#all hail fanfic writers

[chaos-and-sparkles]

My second favourite fanfiction phenomenon is when a writer says "ahaha yeah this was supposed to be a silly one shot, we'll see where it goes, it might stretch out to three chapters max" and then you scroll up and it is Fifty One Chapters Long

[yeeiguess]

Thinking about them (Burning Bright Zukka)

[localravenclaw]

When you send a writer a request or prompt and they completely outdo themselves and come up with an absolute masterpiece then go "Oh, I'm so relieved you like it!" like, bro, you could write me one paragraph and I would absolutely be over the moon because you took the time of day to create something, and that for me, is more than enough and I will never ever stop being grateful!

[malakaiijames]

The tma brainrot has consumed me..I've officially gone to ao3 for sustenance while I painfully wait out this slow burn. Once we hit the ao3 stage, it only goes down from here..hyperfixation is about to take over my entire life

[kimlockholmes]

Firm believer in the fanfics-are-the-holy-grail-of-literature agenda

Does that make sense? No? It definitely would now if a someone wrote a past life rivals to lovers 300k angst no comfort dystopian AU about it.

reblog if you’ve read fanfictions that are more professional, better written than some actual novels. I’m trying to see something

[skyrigel]

" Fanfictions aren't literatu—" PULLS THE TRIGGER.

[watchertvzine]

Watcher TV Zine is a non-profit e-zine, raising money for an AAPI charity in honor of Steven Lim

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Zine FAQ | Creator Interest Form

[tag list below]

tagging some blogs to help us get the word out! please reblog to help a fandom charity project <3

@dishgranted @fancybois @tolerateit @brunchcrush @steven–lim

@demonproofboi @wheezingghoulbois @worthitupdates

@all-zine-apps @welovezines @zine-scene

[noblecorgi]

Chapter 17: A Thousand Words

I liiiiiiiiiiive.

And here is a new chapter!!

TWs for this chapter are less intense but no less sad than the last chapter, so psychosis, self loathing, hospitals and blood.

@artsyunderstudy @alexalexinii @angelsfalling16 @asocialpessimist @stitchy-queerista @skee3000 @stardustasincocaine @fiend-for-culture @facewithoutheart @wellbelesbian @emeryhall @emjaydellyone @edenalix @erzbethluna @thehoneyedhufflepuff @theearlgreymage @thewholelemon @that-disabled-princess @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @youarenevertooold @ichooseyousnowbaz @ic3-que3n @iamamythologicalcreature @ileadacharmedlife

@palimpsessed @prettygoododds @philaet0s @lonleyhumanbeing @letraspal @carryonsimoncarryonbaz @cutestkilla @cosmicalart @confused-bi-queer @valeffelees @beastmonstertitan @brilla-brilla-estrellita @bazisplottingsomething @ninemagicks @nausikaaa @nightimedreamersworld @messofthejess @monbons @mooncello @rbkzz @run-for-chamo-miles @roomwithanopenfire @raenestee @rimeswithpurple

[useyourglutes]

i'm going back and re-reading all the fics i've posted on ao3 cuz i second guess myself but like, WHY AM I LOWKEY EATING WITH THESE??? HOLY SHIT THE 4AM FUMES MADE ME MODERN FUCKING SHAKESPEARE BRO

[mossycereustea]

do y’all ever just read a super amazing heart wrenching wonderful show-stopping breathtaking fantastic unbelievable soul shattering fanfic that is so horribly under-appreciated? (I’m sure the answer will probably be yes for many people)

because I found this fanfic that made me physically hurt- (honestly that might be because I’m a sucker for slow-burn and love watching the characters ache for one another as the anticipation tears apart my soul) and I’ve tried giving kudos at least ten times per chapter.

PLEASE AO3 TELEPATHICALLY SEND MY KUDOS

THIS FIC IS NOW MY LIFE TAKE MY KUDOS

TAKE MY SOUL

CAN THAT LITTLE SMILEY FACE FEEL MY PAIN

if there was a function that let the author see how many times i tried to give kudos to this fic after the first time they would be flooded with re-kudos

i need this fic injected into my veins

i’ll pay you

anyways we should have a re-kudos function

(i understand that spamming is likely a reason why this function does not exist along with the fact that usually that is now how “likes” and such on these type of platforms work, but this is just me expressing my love for this fic and devotion to the author- don’t take my proposal too seriously)

thank you fanfic authors you are doing the work of god.

[melikes-reads]

That feeling when a tv show ends with a cliff-hanger and you know, you just know there are going to be fics waiting for you.

Wonderful fics. Fix-it fics. I-wrote-this-instead-of-sleeping fics.

Amazing.

[bisexualamy]

I see people talk about fanfiction and novels being different mediums a lot, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, I don’t feel like I understand either. In your opinion, what makes them different mediums from each other? What decides that two things are separate mediums like in general? It’s totally cool if you don’t wanna answer this btw, I know it’s kind of a lot

No worries I think that's an interesting question! With any categories, the boundaries on this are going to be fuzzy, but the reason I believe they're different mediums is that fundamentally, on a metatextual level, the languages are different. What do I mean by this? Let's use film as an example, a medium that I'd argue is very obviously a different medium than novels, even if we may not be able to articulate all the reasons why.

What are some attributes of film that differentiate it from novels (another storytelling medium) or paintings (another visual medium)? Films and novels are both storytelling mediums, but films have visual and auditory components. They also mainly consist of storytelling through visual cues and dialogue. Exposition is given visually or in media res by characters speaking. In a novel, your omniscient narrator giving you a few paragraphs of background on your main characters is common, and so expected it probably flies over the reader's head. In a film, a narrator doing the exact same thing for all the main characters often comes off clumsy. It takes you out of the story in a film, where it doesn't in a novel.

Film is also a time-based medium. A film unfolds over time, and you cannot experience the entire film in one moment or glance. That's not true of a painting (at least traditionally). With a painting, you can view the whole painting in one look. Now, you can sit with a painting, pick out details, analyze the craft or ponder it for a long time and watch as new aspects jump out at you. Fundamentally, however, if you wanted to view a whole painting in one look, you can, and it would still make sense. You cannot do that with a film. On the other hand, a painting is typically not an auditory experience. To do so would be an experimental use of the form. In modern film-making, the exact opposite is true. Music, dialogue, and environmental sound, all of these things are essential to how a film tells a story. To not use them would be considered experimental or odd.

These are three different mediums with three different "languages" in how they interact with their audience. They may share parts of their languages, like I said above, but they don't speak the same language. What works well for one medium can come off clumsy or strange in another.

I believe fanfic and novels have sufficiently different languages that they should be considered different mediums. Both of them are short or long form written mediums telling some sort of story. But fanfic's relationship to its source material is such an inherent trait that novels do not have. The relationship doesn't have to be positive (it's often, in fact, argumentative or strained or dismissive), but the relationship exists. Even in AU fanfiction. Even in fics full of OCs.

In canon compliant and even canon divergent fics, this relationship is more obvious. These fics are both conversations with the source material as much as they are stories. They're playing in the author's sandbox, or they're wrecking their sandcastle and building something else. They're saying "I like/dislike what you did with this specific story, and I'm going to show you that by rewriting or expanding it." They take large aspects of the author's story whole cloth: the characters, the setting, the magic system, the tech, etc.

These fanfics often have little exposition at the top because they presume a familiarity with the characters, the world, or both. This alone makes them really different from novels. Creatively and seamlessly integrating exposition, immersing your audience in a new world and convincing them to stay, is a really important aspect of a novel that these fics don't have to contend with. This alone fundamentally changes how you'd structure a story.

For AU fics, both fics in AU settings and AU fics full of OCs, the above still applies. These fics are still a conversation with the source material. Something about the source material compelled an author to flip it and remix it and change it around. That conversation might be "in the source material, these characters suffered, and I don't want them to suffer any longer" or it could be "I felt the story had a vacancy that this OC fills" or it could be "if these characters had the time/awareness/ability to grow closer, they would've fallen in love." These are all direct commentaries on the original work.

An exercise that I believe illustrates this point the best is to try and adapt an AU fanfic to an original work. Try to file the serial numbers off. I've done this with some of my fic, and it just doesn't work. You don't realize how much you presume the audience knows until you have to cater to an audience who knows nothing of the source material. That hilarious joke you wrote? Turns out it's only funny because it's a nod to this character's original characterization. This awesome climatic plot point that ties the whole story together? Turns out in relies on a specific bit of lore, a quirk of the magic system, or an aspect of the character's past history or personality. Now that this is a novel, you have to back-fill all of that exposition. And you can try to do that, but watch how your story gets clunky and bloated. You will have to start viciously killing your darlings, as you realize that your favorite scene is beautiful in a fic, but sounds awkward and out of place in a novel. Soon, you're basically just rewriting the whole thing to fit a different medium.

Many fanfic writers are extremely talented. And much of that talent, that wit, that perfect line that you can't get out of your head, is integrally informed by your knowledge of the source material. The irony falls flat without having read the source books. The relationships suddenly feel shallow when you don't have seasons of backstory to deepen them. You do not realize how much of fanfic writing consists of this back and forth until you go looking for it.

And here's the thing: if your fanfic has a totally AU setting and it consists of completely original characters, I'd argue that's just a novel posted to AO3. If all you need to do is change the names to make it work, that's a novel. This is why Clueless is inspired by Jane Austen's Emma and not an AU fanfic of it. If you've never read Emma, if you went into Clueless not knowing that Emma was the inspiration for it, you'd perfectly understand the movie.

In fanfic, the source material is always present. It can be obviously present with canon compliant fic. It can be antagonistically present with canon divergent or AU fic. And it is still present, floating in the background, with totally AU fic. Ultimately, the changes a fanfic author makes to the source material are, themselves, as integral to the fanfic as the words on the page. It is a dialogue with the source material: what it did well, what it could've done better, what this author believes is the essence of the story, or the world pushed to its limit, that even though we're in space or in a coffee shop or 1920s New York, we're still, on some level talking about the source material.

This is an aspect of fanfic I love that novels do not have. Novels have a lot of other great stuff! I love novels! But while novels are often engaged in a dialogue with their present society or their predecessors in a genre, that conversation is much more nebulous than it is with fanfic. You can read Slaughterhouse-Five or Gravity's Rainbow, and while knowing their contexts helps you understand them on a deeper level, that is unnecessary to their enjoyment. They are fundamentally more standalone works than fanfic will ever be.

This is ultimately why I think comparing fanfic and novels is comparing apples to oranges. They're different mediums. They use different languages. They require different skills and they fill different artistic niches. You might as well be comparing a film to a painting just because they're both visual art.

[wearingpants]

CHAPTER ONE IS OUT

[totallyanopossum]

Editing and grammar are the bane of my existence

But if i posted the unedited version I would be committed for my excessive use of commas not a period in sight and all the abbreviation shorthand.

[tailoredsnob]

The Transformers Vol.1: All Hail Starscream - Chapter 2 - All Hail Starscream & Return To The Light!

The Story is now in motion!

Even though i gave myself a deadline of 2 months and i gave myself stress that people would just think i forgot about the story, i had a fun time writing this chapter and i personally feel like this is written better than the first chapter! I hope you love it!!

Enjoy!!!!

I didn't exactly know what to name this chapter, but i think it gives a good indication of who the villains are going to be.

Kudos if you read the rest of this post! :)

I plan on making Vol.1, 15 chapters long. It gives me enough time to flesh out the story, characters, and even sneak in some fluff! Without giving much away, there will be three chapters dedicated to Cybertron! One of which will be a flashback chapter!

Still working on plans for Vol.2 though, right now that one's sitting at 20 chapters.

Also, let me know if you want me to share my playlist of the Soundtrack on Spotify or Youtube! I just made up the playlists so i can listen to them whenever i'm writing or working, it really makes time go by quicker! I also already know what the soundtracks are going to look like for both Volumes!!

[miriamforster]

Wha’s it called when you read a fic and you don’t want to kink shame but also THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS??? AT ALL???

Like I have a whole list going at this point lol.