#but I want to finish my current Tasertricks fic first

[getinthehandbasket]

🌹

alright, time to get my trusty dice to make this completely random The Dice Say:

“Oh, Godric? I have a lot of respect for him. You could say he made me who I am today.” Eric’s eyes dance with mischief. “You don’t say? Tell me more..” “Come sit with me, sweet; I’ll let Godric know you’re waiting for him. I can tell you all his darkest secrets.” He grins at her as he offers his hand for her to take.

-Chapter 10 (ish), "Bedlam Boys". True Blood, Eric/Godric/Sookie

[coolbeansbuddyofmine]

hey ro! for the fanfic ask: 1, 15, 23, 30!

hey whovie! hope you're doing well~

1. favorite fic you wrote this year

oh boy! i know people will say sherlock au, and i would say sherlock au also like 2.5 months ago. but two fics/universes, it shares first place with is a) my hanakimi au for halloweek. i love it to pieces.

and b) my econ students fic. bc duh. im an econ student. that's my fangirl bible and love letter to myself and my discipline <3

so 3. for first place.

which amongst 72 official and countless anon fics that i willst not name, is not a bad ratio.

15. something you learned this year

how to experiment with genres! other than the traditional fic fic, i wrote with different POVs, different styles and creating a bricolage of different text types (i.e chat fic). i learnt reader x character fic that i may write for myself if i feel like it. i learnt action. i learnt porn. i think 2021 was the year i experimented most as a writer.

23. fics you wanted to write but didn’t

this has earned another oh boy! there are lots of fics i wanted to and then didn't write.

i still have outlines and for the most part, I'm actually done with them but i want to keep them with me and me only.

let's go down the list: i wrote a full-fledged mulan au back in august, wasn't really pleased with it and i never posted it. (cy was mulan, and v, ofc, captain shang. mr nam was mushu and the comedy there was something i was proud of. i might write a mulan 2 for myself).

then, i wrote a fic based on muckraking (which is investigative journalism focused on social development or uncovering social problems) where v was an intl editor journalist coming to sk to meet mr hong over his story. mr hong goes missing, and his daughter cy, has to team up with v to find him. deals with rampant corruption in sk. i did end up writing this, but i liked it v v much that i used my own characters and submitted it for my uni's creative writing journal.

other than that, there was a teacher au with vcy that i never wrote bc lazy also lack of interest. it's a very bland outline.

there was also an epilogue fic with the idea of v exacting revenge on the guys that screwed him over upon his arrival to seoul and stealing his stuff.

i had a v returns fic to the style of swift's how you get the girl and if i ever get the energy to finish it i may publish but for now, nothing.

also hpl au, but that went nowhere other than headcanons and that's fine.

30. favorite fandom to read fic from this year

so there have to be 5 answers to this actually. mostly because my favorite oscillates faster than the pendulum of a grandfather clock.

in the beginning of the year, i was in a full mcu tasertricks obsession. till like april-ish i would say. then life got stressful, and i went back to hetalia, my beloved <3, aushun fics for like a month.

and then for like all of summer, i'd say it was vincenzo easily. but the urge to read fics (aside from a few writers and ideas that interested me) really diminished.

then it was back to the mcu with yonvers. that was fun! other than r*yl*, i love the dark and borderline dark iffy characters (ben solo was an idiot) and i love sunshine women who can kick their asses. this is, unfortunately, the opposite trope for me in irl. i am the grumpy, and mr ro is sunshine.

oh and then, it was back into my anime beloveds. and now, I'm not really reading fanfics other than a few fics I'm following but it's mostly mangas and dark romances from like barnes and noble.

tbh, it's bc there's no one fandom I'm completely obsessed with, and frankly, I'm too busy to even keep with currently airing dramas. so I'm postponing this obsession till when i can afford it.

thanks whovie!

for others that want to ask, here's the link back to the original post

[anniemar]

For the readers ...

So can we talk? I feel like we need to talk. (fistbump if you watch Rich Lux)

I’m about to get personal because I’ve been noticing a few things over the years and I’m ready to talk. 

I’m a writer. I support other writers. Veteran writers and also would-be writers. But I’m also a big reader. And I support the readers too. The fans. I see a lot of entitlement going on with writers sometimes, and I’m here to remind you that yes, writers make content, but readers are the lifesblood of fic. 

I kinda took a break from fandom as a writer and then recently, slowly, made my way back to it. I’ve written here and there over the past two years, but nothing crazy like I used to. There’s a lot of reasons. Life gets in the way. Muses go on the fritz. And sometimes a fandom you’re a part of seemingly goes off the rails, a dustbowl moves in. 

When I wrote my first fic I had no expectations, just posted into the void of cyberspace. I’d spent a year just reading. I wasn’t really a part of fandom yet, I was a lurker. I posted on ff.net, not quite understanding how to work AO3, and most of the fics I’d read were on ff.net anyway. Tasertricks was my jam, after exhausting all North & South fic, and a little Vampire Diaries. I had zero fandom friends, no tumblr interaction, and only communicated with readers through DMs on ff.net. 

When people began to comment on my first fic I was stunned. I didn’t expect anyone to actually read it. I was just practicing, mostly. That’s what it felt like. Posting my Tasertricks fic into the void. For the hell of it. 

And then I got readers. I got readers who commented on every chapter. Some of them left long ones, others just a few words, but I cherished all of them. I read them over and over again. It really did fuel my writing sometimes, and I’d find myself writing a paragraph and thinking “hmmm ... i wonder if so-and-so will like that line”. And even if some chapters got less comments than others, I still kept going. I was writing this to get better. 

I eventually finished that fic, it’s one of the things I’m most proud of to this day. Manic Taser Dream Girl, my first child. It taught me that I could write a book if I wanted to (and I want to). I made some dear fandom friends, hung out on Tumblr, switched to AO3 and now I can’t imagine spending all my time over on ff.net. You evolve. Fandom evolves. 

But sometimes I think back on my first experience with fic and think about the purity of it. I had no expectations, I was writing because it was fun and I loved the source material, and the people who commented were so dear to me. 

It gave me a push. It also made me realize how important comments can be to a writer, so I made a conscious effort to make sure and comment on every fic I read, especially if it’s current. I might not comment on a fic that’s 5 years old with 4,000 kudos and 1,000 comments, but a current one, I always try to. I understand the struggle wholeheartedly. 

And fandom for the most part has been amazing, it’s kept me going at times, brought me so much joy and cherished friendships. It’s been a beacon of light through depression and anxiety, addiction. A comfort when all else failed. It’s led me to people I have SO MUCH in common with. True friends. 

But then on the other hand I observed how other people sometimes come into fandom as an agent of chaos. Divide and conquer types. Energy and muse vampires. I never understood it. I always stood back and mainly watched. I watched my beloved MCU fandom turn into something weird. It wasn’t fun anymore. People drifted away. 

It happens in fandoms. People just get interested in other things, it happened to me. I started to write in Vikings. Found a beautiful community there, more dear friends. Stretched my legs. I wrote a fic for The Alienist, even though 10 people watched that show. I wanted to write for smaller fandoms because I wanted to get back to actual writing. I didn’t care about the kudos or the comments anymore, I just wanted to go back to that purity. Me and the void. I don’t know anyone here. I want to post this thing because i love these characters SO DAMN MUCH and they’re in my head. If anyone wants to read it, even better, I love you. 

I recently wrote a fic for Stranger Things. Again, no expectations. I could have received 5 kudos and zero comments, I didn’t care, Jopper got in my head. I had to write it. And I FINISHED IT. I was so proud of that. I finished it. Because it was about the love of the material. It was the love of the characters. And there were a few dear sweet commenters that took the time to send me nice words on every chapter, dear sweet people who left kudos, dear sweet people who gave me a hit, and dear sweet people who I’m sure just skimmed through it and clicked to another fic. It’s all good. 

I go back to the MCU more frequently now because I truly miss it. I’ve never stopped being a fan. I’m still in the movie theater seat for every MCU film at the first possible viewing. But in fandom I’ve noticed that things are different. Fans are less vocal. Afraid to have opinions. Afraid to comment. Afraid to interact. Scared to have an unpopular opinion. But I tell you, it’s okay to have that unpopular opinion, because someone else out there has it too. And this is how we find each other. 

As writers we need to remember what it was like when we were first lurkers and readers, who gradually worked up the nerve to comment, then to interacting on tumblr, and writing our own stuff. It takes time. If we put too much pressure on readers to comment, the readers won’t stay. If we give them too many rules and regulations, they’ll just move on. It’s not a job for us writers, yes, it’s free content, but it’s not a job for them either. 

We need to cool it these these “how to comment” manifestos. In the end they’re meaningless and do more harm than good. 

If readers feel like they can’t interact, it’ll have an effect throughout fandom, they’ll just stop commenting on everyone’s fic, afraid of displeasing the author with the wrong kind of comment. It might make them not want to write their own fic, dip their own toes in. 

You never know what a reader is feeling. It might take everything they have just to log on and give you a little heart, and that has to be enough. Or a kudo. Or someone who’s writing that comment who’s first language isn’t English, and they’re afraid of using the wrong words. What must that feel like? I speak conversational Spanish and I’d never feel confident enough to leave a comment on a Spanish-language fic. But I could leave a heart. 

In the end, there’s no right way to do this. There’s only “don’t be a dick”. Don’t be a dick to writers, of course, but also ... don’t be a dick to the readers. The commenters, the people who have been around for years and years and also the ones who are new and still working up the nerve to hang out. To come out of that lurker stage. And hell, even if they never come out of lurking, that’s okay too. We need to give readers and commenters room to get comfortable and to evolve too. Just as our writing grows more comfortable and evolves. 

And criticism? 

I think I’m in the minority because criticism doesn’t tend to bother me. I know it’s a big issue with a lot of people, many are sensitive about it, but I have a pretty thick skin. Sometimes it’s even easier for me to take criticism than compliments. With a big compliment sometimes it takes me awhile to respond because it’s too big for me, I need time to deal ;-) I need time to stop crying lol. 

I haven’t had too many problems with criticism. If anyone tells me about a typo it doesn’t bother me. I’m usually like, THANKS MAN, because I’m dyslexic and words get jumbled up for me. I have to edit and reread my chapters in different fonts to try and catch everything and I still don’t catch stuff. And sometimes I don’t have my work beta’d because well, on one hand I’m impatient sometimes and on the other hand I keep strange hours. 

I think some of the worst (and funniest) criticism I ever got was over mentioning Kanye West in Manic Taser Dream Girl, and whenever the commenter complained about it, it just made me want to use Kanye in the fic more ;-) You have to be able to brush that stuff off sometimes. And the mean stuff? Mean comments say more about the commenter than the writer. I’ve always just tried to leave a “hey, thanks for reading anyway” and left it at that. It’s all you can do, really. 

I’ve written travel articles for New Orleans publications before and I’ve gotten some really hurtful and nasty comments, under my real name. That will thicken your skin. I don’t mind if someone tells me to knock off the Kanye West  references after I’ve been called a yankee carpetbagger libtard who needs to move back to Ohio. I posted a red beans and rice recipe once and you would have thought I personally led General Sherman through New Orleans with the amount of nasty comments I got lol. 

It comes with the territory. And I want to write, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What I’m trying to say is, if you get a negative comment, don’t let it stop you from writing. Keep going. Keep learning. Keep getting better. Don’t let the terrorists win. You can always say that you don’t want critique in your author’s notes, but I’d recommend that eventually, you want to just let it go as you evolve as an author, because if you want to ever get to a point where you’re publishing original content, you’re going to need some practice handling whatever comes your way. 

Because if I gave my readers a bunch of rules and regulations, or a manifesto on the “right way to comment” (when there is no right way) ... they’re just not gonna comment at all. Fic is not a job for the writer, it’s not a job for the reader either. 

The only rule should be “don’t be a dick”. Don’t be a dick writer. Don’t be a dick commenter. Don’t be a dick fandom agent of chaos. Just don’t be a dick and we can have this beautiful thing of fandom and community and support. And laughter and good feels. Everyone feeling as if they’re a part of something awesome. Even the lurkers. They’re at home reading shit and they give that silent fistbump, and I can feel those good vibes even from here. 

To all my readers, thanks for all of it. Every single thing. Even those mean Kanye comments. I cherish everything. The kudos. The hearts. The incredible well-wishes from people who are nervous about writing in English. The people who leave comments on every chapter, who follow my work to other fandoms, all of you. Please, never be nervous to interact with me. Ever. I am always ready and willing to cry over our fave characters. Or to help anyone with their work. To give advice. To listen to whatever is going on. If I don’t respond immediately, it’s only because I’m busy or I’m a human disaster and don’t see everything right away. 

Thank you, dear readers. For answering when I post things into the void ;-) 

I love you. All the hearts. 

[anniemar]

to-do list

tagged by @whenimaunicorn (ooooooo, this is a good one, thank you!)

Do This: List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on. This can be writing, art, vids, gifsets, whatever.

1. Turn the Tide (Ivar X OC). More specifically chapter 10 and I’m feeling the pressure on this one because so much is coming together ;-) Heh. *’I feel it coming’ by the Weeknd plays in the background*. ANYWAY. This fic has turned out to be such a joy to write because I’m getting outta my comfort-zone and it’s my first time writing an OC in fic-land, and then facing the challenges that comes with writing Ivar ... I feel like it’s already made me a better writer. Getting out of your comfort zone, that’s when the good growy stuff happens. 

2. Codename: Cupcake (WSS). I’m working on the first part of the chapter. It’s a trip. Inspired by Inception. Darcy & Emma has come away from this fic as my fave dynamic to write. I fucking love them and people who would talk shit to me about Emma? (ง •̀_•́)ง

3. Classic Combo (Wintershock). I have most of the next chapter written I just have to fine tune it. Darcy and Bucky are in desperate need of some alone time and reconnection in this one. I’mma give it to them. Plus, Sam is in it. I love him. 

4. WIP-land (Tasertricks). I haven’t forgotten about For the Laughs. I have a feeling that Ragnarok will help because I love all the crazy shit I’m seeing. I mean, I’m still crying over Darcy and Jane not being in the film, but I can’t lie and say it doesn’t look fucking awesome. However. I want to finish FtL before the movie comes out so I can give this labor of love its due and give my mind some peace because that fic takes up such a big place in my heart. 

5. Original writing getting out of the planning states and into the manifestation stage because I HAVE FUCKING PLANS. 

6. A handful of prompts and one-shots. Bucky, Ivar, Steve ... some are sitting in my google docs and just need some damn love, i.e., I NEED TO FINISH THINGS. 

Tagging some of my fave writers ... @leftylain, @dresupi, @meleedamage, @bionically-ironic, @bulmavegotaku, @pollydoodles, @concavepatterns, @soothsayerstale, @itsjanetsnakehole, @heyfrenchfreudiana, @amidtheflowers, @latessitrice