I absolutely believe they were really good friends and while at school at least, nobody was left out intentionally but... Maybe Peter betrays them in the end because of some build up stuff throughout the years. We know James and Sirius meet on Hogwarts Express and immediately become best friends. We don't know when Remus and Peter join exactly but it must have been shortly after, I think Peter is pretty much the last who joins. Seeing how some of the people are very good friends, it's a bit hard to truly feel a part of a friend group and might make you feel a bit left out at times (but that's basically a rule in every friend group, tbh. There are the two best friends and well... the other, still close friends).There's also the fact that Peter canonly wears the Sorting hat for over five minutes so here you have another episode of feeling kind of left out. Then later they learn about Remus and they all decide to support him and even learn how to transform and Peter is the last to learn how to do it too. Then even later, James and his family take Sirius in. What I'm trying to say is, we have no canon information of any of them doing anything for Peter and I'm not saying that they weren't good friends, it's just that he was exposed to them doing stuff for each other, and like, really big stuff too (granted, it was really all about helping a friend in a big need) but he was never the center of it + some occasions that might have left him feel kind of uncertain and uneasy about himself like not being sorted for a longer time or needing help to transform. And the result might be feeling emotionally distant from the group and with desire to prove himself worthy of something. So, that's maybe why he finally turns to Voldemort.

-They canonly don't trust Remus much by the end and even suspect he might be Voldemort's spy.

-There is a big chance that Harry and Remus really meet when Harry is 13, meaning that he never saw him as a baby.

-Speaking of feeling left out earlier... I think Remus might have also felt so more often than not. I think they were all into innocent pranks but he wasn't into actively being a jerk, especially considering that he was someone who would have gotten lots of hate if people knew about the werewolf thing. The stupid prank in 5th year must have been a real punch in the gut too. The fact that he gets to stop interacting with them and they even start mistrusting him. Lots of things, really. AND HE STILL NEVER BETRAYED THEM, WAS NEVER A JERK TO ANY OF THEM, AND GOT TO LIVE FOR 12 YEARS BELIEVING THAT ONE OF HIS BEST FRIENDS KILLED THE OTHER TWO!!!

Okay. I made myself enough sad for one evening. Might add more to this.

[kaybeecreates]

Time has taken much from us. In many ways I am little more than a shadow of who I was back when you knew me.

ever draw or write something and hurt your own feelings?

i have so many feelings about Sirius and Remus. i have for, at this point -- god -- over twenty years.

i imprinted on both of them like a baby duckling when i first read about them in Prisoner of Azkaban ~1999, and no ship of mine has been as enduring or as intense as wolfstar. my image of each of them became crystallized over the course of about five years, too, since i read the book long before the movie came out in 2004.

i somehow, until recently, completely missed the online popularity of wolfstar and the marauders fandom in general. i was just wandering out in the desert with my own headcanons from the livejournal days of the HP fandom. (in case you didn't already infer this, i am, how you say, old?)

it feels like a total revelation to discover just how many fanworks about this pair are out there. and i thought that this functionally a dead ship, snuffed out by the events of HBP and DH. so imagine my delight and surprise at finding fanworks made as recently as this month, this week, even, with active engagement on tumblr, tiktok, etc.!

i decided to start working on my own fanfic, something i had never really done before with much seriousness. maybe it will someday see the light of day under a pseudonym? it's sitting at 73k words exactly rn and isn't finished lol 💀 while i continue working on it, i am trying to stay away from reading other fanfic to avoid accidentally stealing from it (SO, i still haven't read ATYD, but... i will...!)

if there is an upside to my wandering alone in the desert all these years and not having read major fanon works, it's that you're getting a pure, undiluted and hopefully new/different/interesting interpretation of these guys from me.

anyway, thanks for reading all this! if you're part of this fandom, pls interact i want more friends to talk to about this haha

ETA: disclaimer -- hopefully it goes without saying but JKR is bigoted, transphobic trash now and there’s lots of really awful stuff in the HP books (fatphobia, internalized misogny, slavery apologism???, antisemitic racial coding of goblins, and much more i've forgotten to mention just off the top of my head), but these books and these two characters specifically meant and to an extent still mean a lot to me so… make of that what you will 

[nocompromise-noregrets]

20 questions for fic writers

The impossibly lovely @mihrsuri tagged me in this a couple of weeks ago, and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get round to it - but I find myself in need of distraction, just a little bit, as Last Cat Standing is in the veterinary hospital getting his radioactive iodine treatment for his thyroid, and we can't have him back for maybe ten days as he's going to be somewhat radioactive for a little while; I'm sure he's going to be fine (this is the treatment described to me by the treating vet as both 'the gold standard' and 'magical', in that it's effective in 99.5% of cases, and in the 0.5% it isn't, they just give it another go and then it's effective), but we haven't had an entirely cat-free house for this long in 20 years, and I'm feeling a bit weird about it. Also I'm procrastinating finishing off an essay plan (I'd rather just write the damn essay but no, we have to submit a plan for tutor feedback to make sure we're on the right lines, and as you all know by now, that's really not how I work XD )

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 362 (plus another 76 on the other account for the fandom that does not speak its name...)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 1,491,388 (good grief; nearly 1.5 million?! and if you add in the 270,606 on the other account, that's 1,761,994 O.O )

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien (chiefly the Hobbit movies, and LotR, a mix of movie and book-'verse); King Arthur (2004); Fisherman's Friends (fandom of one); The Alienist (TV; occasionally); Marvel (occasionally, chiefly bits of the MCU and X-Men comics/Evolution); Top Gun (here and there) - and a bewildering number of others...

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? My Heart Is An Empty Vessel (621); Shape Up (422); Safe (414); Not Alone (413); The Unworn Jumpers of Molly Weasley (343)

This is bewildering but also a fine illustration of the vagaries of AO3 and the absolute folly of measuring anything by the amount of kudos a fic has: Empty Vessel is three and a half years old, took two years to post and has 115 chapters, so was at the top of the tag many many times over those two years. Shape Up and Safe were written and posted not long after Top Gun: Maverick came out (I don't know how busy the tag still is, but it was very busy when the film came out so the fics in that fandom got a lot of interaction because a lot of people were there looking for fics) and are both one-shots. Not Alone is also a one-shot (for X-Men: Evolution) and has been up on AO3 for nearly twelve years (and has had a bit of a boost with the release of X-Men '97). And Unworn Jumpers (on which I really ought to put some sort of disclaimer, along with the small handful of other ancient HP fics I've got up there) is a seasonal one-shot that's been up for over ten years and tends to get a bit of a boost every December. So *shrugs* go figure. And if anyone wants to help the only HP fic in the top five not be in the top five any more, Come Home is only 36 behind it, and it is fluffy and cute and has Elrohir persuading Maglor to come to Imladris for Midwinter somewhat in the guise of the Elfling he hasn't been for a very long time... :D

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes. Sometimes it takes me a while (oh god six months, but I got up to speed with them all and now I'm trying to make sure I do it within a week) as I am a champion procrastinator but I feel it's important for me to say thank you. And sometimes squee a bit. :D And sometimes it makes me a new friend, which is extra-awesome.

I have a few very very old comments on the stuff I posted before 2020 which I never did get round to answering, which I feel bad about, but I also feel like it would be weird to go back and answer them now...I dunno, what do you guys think?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't do angsty endings very often, but The Last Watch (in which Bard dies) is really sad, and Never Forgotten and See This Storm Through (in which Sigrid and Thranduil comfort each other after the funeral, and Legolas comes home to Dale to look after his father and his family and grieve with them, respectively) are almost as sad although they both end with a small amount of hope.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Ah, most of my fics end happily :D I'm far too tired for anything but, most of the time, these days. But let's face it, My Heart Is An Empty Vessel ends with a coronation and a wedding (spoiler alert! XD ) so let's go for that one.

8. Do you get hate on fics? I am lucky; the closest I've had was some anon complaining about Empty-Handed being a spoiler for the then-unposted Empty Vessel although the events it 'spoiled' were inevitable in the context of a mortal-immortal relationship, and someone whingeing in a bookmark comment that Thorin and Bilbo don't even talk until the end of Mr Underhill's Finest Seafood Specialities, thus completely missing the point of the fic (and the 'past' after the pairing tag) - it wasn't about them - which made me chuckle as much as the rudeness annoyed me.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Sometimes. I have phases when I feel like it, and (much longer) phases when I don't. It's generally only fairly tame and euphemistic (with the single and solitary exception of that one hanahaki fic about the twins the premise for which, although not the smut, came to me in a dream) and probably not all that imaginative since, as the acest of aces, the whole idea completely bewilders me XD

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Not unless you count various different parts of the Tolkien legendarium. My brain just doesn't work that way.

11. (there doesn't seem to be a question 11; I feel like this might be one of those Tumblr traditions, as I've definitely done question memes on here before that have been lacking in a question 11...)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I have! I am deeply honoured that my KA fic Anniversaries was translated into Russian by Elenabu some years ago, and It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... appears on Lofter in Mandarin, translated by AntheaXi. There were a couple of other Russian translations of some of my very old stories, but that was 15 or 20 years ago and I can't actually remember which or where.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have! A long long time ago, the fic that eventually became the original novel that is Two of a Kind, the tale of Hal and Jack, was a co-production, and I really enjoy bouncing ideas back and forth - and of course, there is the Tudors OT3-'verse fandom stuff that @mihrsuri and I have been pinging to and fro just recently, which is also hugely enjoyable. :D :D :D

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Oh, too many to name! Gawain/Galahad from KA2004, the bi widower dads, Legolas/Imrahil, Elladan/Elrohir, Erestor/Glorfindel, Sigrid/Tauriel, to name but a few.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am determined to finish All I Want Is You. I am also determined to finish part whatever it is now of It's Always Been You, although that's been on the back burner for a long long time. There's one WIP on the other account which I'm also determined to finish although who knows if I'll ever get there. I'm not one for saying never, though. I was out of Tolkien fandom for 16 years, and after the fandom that does not speak its name fizzled out, I genuinely thought I'd never write again. And yet...here I am.

16. What are your writing strengths? Ooooh, I dunno. Spelling, punctuation and grammar, dialogue, leavening the serious romantic stuff with a bit of humour, kindness and love for the characters and settings, happy endings and quite a lot of fluff. :D

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Plot. XD Can't plot to save my life.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Only when necessary for character reasons, and always provide a translation. Otherwise you're shutting out readers who don't understand (unless it's not important that they actually understand precisely what's being said as long as they get the gist).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Knowingly? X-Men (comics), and that fic is here, although I posted it ten-odd years after first posting it to ff.net.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? All of them. I cannot possibly choose.

Thank you so much for the tag, lovely! Entirely no-obligation tags go to @lemurious, @verecunda, @writerman, @scary-grace, @seagull-energy, @herawell, @thenookienostradamus, @sallysavestheday, @myeaglesong, @palavapeite, @bigneonglitter, @bishkebab, @peonybroadbeltofbuckland, @redeemer46, @spiced-wine-fic and anyone else who wants to do this - if you see this and fancy it, please consider yourself well and truly tagged!

[chameliyun]

20 Q's for Fic Writers

thanks for the tag @spacejammie-eimmajecaps!

How many works do you have on ao3? Officially 8, but I have one on anon and one currently unrevealed in a fic exchange

What's your total ao3 word count? 61,996

What fandoms do you write for? So far I've written for Death Note, Tangled the Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Haikyuu, plus a couple of crossovers. Haikyuu is definitely my main rn though

What are your top five fics by kudos? #1: Frosting and Freckles: 69 (nice) #2: Draw Me Near: 39 #3: [embarrassing anon fic]: 35 #4: Varian Is Not a Wizard: 25 #5: Midnight Coda: 21

Do you respond to comments? Yeah, I love to! I don't get a lot so they always make me happy :)

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? probably the anon fic sdfsk but other than that, Midnight Coda is kinda bittersweet because of what happens later

What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? hmm idk but the sappiest is definitely Frosting and Freckles

Do you get hate on fics? Not so far, thankfully! I don't think I have a big enough readership for that haha

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have not; not sure what kind it would be if I did

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? I love writing crossovers! A PJO/HP crossover was actually what got me into fanfic. Unfortunately most of them are merely concepts or abandoned (for now), but as for crazy, I think my Lunar Chronicles/PJO one is the craziest in terms of how the plot grew out of control from a simple "what if these two characters interacted" to "I could rewrite most of this series," which is why I got stuck and put it on hiatus lol but I do want to get back to it someday. Maybe once I finish my other active crossover

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge

What's the longest you've spent working on one fic? And the shortest? Uhhh well if we count "working on" as "having it in the back of mind to get to but haven't worked on in months," probably Sent from the Heavens lol. If not, then Varian Is Not a Wizard (just over two years since I published the first chapter). Shortest is definitely Midnight Coda, since I wrote that pretty much in a day iirc

Have you ever co-written a fic before? No, but it sounds like it could be fun!

What's your all-time favorite ship? From all fandoms? Dude I have no idea how to narrow that down. Best I can give you is my current fave is Tsukkiyama from Haikyuu

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Probably my "Leo Valdez ends up in the ATLA world" one :sob: It never made it past the word doc and about three pages of story and I haven't looked at it in like two years

What are your writing strengths? I like to think I'm pretty good at dialogue and grammar/spelling

What are your writing weaknesses? Everything else (jk). I am awful at describing scenes/settings; I get bored writing them so I don't put as much effort in as I should haha. I also tend to ramble and use passive voice too much

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I haven't done it, but I think it's fine as long as it fits the context

First fandom you wrote for? Published: Avatar: The Last Airbender. Unpublished: Percy Jackson

Favorite fic you've written? I think it's still Bent Out of Shape. It's so niche, but I had an idea and I executed it, and I'm proud of what I accomplished. Although once I finish Varian Is Not a Wizard, that might take the top slot.

No-pressure tagging: @supermarine-silvally @starrynightarchive @litterateur97 @palant1r @soreiya @lilac-writes @oloreandil @kandybarkreepshow @ellegamgee and anyone else who wants to!

[gin-draws]

Hey! Sorry I didn't see these forever, but it's totally something I've been meaning to address and I just haven't had words for a while.

Firstly: fuck terfs.

The rest is long so it’s under the cut:

Having JKR alive and running around spewing hate has definitely not helped my love for the series. She uses money that we gave her to fuel her hateful bullshit, and to actively attack not just the trans community, but whatever issue she disagrees with in the UK. It hurts as someone that grew up putting myself into this world to have the creator openly using her power and influence to go after other marginalized people.

Even before JKR started openly being horrible I had worked hard to overlook my discomfort with stuff in the series (there's a lot of problematic stuff that 10 year old me could overlook but 32 year old me can't lol). A big part of me getting past that was just making her world my own through my art. I loved the community I found in the fandom on tumblr. I loved the people I could interact with over a shared interest and something that brought us all joy. Especially other creators that made the world their own.

Over time though, engagement kind of fell off on tumblr. (Where the reblogs at.. am I right?) And slowly I went from being able to ignore negative comments here and there because of the good interactions, to being worn out by the growing overwhelming negativity. People act like they can just demand things from creators and we somehow owe it to fandom to do what they specifically want.

Want that character to be white? Draw them yourself.

(Making characters bipoc brings out a shocking amount of anger from people for no reason but racism...)

I had tried to make the story I'd grown up loving into something that made me happy. I made the cast diverse because I grew up surrounded by all sorts of cultures and religions and it made my world a lot bigger. I sometimes played around with my own gender identity through my art, and it brought me a lot of joy. (Sirius was a fun playground for getting through a LOT of my own shit). But it brought out a lot of vitriol, and over time I just got tired of it.

I mostly stopped posting art because now it's something I do for me. My own characters and stories where nobody could send anon messages telling me "x should actually be white because---" I put a lot of time and love into my work and if it doesn't make me happy, I lose interest. Doesn’t mean I stopped drawing, it’s just not fanart as much anymore.

(I draw a LOT lol)

I miss the story I grew up loving a lot. But I can't actively put money in JKR's pockets, which distanced me from the series. A lot of my interaction with the community became a little too negative to deal with. And so over time I drifted away. It makes me sad to have strayed from that world, but it just became a little too toxic for me.

It still brings me a lot of joy seeing the positive comments, and people appreciating my old art means a lot. But I kind of moved on for myself, and now I don't have to worry about hateful comments about canon and race when I post my dnd characters lol.

I’ll probably be moving hp art I’m not happy with anymore over to my old hp side blog instead of deleting it, but as an artist and creative I’ve moved on to my own characters and stories. (If I open up commissions and people liked my interpretations of the characters, I would love nothing more than to draw desi Harry, or black Hermione, or Sirius not giving a fuck about gender. Lmao)

[jamesunderwater]

Tell me about your writing history! Is this your first fandom? Had you ever written anything else before? Maybe embarrassing poetry or a diary?

Wow this ask had me pulling out my old hard drive to look at the oldest writings I could find I actually went into my old boxes and found the one remaining notebook from pre-college, as well. So this turned into a VERY fun adventure xD Thank you for sending this, Anna!

So my journey into writing is really intertwined with my love for HP. I'd definitely say it was my first fandom, and it's absolutely been my most long-lasting one. I was very into Supernatural in middle school as well (it had just come out), but nothing captured me like HP, and eventually, the Marauders. I remember writing a story when I was like 9 for this monthly contest we had in school, and I specifically said to myself, "I'm going to write this in the style that JKR uses," and because of that, I was SURE I was going to win the contest. I even remember using "he said, matter-of-factly" in the story, because I'd looked up what that meant when reading HP (about Hermione, of course) and thought it was just next-level writing. I did actually win the contest that month, too! xD So I would say I really started getting into writing and enjoying it because the Harry Potter books made me fall so in love with reading.

So jump ahead to early middle school, around 11 years old, I'm on fucking Neopets, and I discover a roleplaying forum. And a thread seeking someone to play James at the Yule Ball......and thus, my Highest Self was born. 😆 It felt like I'd discovered a whole new world where I could really be myself and do the things I loved with other people who loved it, too. So I started roleplaying (on myspace lmao), mostly as Sirius or James and eventually also Dean Winchester. I discovered ff.net and hpff, and wrote some stories, but mostly I really loved interacting with other writers through rping.

Most of what I wrote outside of rp was either poetry or short stories, and most of it was really dark, cause my life in general was really dark. In college I took a poetry writing course and a fiction writing course and fucking loved them both, but I didn't end up going any further in those courses. I roleplayed off and on throughout my 20s, wrote poetry off and on, little fics and drabbles here and there. Came up with ideas for books I never wrote. So really, what I'm doing right now with Dead to Me is the most "serious" I've been about a multi-chapter story before, unless you count the ongoing stories I technically wrote as a roleplayer. Like, I know I'm actually going to finish this one, whereas so often in the past I just let things fall away (thank you, adhd).

As for old writing/embarrassing stuff - the oldest fandom thing I found was actually a short wolfstar fic I wrote in 2011 that made me smile so much! I might post it. 😊 Which is so funny because I don't even remember writing it. I did easily find some embarrassing poetry, though. I picked one out from my hard drive from 2011 before I found my old notebook from high school, so congrats, you get two embarrassing poems for the price of one. Under the cut, cause geez, I've already talked a lot xD

From my first year in college...feast your eyes on a gross poem about my first real boyfriend, who was (shocker) an absolute asshole:

It’s your back, the way your skin crawls across it like caterpillars stretching tight while you blanket over me.

It’s your hair, those thick tendrils of brown leaves falling over me like autumn when it starts and it feels like the sky is falling.

It’s your laugh, that low baritone. That tuba in the brass section that gets all the attention and earns glares from the girls in football stands that can’t hear over them, but I become a puddle to that sound.

You are a warm blanket in an ice locker – relief.

Watching you live is like videotaping a child’s first years. Their first giggles that grace the world, first few steps and words and birthdays, bed time stories and grandparents’ laps. All in all, true happiness.

You are all the reasons in the world to smile, and so I am.

Andddd from my first year in high school, please enjoy this poem about having your heartbroken by someone on the internet:

You were like a magnet I, a piece of metal could do nothing but give into gravity and fall into your hesitant arms

I couldn't trust you to catch me

When I came crawling back you made me swear never to leave again I made the vow sealed myself in an envelope that never made it to Ohio

You refused to open me up I just begged and pleaded for your love

In the end the magnet will pull away and leave me a useless piece of rust Too drained to give up Too defeated to get up

When you left, so did all my hope

You wonder why I take the lead You wonder why I always leave the first time

Real talk, I actually MUCH prefer the second poem. Maybe it's because I still remember lines from it to this day, or because the idea of writing a lovey poem to an asshole is more cringey than writing a heartbreak poem in general, but.... I don't hate those last two lines 😆

[millennialgrandma]

2023 Wrap Up

Ok, so. I really meant to post this in January. Had most of it drafted and all but a few of the stats done. And then [gestures widely], life. When I sat down with my airtables and my notebook to begin the task of summarizing this 2023 in words, I honestly couldn't intuit where I fell in comparison to 2022. I knew I read more traditionally published books, which was thrilling in and of itself (although wholly unexpected). And I knew that as each month of the year passed, I despaired over how little fanfic I got to read (and how little I was able to interact with the fanfic community). Life served a whole lot of lemons this year. And rather than retreat into fandom and burrow under the blanket of escapism to deal with the stress, I...held it at arm's length. Perhaps because I was terrified that once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. Or because I felt I didn't deserve the escape (I had too much to do). Or because I just didn't have the time for a proper spiral. Probably all of the above.

Words Written

It's funny I've chosen to highlight this stat with its own heading this year, given the facts. Despite my best (ok, really more like medium) efforts, I barely managed to squeak out 2,300 words (a quick little fic and a smaller little ficlet). And I guess I just wanted to tell myself that that's ok. That as disheartening as it is to look back and see so few words, to know that I signed up and backed out of fests, it's ok. I spent some time working on the MCD fic here and there, and I know I'm going to be really proud of it when I'm finally done. I have so many more stories to tell. The words will come when they come.

Traditionally Published Books

Last year I set myself a goal of 12 books and only managed to read two. I am happy to report I smashed it out of the park this year with a total of 13 books. The biggest contributing factor here is, of course, the way I devoured all the Grishaverse books in April. I enjoyed a new release (Forget Me Not) and a couple of delightful queer romance novels (RWRB and Boyfriend Material). I continue to study astrology (when I remember), and my love of history accounts for the books on the Cold War and the last crossing of the Lusitania.

Total word count on traditionally published books comes in at approximately 1,538,705 words.

Completed Fics

The vast majority of fics I read continue to be within the Harry Potter fandom. I branched out a bit more to other fandoms this year, but HP will always be my first love. RWRB will get its own section this year, as that's the fandom I'm most heavily invested in after HP. The remainder will be compiled into separate section for ease of tracking stats.

Harry Potter

In 2023, I read a total of 113 completed fics (a handful of them 2-3 times) in the HP fandom, for a total word count of 917,126 words. The 2 fics that started the year in WIP status (and were subsequently completed) will be included in the WIP word count below.

AO3 RATINGS

I remain a horny monster. Explicit fics accounted for all but 2 fics read. Those two tiny little paragons of virtue were rated GA.

PAIRINGS

Dramione remains my most wide-read ship, all though I slutted myself out a fair few more pairings this year. Dramione was referenced as the sole main pairing in 43 (or 38%) of the fics. I read 50 fics (44%) that had non-dramione pairings, with the most popular being parkweasel and harmony. The remaining handful of fics (those that don't fall into exclusively dramione, or explicitly non-dramione) are filthy, dirty threesome/foursome/moresome smut, which usually pair dramione at some point among the tangled limbs.

RWRB

So I read RWRB back in August, and watched the movie and became a wee bit obsessed with these dumbass boys. I had grand plans to then feast upon the wonderful world of fic in this fandom, but life kept getting in the way. Even though I didn't get to read much, I'm breaking this fandom out from the rest because it deserves its own spotlight and I foolishly made grand grand plans for spiraling in 2024. All told, I read 9 completed fics for a total word count of 263,058 words. All were rated Explicit or Mature, most were multi-chap, and all but one featured firstprince exclusively (shoutout to whimsymanaged for being the whore of my heart and feeding me a threesome).

Other Fandoms

I ventured into a few more fandoms this year and I'll be so real with you, I did it exclusively for horny reasons. Fics in this category totaled 127,815 words.

S&B (darklina): 9 fics, 63k words

Anne of Green Gables (shirbert): 10 fics, 31k words

HoTD (mostly harwin/rhaenyra): 6 fics, 22k words

LoTR (haladriel): 2 fics, 7.5k words

Euphoria: 1 fic, 4k words

WIPs

This is probably the saddest section out of all of them, because I neglected my WIPs quite horribly. I think this was part of the whole "denying-myself-fun-until-I-get-stuff-done" mindset: since I wasn't making progress, I didn't get my WIPs. Truly an awful mentality, and the more I write about it the more I'm thinking that it didn't actually accomplish anything except keep me miserable.

At the start of the year, I was following 19 WIPs. Two of these were completed during the year, and I did finish them. I managed to catch up on two others, and somehow added four more. There are a handful of the WIPs I was following that completed during the year that I *didn't* catch up on. First order of business when I get to a place of intentional reading in 2024 is coming back to each and every one of these 21 abandoned children.

Final Tally

And with that said, my 2023 fanfic word count was 1,393,225 words and my tradpub word count was 1,538,705 words, for a total of 2.933 million words read for pleasure this year.

This comes in at 92% of 2022's total reading, and 42% of 2021's. I'm happy I at least got close to a level comparable to 2022. I don't think I'll ever reach 2021 levels again, but it is fun to compare against that absolutely fucking bananas year of reading. BUT. It is sad to see the number continue to go down, and really reinforces the need to change my mindset about fun being a reward that I earn (I'm working on it, I swear, but as I'm posting this in May instead of January you can see that I'm not off to a great start for 2024).

Outside of everything I've read listed above, I also got the immense privilege to read early drafts of a handful of original works that a big beautiful brain I know is working on. I can't quantify those in the word count, but let me just say there are so many character stories I am holding in my heart and I cannot wait for other people to know them and shriek over them someday, too.

My promise for 2024 is to get back to my menace ways. I've got a lot of ground to make up, but I think I might just be able to do it.

[the-haunted-office]

♥ What’s the WORST thing that has happened to you rp wise?

All right. Rubbing my hands together. I've already talked about the misogyny and being used, this time I'll talk about something that happened a long time ago.

This happened like, I don't know, 15-18 years ago, back when I used to roleplay on AOL instant messenger (AIM) and an ancient blogging site called Xanga.

I'm sorry to say that I used to be into Harry Potter, and as such I used to rp in the fandom. One of my closest writing partners and friends was a gal named Linda. We were such good friends she even flew over from her country to visit a couple times and even came to my wedding.

We were a part of a whole HP rp group where there were a dozen or so members I'd say, some more coming and going all the time, but the core of us was maybe a dozen or so at any given time. We had group chats and group rp's, group events, everything. It was a lot of fun, but as you would expect, not all of us got along. There were a couple of other girls I didn't get along with because they just godmodded and metagamed the shit out of everything all the time, but modding (the ones in charge) then wasn't the same as it is now, and so godmodding was pretty rampant. It was extremely frustrating, so I just avoided these few people as much as I could.

Linda and I used to rp together a lot, day and night. And then a couple of her characters started dating some of the characters belonging to the girls I didn't get along with, and it all went downhill from there. Linda was really heavy into shipping, and with her focus mainly there, the interactions I used to have with her got shoved way off to the side.

I wasn't happy about it and I had confided in Linda about it only to be largely ignored. One day the girls roped me into a group chat with them where I stupidly accepted and thought maybe they wanted to rp something together for fun, but nope. They ganged up on me and wanted to know "what my problem was", so I told them straight that I didn't like them because they were shitty roleplayers, they godmodded, etc. And then I left the chatroom and blocked everybody, including my friend Linda because she was the only one I had been confiding in about my misgivings and she had told them everything.

She and I had each other's phone numbers so once she found out what happened she started calling me nonstop until I answered. We talked and eventually I unblocked her, but things were never the same after that. I just couldn't trust her with anything anymore.

After all these years, it's a distant memory and doesn't hurt anymore, but I still have a bad taste in my mouth over it. I'm sorry to say that it's tainted my view on people who care only about shipping. It makes me feel like my interactions with them don't matter and that I'll always be shoved off to the side, so I generally try to avoid people who are all about shipping. It's not to shame them, because people can rp however they want, but it's for my own comfort. And that's not to say that I don't enjoy shipping myself, because I do, but it's just uncomfortable because of my experiences and makes me a bit wary. I really do try not to let it get to me, though.

[silverstonesainz]

Am I old & senile or were post goals for fanfics on here a thing??? like “10 reblogs & 30 likes and ill post the next chapter!!!!!!!” type things??? Was that a thing??? Cuz it should be I think //

they were totally a thing. they just weren’t successful overall. most people would just stop reading or engaging, which would cause the author to lower the required stats to get the next chapter out. The ones that were success already had a massive following with tons of engagement so the requirement weren’t hard to accomplish. it caused a lot of tension between readers/authors. fanfiction.net had a whole ass war in the HP and Twilight Fandoms because of it. There were whole forums posts listing what Authors did/didn’t require interaction along with a boycott list for those that did.

As far as people not RB anymore. That’s been a problem in ever fandom on Tumblr for the 15+ years I’ve been on this site. I do think it’s become more of a notable issue because Tumblr is one of the only platforms that require a RB, because it doesn’t have an algorithm like TIKTOK or Instagram. And there have been drove of that are leave those sites and ending up here. I can always tell when a user is new because they tag EVERYTHING. Like every driver will be tagged, thinking it’s going to boost their post when all it does is get them blocked.

didn't know there was all that DRAMA over it. as a writer, it just sucks to put so much time and thought into a fanfic/edit for people to just like it and have it not circulate the community you know?? its soooo discouraging and i would say partially to blame for why im in such a rut with my writing and content creating.

i put in hours and hours into SMAUs and days to weeks on fics its insane. and then to post and see ratios like 1000 likes to 20 reblogs is so fucking discouraging. i appreciate the bare minimum interaction but also, i just expect more. and maybe that makes me a shitty person but is it so hard to hit reblog and share it with everyone else after i've put in such a huge chunk of my time to make it?? like if you can take the 2 extra minutes to reply and come into my ask box asking for another part, surely surely you can reblog it too ya know?

i realize that this might come off as selfish and whiny and ungrateful, but its how ive been feeling. im always grateful to every person who has followed and interacted with me and my work in some form or another, but i just dont think the scales are balanced tbh. does that make sense? i should stop talking

[littlequeen7]

I would honestly appreciate any responses to this, I would love to get people's opinions and/or start a discourse. I'm sorry if any of this is controversial, I've just had this on my mind a lot lately.

Okay, so I grew up with Harry Potter. It was one of the first "big kid" books that I read as a child, I was an early reader and an undiagnosed neurodivergent kid so I immersed myself fully in the universe. It became one of my special interests and it has continued to be so for most of my life. It was an escape from an abusive upbringing, and a focus of my maladaptive day dreaming, a safe space. I spent a great deal of time with the books, films and video games. As such, I am very much attached to the series.

That being said, I understand all of the controversy surrounding the series and it's creator. I understand the insensitive racial stereotypes that were written into the books, and I know that the author turned out to be an awful person. I am nonbinary and my brother is trans, so the transphobia that JKR is so open about is very disturbing to me (it would be even if I wasn't a part of the community, but it hits very close to home). I regretfully went to Harry Potter world when I was at Universal Studios a few years ago, and I regret giving any money to JKR or her cronies. Other than the trip to Universal Studios, I have not spent any money on the HP fandom directly since JKR came out with her transphobic views.

I have talked to my brother about the upcoming HP Legacy video game, where I expressed my excitement of having a modern version of the OOTP video game I obsessed over when I was younger, but also expressed trepidation at wanting to spend any money that would directly or indirectly line JKR's pockets. He encouraged me to go through with buying the game anyway (or asking for it as a birthday present), saying I could recognize that I disagreed with her beliefs while still getting to enjoy something I had been looking forward to for years. I still don't know where I stand on this.

Even aside from the moral implications of spending money on the franchise, I have seen a lot of hate on Tumblr for people that still enjoy being a part of the fandom, regardless of if they financially contribute to it or not. I saw a popular post saying they wish the entire fandom would "disappear off the face of the earth" or something like that.

At this point, I use an already paid for HBO subscription to watch the films, and read a LOT of fanfiction, and that is the extent to my interaction with the fandom. What are people's viewpoints on interacting with the fandom without contributing financially towards JKR's bigotry? I honestly find pride in the HP fanfiction community, because they have reclaimed something that meant so much to them, and removed that awful transphobe from the community entirely.

I would love to hear anybody's ideas on this, regardless of where you stand on the issue. I don't know if this will even get views or not, but I would like to learn more and hear more people's opinions. And not in an "I'm too lazy to Google why transphobia's bad" way, in a "I genuinely want to hear from individual people that feel passionately about this" way.

If anyone does reply to or reblog this, I appreciate it!

[lucientelrunya]

Twenty questions for fic writers

Tagged again by the wonderful @forerussake, thank you!! <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

10

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

446,816

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment only DMBJ and those are the only fics I've posted on AO3. I've written for other fandoms before and posted those on other sites, mostly HP and original works. I've also written things for Sailor Moon, Stargate, Lord of the Rings, Grimm and Stanger Things but never finished those, so they were never posted (and most are veeeeeeery long ago).

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Like a lonely house (284)

The Crystal Menace (256)

Promise in the Dark (200)

We go deeper than the ink beneath the skin of our tattoos (76)

Stolen Moments (54)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yeah, always. Since I don't have that many fics on AO3 yet, it's not a lot to do and I love the interaction with readers, love hearing about their theories, what they liked and all that. And I want them to know how much I appreciate that they took time to write a nice comment and how happy that makes me! And as a reader myself I love it when authors answer my comments, too.

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Ooof. Everything I write is angsty and hurt/comfort. But I guess the angsties one would be The Crystal Menace, because it's the first part of a trilogy and the ending is quite sad and gives a bleak outlook for the future. But it's not the real ending of the whole story, so I'm not sure it should count?

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Hmmm, actually everything I write has a happy ending (you know, and if it's not happy then it's not the end). But I think the truly happiest ending would be Like a lonely house because at the end Zhang Rishan is truly happy for the first time in a very long time.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hmmm, very long ago one of my original ffs got a very unkind comment, but I'm not sure that should be considered hate, the person was still civil and I don' even remember much. So, I'd say no :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do. It's not always the easiest thing to write, but when the muse strikes, I greatly enjoy it. I'm not sure what different kinds of smut there are? I do write PWPs that are just about the sex, but I also do smutty last chapters to long-fic.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Uhhhh... I think I might have started one or two, once upon a time when I was a teenager. But I never got very far with those, my focus tended to shift a lot more back then. I don't know if I would write crossovers today, at least not classic crossovers. But fusions are very interesting, like putting characters from one fandom into the world of another fandom, replacing the original characters. Or at least a world very inspired by another fandom.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, no. It's already such a small fandom and since I only do one pairing the audience is even smaller. As for the older stuff, well, I might love the stories but they were objectively speaking very badly written so I don't think anyone would want to steal those.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Oh yes, almost all of my old stuff was co-written in role-play-style with someone else. But not big role plays, just me and my co-author creating characters and planning stories. Those were my teenage years and it took me very long to learn to write and do all the work all by myself.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Oh dear. I've had so many ships over the years and one I've written quite a lot is one I do not want to think about (because of the Terfling). I've been obsessed with FuBa for two years now and everything I've written since then is about them, so I'll say FuBa.

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Definitely my Stranger Things ffs, those were the first things I started writing all by myself and I am quite proud of how far I did come with writing out a lot and not only the good scenes, but then my dad died and I couldn't really write for a year or something (until I hyperfixated on FuBa to kinda distract myself, I guess?) and the series kept on going and I didn't really like where it went, (I did mostly stop reading ffs after season 3 dropped), so I'm not sure I'll ever finish those.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I honestly have no idea. I just write what i want to read and kinda soldier on to get where I want to get.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

When I look at writing advice I always feel like I do everything wrong, but most of that advice sucks anyway XD. My weakness is definitely that I tend to get too many ideas and start too many new stories, keeping my focus on one and going through with it not easy. It gets easier when I post an ongoing fic, at least if I know people like it and are waiting for the next chapter :)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

Hmmm, not sure about this. I wouldn't do it, I think, not even for languages I do speak. I can imagine different scenarios, like when a character ends up somewhere, where a language is spoken that the character doesn't understand. Mostly, if we are with that character, (first person, third person), we as the readers shouldn't understand the language as well and I would just say "says something in an unknown language". Because if characters speak a different language and it's relevant to the plot, then there has to be a translation and I personally would mark the dialogue as "spoken in X language", but still keep it english.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Oh dear. The first fandom I read was actually Stargate SG-1 and I think I wrote something for that? But it's so long ago, I'm not really sure. It might also be Sailor Moon, because I remember a weird crossovery story idea with Stargate. Who knows. That was more than 20 years ago ^^°°°

And also I remember a time when I had just learned to write and I wrote silly little one-page fairy tales that always ended with a happily ever after, so maybe fairytales are my real actual first fandom? XD

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Uhhh, this is a hard one because I love all my stories (even the badly written old ones). But it's Like a lonely house, I think. The first story I wrote (and finished!!) all by myself and my first story on AO3. And I still love most of it and re-read it frequently :)

Ooooookay, who to tag? Maybe @spinecorset, @daydreamorama, @elletromil, @lacommunarde, @s1utspeare, @kholran, if any of you want?

[goldheartedsky]

You For the ask game: what's your fannish history look like? What's your fandom history look like? You seem pretty mono-fannish so I was curious if you were in any other fandoms before TOG consumed your soul? If yes, how did your experience/interaction level in them compare to now? If not, what do you think might cause you to move on from or push you away from TOG?

So I got into fandom *pretty* young, like maybe 11/12? And you're right, I am very mono-fannish because, even though I enjoy a lot of media, I somehow just get into fandom hyper fixations and end up one place at a time.

I think I first started in HP and wrote a couple Draco/Hermione fics before I got heavily involved in Bandom where I wrote a *bunch* of fics over the next 5 years I think, but that was back when everything was centered on LJ. I moved into Hockey RPF for a couple years but orphaned all of my fics so good luck finding any of those hahahah.

I got really into Marvel (specifically Steve/Bucky) for a couple of really good years and made some really great friends during my time there. I still have those fics up on ao3 so if that's your thing, you're welcome to read them! I felt really burnt after the ending of Endgame and kind of lost that spark that I had, so when I saw TOG it was honestly just right place at the right time.

I've definitely written far more in the last couple years for TOG than I did for Marvel but I also feel like TOG just hits on a lot of the growth that I've made over the last few years. I'm in a different place in life than I was for any of my other fandoms and I'm much more of myself than in the past.

I'm not sure what will cause me to move on from TOG, but it might just be the right piece of media at the right time. But it's not going to be anybody pushing me out, that's for certain. I've weathered enough storms here and found my little sandbox that I like playing in.

[gallifrey1sburning]

Hi, I've seen your reply to jalesidor's post on how fandom becomes ever more important the more one realises how disappointing jkr is. In it, you spoke about how both Harry and Draco are queer-coded in canon. Would you mind to expand on that? Or if you already have, would you mind linking that post or the tag under which I can find it? Absolutely no pressure to do so, just if you like! Thank you!

Hi anon! Sorry for the delay in answering; I wanted to do the question justice. I could have thrown some stuff at you off the top of my head, but that didn’t feel right—at my core, I am a Ravenclaw, and I could not bring myself to half-ass this. (For those who haven’t seen the referenced post, you can find it here)

Before I get into my personal analysis, I want to note that there has been a lot of discourse on this topic over the years, so many of my ideas didn’t actually originate with me, they just got incorporated into my mental cache of HP analysis. If you search the tags “canon drarry” or “drarry in canon” or any variation thereon, you’ll get a bunch of posts where people pull excerpts and explain how extremely not heterosexual the things happening in them are. @iamnmbr3 in particular has written a ton of these (which I didn’t realize were all by the same person until I started trying to track them down!), a few favorites being Arthur Weasley clearly thinking Harry’s got a crush, this hilarious list of canonical interactions, Narcissa’s very accurate understanding of how aware Harry and Draco are of each other, and that time Harry got beaned in the head by luggage because he was watching Draco change. Others classics include when @big-draco-energy got an ask about how Harry assumed that Draco must be a Death Eater if he was preoccupied enough to not care about their rivalry (and was right) and when @northward had a great observation about their obsessions with each other.

Seriously, this scene, y’all!

Possibly the most quoted line in Drarry fandom

And now, on to my own thoughts!

So first off, I want to say that some of the things that I’m going to flag as unintentional queer coding are rooted in stereotypes, and that that doesn’t mean that I believe in or condone said stereotypes. However, media often uses stereotyping as a lazy shorthand, and I think that that should be taken into account in this context, because it means there’s a reasonable assumption that people would interpret some character traits and scenes through that lens.

Secondly, so much credit to my amazing friend @mxmaneater, who actually HAS A FOLDER of photos of super gay moments from the books, which saved me a lot of time trying to dig up quotes that I knew existed but wouldn’t have been able to easily track down.

And finally, these are my personal interpretations. I’m not any sort of academic, and we’re all aware that JKR does not believe that she wrote Harry or Draco as queer. I’m hoping folks can be chill and take this in the spirit that it’s intended: as one possible reading. Your beliefs about the series and the characters are your own, and I’m not here to tell you you’re wrong just because they aren’t mine, so please extend me the same courtesy!

Now, without further ado, here we go:

Let’s start with Harry, because that’s the easier lift here. The Harry Potter books are written from a third person limited perspective, which means we only see things from Harry’s point of view and are privy to his thoughts. I can’t find a link, but I know that it’s widely quoted that JKR at some point used the fact that the books are from Harry’s perspective as justification for the ways in which some people or events were portrayed. The answers on this Quora post about pro-Gryffindor bias in the books do a good job of explaining the idea of Harry’s point of view skewing the point of view of the series.

So if we accept that the books reflect Harry’s thoughts and feelings about things, we’re left with the unmistakable fact that he frequently observes how handsome various boys and men are. We have physical descriptions of Cedric Diggory, Bill Weasley, Sirius Black, and even Tom Riddle that clearly illustrate admiration. Additionally, although it’s largely unflattering, it’s often noted amongst fans that we get full physical descriptions of Draco extremely regularly—we know his hair and eye color pretty much from the get go and hear about them often, as well as his outfits, his swagger, his smirking and ‘leering’ (yes, she really uses that word), etc.

Some very heterosexual observations on men from the perspective of one Harry James Potter

Sure, Harry never explicitly says he’s into men, but let’s keep in mind the time period the books were placed in and the type of family that Harry was raised by: there is a very real chance that Harry wouldn’t have been aware of the idea of bisexuality and therefore would never have questioned his own orientation. Because he knew he liked girls, so of course he wasn’t gay! To many folks who later realized they were some form of not-straight, particularly bisexual and/or pansexual folks, this is a pretty common experience: not really registering that checking out people of multiple genders is not actually something that everyone does. *Stares vaguely into the distance while pondering all of the girls I didn’t realize I was crushing on until many years later*

Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, there’s the symbolism of the whole ‘literally being raised in a closet, abused for being a ‘freak’, and forced to keep his truth a secret because the people he lived with were ashamed of him’ thing. To queer people raised by homophobes (or anyone who knew people in that situation), this isn’t even the slightest bit subtle, and the fact that JKR either didn’t notice or is in denial about it is truly bizarre to me.

Draco is a little harder to pin down without delving into stereotyping, so I’m just gonna go for it: Draco is a textbook Drama Gay™. He’s performative in his speech, using a lot of flamboyant gestures; he constantly performs over the top reenactments for his friends; he makes buttons and sews costumes and does drawings and generally just goes through a lot of effort to pick on his ‘rival’. The only scenes where we see him in something that could be read as a heterosexual romantic relationship are with Pansy Parkinson, whom he doesn’t seem remotely interested in; she reads more like a prop that he puts up with to project a particular image. Also, at one point we see him flopped across her lap to have his hair pet, which is definitely a thing that I remember happening during rehearsals back when I was involved in high school theater (and almost never by people with compatible orientations).

And then there’s this scene:

Someone once made a post about just how gay this whole thing is: pointedly grabbing the biggest bowtruckle, whispering in Harry’s ear, smirking over his shoulder while walking away, etc. (If anyone can find it, please send me the link and I’ll add it to the list of other people’s thoughts that contributed to all of this.)

So, that’s what I’ve got for you! Someone could probably write a whole research paper on this (and hell, maybe they have), but hopefully this at least somewhat explains my assertions of queer coding. As a reward for reading all of this, please enjoy a bonus scene of Harry NOT being attracted to a man:

Poor Ron. Maybe next time, buddy.

[onbeinganangel]

drarry tag game ✨

thank you lovely @kbrick for making this and for the tag! i've been loving seeing it cross my dash so many times now and getting to learn how we all ended up here on this wee corner of the internet 💕

When did you get into Drarry and why? i started reading drarry in late 2019, i think? i know i got to the pairing via wolfstar but unsure what exactly was that made me think "okay maybe i'll give these guys a go!" i'd had not actively read fic or interacted with any fandom in a long time. wolfstar was my main pairing for YEARS and, of course, drarry always existed in the periphery of that for me, but i never felt the pull before? then, the beginning of the pandemic coincided with a significantly traumatic experience for me and i was very very sad and needed distractions very very desperately, and i just couldn't help but let myself fall. especially with such a bounty of new (to me) stories, voices, writing styles, premises! it felt really good to still be in the same familiar universe as the pairing that had been my first love, but this time through a pairing that has a wildly different context and backstory!

Which Drarry fic hooked you? i have terrible memory and really can't be sure but i believe i read He Who Must Not Be Normal by @letteredlettered, Burn The Witch by @lettersbyelise and Yours to Keep by @dracoismytrashson fairly early on when dipping my toes into the fandom (i literally didn't even have an ao3 account at this point, i was trying so hard to be casual about drarry) and i feel like all three of them were fairly crucial in pulling me in.

Top three favorite Drarry fics: ugh i can't do this lol here are FIVE (sorry, i am terrible) fics that touched me so deeply i had to discuss them with my therapist: Running on Air by @tinyhistory, Modern Love by @tackytigerfic, Way Down We Go by @xiaq, Far From The Tree by aideomai, and Tit for Tat by @mintamintathings.

Why can’t you quit them? OBSESSION. like, why are they sooooooooo into each other? it's disgusting and i love it. they're just heart shaped eyes and pitterpattering hearts and boners all over, all the time. plus, those eyes, hearts and boners really do not care about war, situational angst and/or trauma! in fact, they're kind of into it? god, they are insane for each other, it makes me go feral.

Would you rather be friends with Harry or Draco? i would love to be pals with Draco but realistically i think our personalities would clash A LOT. we'd be good drinking/partying/casual social buddies, but i think it would be very hard for Draco and I to become actual friends instead of just acquaintances. one of my actual irl besties is basically Harry both life-story and personality wise (afaik they have not saved the wizarding world but i can't be sure tbh) so i'm pretty certain Harry and I would get on like an house on fire :)

Who breaks your heart more often? Harry, always.

Ideal career for Harry? For Draco? for Harry, teacher maybe? let the man have peace, anyway. Draco would need something with a little more panache. if he was a professor at hogwarts he'd want the head of house position, probably eventually headmaster. if he was a wand maker/potions master he'd want to be the best in business, if he was a quidditch player, he'd want his team to be not only the top of the league but he'd be constantly trying to break some kind of record — both because of a leftover Malfoys-must-be-better-than-everyone bullshit from his childhood that he is trying very hard to let go of, and because of a desperate need to prove himself to be good.

Harry and Draco are being sent to a desert island for a week with plenty of food and water. Each is allowed to bring three additional items (no wands). What do they bring? Harry would bring a pocket knife, a book and sunscreen (knowing Draco would forget). Draco would bring three books in a panic and cry about forgetting the sunscreen as soon as they get to the island.

Favorite non-Drarry HP character? SIRIUS BLACK always and 4ever. (actually probably closely followed by his little brother these days. no i do not have a Regulus Black shaped problem, i have this obsession completely and totally under control, thank u ever so much)

If you had to pick one, enemies to lovers or (enemies to) friends to lovers? first of all god made me a bisexual so i didn't have to pick so this is like... cruel. but? enemies to friends to lovers, i guess? best of both worlds? i am a big fan of a good awkward phase. "i wanna be his friend but he still hates me" (not true), "i wanna date him but he thinks we're just fucking" (extremely not true, just hold hands ffs), "did he just propose as a joke" (sir pls work on your insecurities)

Would you rather read a fic that made you laugh or one that made you cry? i was put on this earth to weep and look pretty.

Three songs that scream Drarry to you (feel free to include the Drarry-est lyrics!): hmmm, i am bad at music but there's the one I wrote my Wireless last year to, Jefferson's Torch by Johnny Flynn, with the phenomenal lyrics: We were measured in the dark by timetabled tragedy / There's a real turn of age in disaster

literally all of The Dear Hunter's King of Swords (Reversed) is very very drarry so i won't pick specific lyrics from that one but just go listen to it

anddddd Savior Complex by Phoebe Bridgers, which i sent in to drarrymicrofic once as a prompt because i needed everyone's drarry takes on it! i mean, I'm a bad liar / With a savior complex / All the skeletons you hide / Show me yours, and I'll show you mine? that's got Drarry all over

Favorite authors outside of fic? oh, this is tricky simply because i don't tend to read a lot by the same author unless it's a series, so there are a lot of authors i am happy to say i love based on only one book! variety is the spice of life and all LOL i'm just gonna pick some names at random out of the magician's hat that is my brain: Elena Ferrante, Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Patrick Rothfuss, Madeline Miller, Fernando Pessoa, Paolo Giordano, Diana Wynne Jones

i really don't know who's done this and who hasn't but if you're seeing this and haven't please do and tag me because i'm nosy!

[olderthannetfic]

unrelated to all the discussions currently going on sorry but

ao3 was built to have a threaded comments section like on LJ, right? and the first users were of LJ era fandom? so why didn't the interactive comment thing become a thing, idgi? i'd assume the first crop of users would have used it and everyone should have been encouraged to do it too in turn? are there secret ao3 cliques of fandom olders where that still happens lol

LJ was before my time but this is one of the feature I always hear and it sounds p great, i would have liked to see it

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At a guess, we were mostly importing our back catalogues that had had discussion on lists and LJ years ago. Some of us were also very busy building AO3 for a few years.

AO3 didn't get "native" fandoms so to speak until enough years had passed that new big media had come out. The real "home" of a given fandom tends to remain in the places it grew in the first place unless it's so big (HP) that it's everywhere. And even then, the specific flavor that was one place doesn't always make it to another.

I think there's some effect too from a LJ being like a tumblr: it's your personal blog. Meanwhile, AO3 feels a little more official. So maybe it would always have taken a little more to get comments going on AO3. You do see a bit of it in some fandoms. The place the biggest threads happened on LJ tended to be different readers speculating with each other or sharing cultural knowledge on the latest chapter of a long WIP for a popular ship. I've occasionally seen readers talking to each other on AO3, and it tends to either be people going "Wow, someone else likes my obscure thing!" or on the big WIPs in the big fandoms.

You also have to consider the sizes involved: LJ fandom had lurkers, sure, but when you look at the big coms, you see a few thousand people, max, with maybe a hundred actually saying anything. One of the early polls on what to call AO3 had like 500 responses.

Today, AO3 has >4,432,000 users, according to the front page. That's extant accounts.

(Total accounts ever is hard to tell because the numbers don't increment by 1 anymore. It's like 12 million in account ID# but a lot less in total accounts ever.)

Even if we're generous and say 10k active commenters came over from LJ (which I think is pretty high), that would be like 0.2% of AO3 users or something.

Fandom is simply exponentially larger now. It makes it hard for old culture to reach new people.