#those rpf people are all good omens fans

[casasupernovas]

good omens fans pretending that nothing has happened is insane to me actually. i get being upset that your comfort thing has been forever tainted but do you guys have no shame? at all? giggling that the production details only include terry pratchett's name? like you all have collective pyschosis? you think scrubbing his name makes everything okay?!

[ana-chronista]

9 people you’d like to get to know better! Thanks for the tag, @esskuesli - it's been ages since I've done one of these! three ships: To the surprise of nobody here, let’s go with Bojere and Jance as the first two. If you asked me seven months ago if I’d ever return to RPF, the answer would have been a resounding no. And yet here I am... As a third, let’s go for Bagginshield (Thorin Oakenshield/Bilbo Baggins), as this was the last fandom I was heavily involved in before possibly the world’s longest hiatus! first ship: I’m not sure I can even remember exactly which one, but I first got introduced to fanfiction and shipping via Harry Potter. It was so long ago that the books were still coming out (and, y'know, before JKR started torching her legacy), and there were major shipping wars between Harry/Hermione and Ron/Hermione. So probably something around that. last song: ‘Water Slides’ by Mew. (I would love to know how they come up with the ideas for their videos, I really would...) last film: It’s been a while since I went to the cinema, so the last one I saw out was Barbie. At home, I’ve probably since rewatched Hot Fuzz. It’s one of those films you just have to see time and again... for the greater good... currently reading: I’ve finally got round to picking up ‘The Thirtieth Year’ (‘Das dreißigste Jahr’) by Ingeborg Bachmann after meaning to read the whole thing for ages. In translation this time though – I’m being lazy. I’m also reading ‘A Life With Footnotes’, the Terry Pratchett biography by his assistant/business manager Rob Wilkins. I’m a huge fan of Discworld/Good Omens, so it's really interesting to find out more about how he came to be who he was and I feel like it’s the closest it could be to an autobiography without him having written the whole thing himself, if that makes sense? currently watching: Within the past week, I’ve managed to finish Bodies, Lupin Season 3 and All The Light We Cannot See, and now I’m at a bit of a loose end. I’ll probably be catching up with Loki Season 2 next. (Incidentally if anyone would like to chat about any of these, feel free - especially Lupin, I have THOUGHTS!) currently consuming: Strawberry and raspberry tea. currently craving: Pasta bake – something with lots of cheese and a crispy topping. It’s freezing outside so perfect weather for it!

I think most people have probably been tagged already, but if you haven't and you'd like to do it: @frikatilhi @occhi-verdi-come-il-mare @greensolsikke @sparklitive-sonya @pippitypippin @i-wasnt-ready-for-this @technicallycleverdetective and anyone else who would like to give it a go!

[duckprintspress]

Okay so now that this poll is done, I was curious about the OTHER votes, so because I have about a billion more important things I SHOULD be doing but don't wanna, I went through and took a tally.

So, the poll got 3,058 votes total.

That means that, with 14.1% of the vote, Voltron - our indisputable winner (it sure was my vote...) got 427 votes.

Of the 10 I included, the one that got the LEAST votes is Glee, or 83 votes.

Now, keeping in mind that not everyone who voted "other" wrote something in, the "other" breakdown is:

MCYT (especially DSMP specifically) - 49 people mentioned MCYT in the tags, that's 1.6% of all the votes, and it surely would have been higher if I'd had it as an explicit option.

Dragon Age: 23 votes

Homestuck: 19 votes

The Magnus Archives: 12 votes

Naruto: 12 votes

Marvel Cinematic Universe: 12 votes

Mo Dao Zu Shi: 10 votes

RWBY: 8 votes

Our Flag Means Death: 7 votes

Teen Wolf: 6 votes

One Direction: 6 votes

Everything else (5 or fewer votes): ace attorney, arcane, asagao, atla, attack on titan, ben 10, black butler, bsd, buffy, call of duty, check please, chinese rpf, chuck e cheese, classic rock, critical role, dangan ronpa, danny phantom, dcu, dimension 20, disney, doctor who, ducktales, emo bandom, f1, ff, fma, fnaf, furry fandom, game of thrones, genshin impact, good omens, halo, hamilton, hazbin hotel, hetalia, hhtyd, hlvrai, inception, invincible, jrwi, keeper of the lost cities, kingdom hearts, lego, loz, miraculous ladybug, mlp, monster high, newsies, obey me, object show, one piece, pandora hearts, persona, pjo, pokemon, project sekai, rick and morty, riverdale, rooster teeth, roswell, rottmnt, sanders sides, sasi, scp, shera, sims, sonic, southpark, star trek, star vs the forces of evil, stargate, steam powered giraffe, supergirl, taylor swift, taz, the bright sessions, the magicians, the sussex squad, transformers, twoset violin, umbrella academy, warhammer, warrior cats, warriors, wtnv, yu gi oh,

(I got a little lazy with abbreviations, sorry).

Clearly, I should have included MCYT, and probably Dragon Age and Homestuck, in the original, in place of Glee, Supernatural, and Undertale, but overall, I think I actually did manage a pretty good list of the top 10.

Also, to be clear: every fandom has a percentage of toxic people, and it's usually about the same percentage - around 1%. But what can make a fandom more or less toxic is how vocal that 1% is and how empowered they got by people serving as loud leaders and directing the vitriol. That's a lot of why Voltron stands out: the people who were most toxic in the Voltron fandom were very organized in their toxicity. They weren't just minding their own business spewing vitriol, they were collectivizing to implement major harassment campaigns against other fans and against the show runners.

Basically, the toxicity of a fandom = popularity + how networked the toxic people are.

Don't take this to mean you should avoid any fandom, though! In the end, a fandom is about you and the ten other people you scream about it with. Liberally block the people who make you uncomfortable or unhappy or who you disagree with or whose behavior makes you feel unsafe, and you'll have a much more positive experience, no matter where your fandom home is.

Anyway, I had fun with this survey, especially reading peoples' responses. Thanks to everyone who voted and extra to those who reblogged with commentary.

So this poll from @pollsnatural asked if Supernatural was the most toxic fandom people have been in, and the vast majority of folks said no, so now - based on some fandoms in the replies of that post - I'm curious...

Runners up from the linked poll include Teen Wolf, MCU, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Upon a Time, sports RPF, Minecraft YouTube, Dragon Age, Mo Dao Zu Shi, One Direction, a bunch of others, and a few abbreviations I'm not familiar with lmao.

I'm guessing "other" will win this poll - tell me which in the tags! I'm curious if there's any Really Big One I should have included (probably MCU...it was hard to juggle "size/popularity of fandom" with "relative toxicity" like if a fandom is huge it's usually just more toxic in general cause there are the same number of weirdos per capita but way more people overall, ya know?)

anyway. yes. poll. do the thing.

[multifandom-fanfic-writer]

20 Questions for fic writers

Let's goooo

How many works do you have on Ao3?

36! Well that's certainly A Number

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

585,468 (gonna his the 600k soon)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Which don't I write for? Lol. Mostly Naruto and Hannibal. I've also written several fics for TMA, MCU, Ace Attorney, The Sandman, and fics for OFMD, GO and the Witcher.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Shinra Tensei (Naruto: Akatsuki!Sakura fic(

you may be a sinner, but your innocence is mine (cute hannigram)

howl (non-trad a/b/o hannigram)

brighten the darkest hour (sandman hob/dream, but only bc i posted it on the right time i think tbh)

hold me, kiss me, rip off my tongue (plot and porn hannigram)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Absolutely! Not super fast, but I keep all the comment alerts in a folder of 'not yet answered' and move them from that folder when I've responded. In general the longer/more detailed the comment the more I try to give a very nice reply because I appriciated the comment. That can be hard to do without spoilers or leaving people to interpret the story how they like, sometimes.

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

absolutely butterfly. I mean everyone dies. It's super tragic. Only time I really sat down to write an angst fic

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

probably Cooking for a Cutie (hannigram x queer eye). I mean, Will gets actual help, the Fab Five are wholesome and in character, and it's really just happy all is well vibe in general.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not on Ao3. I used to post on ff.net as well, both when I was a younger (and less good) writer, and got hate there. Even on Shinra Tensei when I used to post it there. Which I stopped. Because ff.net in my experience had so much haters compared to Ao3, where I've gotten criticism, yes, but not hate.

9. Do you write smut?

Heh. Yeah. Though often they are shorter fics that are centered around the sexual tension, with some exceptions (like my Steddy Hands fic) and for my big novels who are more dystopian vibe I don't write smut, because it doesn't fit. It has to fit the plot/themes of the story.

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

A bit - I wrote a good omens/sandman crossover, and the aforementioned hannibal/queer eye crossover. But they are not very crazy, honestly, keep to both of their canons as much as possible, too. I wouldn't consider them crazy (though the second one more so than the first).

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yeah! A couple of times, all of them Hannigram, I think. All of them in Russian at the Russian fic site, and they asked permission and I linked to that fic site too. I even went their once to read the comments there hihi

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

Nope. I did do a collab once where someone made art and I wrote fic. That was nice, but honestly not my favourite experience, especially the deadline attached to it. Same reason I've done a zine once but aren't a fan of it (for me) or those weekly prompts thing or whatever. I want to write when my muse is on, when I have time and energy for it, otherwise it isn't fun anymore. Co-writing a fic would also only be pressure for me.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Hmm... honestly, I think my favourite thing to write is the dynamic between the protagonist and the fucked up world they live in (maybe personified through a saviour or villain). So... yeah?

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I have two I want to finish but fear I'll never have the inspiration for again - one is a CR RPF fic that I have the second (smut) chapter half-written for, but I wrote such a long time ago I would have to re-write the whole thing, and I'm not sure I want to anymore. Second is a TMA JonElias fic I've written 4.5 out of 5 chapters for and I just don't have the muse for anymore. Maybe I'll finish the second one someday, but I'll probably won't finish the first.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Difficult for me to say about myself, lol. Uh. Worldbuilding, I think, and character voice? And fight scenes, or at least that's what people like about my Naruto fic. It also depends a bit on the thing I write fanfiction for. I'm honestly not quite sure. I'm not good at naming my own strengths lol

17. What are you writing weaknesses?

Writing things in too many words / using too many words, including over-used unnecessary words I think. Or worldbuiling something an obvious way and then missing an obvious question. Although that last one is also style, I don't worldbuild everything to the detail.

18. Thoughts of writing dialogue in another language in fics?

Not a fan, honestly. It can be done well - a very small couple of lines in another language said by a random not-even-minor character with the translation at the end of the chapter or otherwise somehow provided. But it can mostly be confusing and cause me to scroll up and down annoyingly.

19. First Fandom you wrote for?

LOL Jonas Brothers self-insert fic in my native language which thankfully never saw the light of day HAHA

20. Favorite fic you have written?

Oh most certainly my life's work Shinra Tensei and the sequel Bansho Ten'nin. Not only my biggest and longest fic, but also the one I love most. Which is why I started writing it around like 2015 (posted first chapter in like 2017) and am still writing it, and finally moving into the 4th and last arc soon.

[ingravinoveritas]

I haven’t written about OFMD in a while, but some events that transpired recently have come to my attention and left me completely disgusted with the fandom right now (on Twitter, at least). It is for these reasons that I felt the need to write this post. (CW: Mention of rape/sexual assault ahead.)

For those who don’t know what happened, the basic gist is that Steve Wrigley--a friend of Rhys Darby and his wife, Rosie Carnahan--wrote a tweet about finding RPFs and wanting to read them out loud on a livestream. Rosie responded to the tweet expressing her discomfort at the idea, and then responded a second time, in which she described RPF as being “creepy and rapey”:

While Rosie did follow up with another tweet saying that RPF “doesn’t really bother” her (seemingly contradicting her previous statement), the floodgates were already open. Almost immediately, the anti-RPF crowd seized on this, removing Rosie’s words from any discernible context and using them as a cudgel to attack, harass, and belittle RPF writers and readers.

As the tweet has passed through various fandom channels, one of the chief complaints that I’ve seen is someone “showed” Rosie RPF, the implication being that it was an RPF author who sent one of their works to her. In actuality, as we see above, it was this “friend” (who is really no friend at all if they would do something like this, IMO) who mentioned RPF and brought it to Rosie’s attention, not the fic writers. Logically, this makes sense, because no RPF writer (insofar as I know) wants their work shared with the person it’s about or their family members.

I briefly touched on this in this post from the other day, about the abhorrent RPF-themed TV show being developed by Channel 4, but I actually had this happen to me ten or so years ago, when I was in another fandom. One of my fics was stolen and shared with the people it was about, without my permission or knowledge. So to see this Steve guy attempt to mock RPF, use as it entertainment, and--possibly worst of all--to make people deliberately uncomfortable with it is despicable, and unfortunately, this was further compounded by Rosie’s comment.

Calling RPF “rapey” is completely inappropriate and honestly a slap in the face, both to victims/survivors of sexual assault, and fic writers. Rosie’s feelings of discomfort are absolutely valid, and while I do understand that she was perhaps attempting to convey the sense of violation that the fics make her feel, equating a piece of fiction with one of the worst ordeals that a human being can go through is appalling. To me, it minimizes the experience of victims/survivors, both by the context of the statement and the flippant wording itself. And there is nothing that justifies or excuses that.

In addition, Rosie’s follow-up comment made mention of “thinking about the children” who might find RPF online. This is an old argument that seems to resurface again every few years, and while I understand the concern, it is actually quite difficult to find RPF on AO3 without going through several different pages, filters, etc. to get there. Authors of RPF (myself included) also place multiple warnings, disclaimers, and tags on the fics as an additional safeguard...but beyond that, it is ultimately the responsibility of parents to monitor what their kids are looking at online.

Another thing that has truly bothered me about all this is that some fans are using Rosie’s comments to paint all RPF with the same brush. It’s not “OFMD RPF is bad,” it’s “All RPF is bad, it makes all of the actors uncomfortable,” etc., fully failing to take into account that this is not necessarily the case.

I am mainly part of the Good Omens fandom, so the RPF I’ve written is for that. For those unfamiliar, we are talking about a fandom in which one of the actors (Michael Sheen) has vehemently defended fanfic, has most likely read RPF, possibly written it, and probably gotten off on it. He also said this when talking about fanfic on the Graham Norton Show last December:

Even with all of this being the case, I will again emphasize that my number one cardinal rule of writing RPF is to never send it or show it to the people it’s about. Michael might be wildly enthusiastic when it come to fic, but the same goes for him, because that is crossing a line. And if he wants to read RPF, he very obviously knows where and how to find it, bless him.

Fandoms are what fandoms are, and I have seen this happen time and again. But the folks attacking and clutching metaphorical pearls over RPF do not have the moral high ground they think they do. In all of this, I have seen the rush to agree with Rosie and lambaste RPF and RPF authors...but curiously, what I haven’t seen is anyone mention how Rhys (or Taika) feels about RPF. Not once. And I just find it strange that that seems to be so absent from the conversation.

So those are my thoughts on the situation. The discourse around RPF has reached a fever pitch, between the Channel 4 show and now this incident. I just hope from here on out we can stop policing the fandom experiences of others and remember that we are all fans of the same show, co-captains of the same vessel, and that the more we fight each other, the more likely it is that ship will sink and take us down with it.

[queenofthearchipelago]

Okay so, not gonna lie, I did have to look up what exactly RPF stood for so that I could properly engage with your reply here.

The Internet tells me that RPF stands specifically for Real People Fanfiction. (I have been in fandom for so long I feel embarrassed to not have known that lol, but hey, it wasn't my thing, so I guess it makes a little sense I didn't know that). But yeah, anyway, RPF is not exactly what this post is about.

I've scrolled past my fair share of Michael and David fanfic, and while I do think it's odd, I'm pretty much never going to judge anyone for their fanfic tastes, both in writing it or in reading it. I'm sure I have my fanfic tastes that would make you ask me why I enjoy fics like that. It's just human to be different and have different preferences with our fiction. And also, there's such a large pool of reasons for someone to write or read a fic. Maybe it's just for fun, maybe they're working through something, etc.

But, again, that's not what this post is speaking to. I'm speaking of something I've noticed in the fandom, where I've watched some blogs turn from being active members of the good omens fandom, to saying that the good omens fandom is Toxic Actually, and they ship Michael and David now.

Now listen to me, I am absolutely NOT saying that the good omens fandom is perfect. I've never had an issue here, I don't see hatred of any sort in this fandom but I also know that I've found my people and I largely stay out of the tags these days. I've found my circle and I'm so happy with all the meta, fanart, and fic writers I've become friends with. But this specific turn I've seen - Good Omens is a Toxic fandom and now I ship Michael and David - it feels like a strange choice. How do I explain this in a way that makes sense?

It feels like they can't ship Aziraphale and Crowley the way they wanted (because their experience of the fandom is toxic) and so they're turning to analyzing Michael and David in those ways instead.

I do agree with all you've said in your reply, it's actually really refreshing to read thoughtful insights on fandom and how we should approach others preferences when they differ from our own.

Especially since, yeah, people have been speculating about celebrities lives in invasive ways for as long as there have been celebrities to be curious about. But that doesn't make those speculations any less invasive, any less rude. And that tells me a lot about these people who speculate this way, it tells me a lot about their character.

Because yes, David and Michael have this fantastic close relationship. It's wonderful, I love the glimpses of it that we've gotten to see at award shows and in interviews. And yes, they both know about the fans of their relationship existing. And yes they do make jokes towards that.

But... they aren't Aziraphale and Crowley. There aren't any carefully laid out Clues. They don't want you to "figure out" that they're cheating on their partners with each other. They aren't hinting at a polycule because they can't just be open about it. (Like, they either would want us to know or they wouldn't.) They also aren't hinting at divorces from their partners or a separation.

They ALSO aren't "overcompensating" for a lack of sex in the bedroom at home with love-bombing in public because a divorce between David and Georgia is inevitable because David would rather sleep with Michael. (Yes, a take I read with my eyes.)

It tells me a lot about someone to see takes like this. To see a picture of David and Georgia smiling at each other and claiming it's fake because they clearly don't love each other anymore. (They literally have 5 young kids together, they work together all the time, and David makes as many sex jokes about Georgia in public as Michael makes about David. This totally looks like a loveless, sexless marriage from the outside. 😑)

These are people, not a jigsaw puzzles to figure out to make us feel smart or involved or like we know them. We don't know them.

And that was my point. Like yeah sure, go on and write the fics about the foursome. The rule about not bringing it TO the real people themselves, that seems like a good rule.

But from where I stand, speculation like this is dishonest (and it's usually presented with a very strong confidence.) and it's invasive and rude.

The F in RPF stands for Fiction. But this isn't about fiction. This is about assuming that a marriage of 15 years is a sham because those people act like they love each other in public. (Like yeah, I'd hope so...?) It's fabricating fiction about their real lives in a way that's presented as truth. As if you can, you should, and they want you to put the Clues together. So that the fans can have a secret club of being the only ones who Know The Truth.

It's just odd. It doesn't have to be this way and I'm sure that a great deal of the majority of people who like seeing Michael and David together don't go that far. But again, I'm talking about a subsection of the fandom here.

Thanks for replying, it was great to read your thoughts and I learned something! (If you want to continue discussion, I'm open to doing so!)

I'm genuinely shocked and a little disturbed that there's this subsection of the good omens fandom that has turned from just loving the show and shipping the characters to shipping Michael and David.

Like first of all, please don't ship real people.

Second, it goes even further than that with some people, somehow finding "evidence" to hate their partners and speculating about their sex lives.

It's just weird... I'm here for the good omens. I enjoy Michael and David as the actors and public figures they are, I enjoy the bits of their friendship that we get to see. But I'm not going to spend time speculating on whether or not they're divorcing their spouses, or how their sex lives are, or anything else going on behind the scenes.

A person being a public figure is not an invitation to speculate about them in invasive and quite frankly extremely rude ways. But that's just my take.

[wannabevampire]

also, this is the same anon that sent the (´∀｀)♡ face... i just started posting some sfw blurbs and headcanons but i want to post more spicy things bc thats mostly what i read LMAFJKFNKDJ but i was wondering if u have any tips for new writers? were u scared of posting nsfw stuff at first?

hello (´∀｀*)♡ anon!

first of all you already took the hardest step which is posting your writing in the first place! so as corny as it sounds never undermine that achievement because it’s really cool!

secondly i still consider myself a new writer to a certain extent? i’ve still got a lot to learn! but i will try my very best to tell you some tips that help me :)

okay so…

#1

no matter how niche you think the character you write for is. no matter how “weird” you think the trope or kink your writing for is.

someone will be into it! there are so many people in this community so almost always you’ll find someone who likes the same things as you!

note:

sometimes other writers & readers will also read your work even if they aren’t strictly “into” what you’re writing

(i know i do it! and honestly it’s opened my eyes to some things that i’m very much into! as well as helped me realize some things make me uncomfortable! other times it’s just fun to read and support my friends!!)

#2

don’t write for anyone but yourself! it will just make you resent writing and that’s the last thing anyone wants!

#3

don’t be afraid to set boundaries. and don’t be afraid to block people if they are making you feel uncomfortable. consent is necessary and important, even online.

#4

try to make some friends! i know that’s easier said than done and as a shy person those are like the worst words i could ever possibly hear lmao

but honestly almost everyone on here is just as eager to make friends and mutuals as you are!

if that seems nerve racking feel free to start with me! no pressure of course, but i’d love to support you so don’t hesitate to shoot me a message or ask <3

#5

be nice and be respectful.

no one likes people who think they’re “too cool for this”. we are literally writing sex stories about superhero’s, get over yourself.

don’t be a “omg i’m soooo mean 🤪” type of person. because you are not a baddie you’re just an asshole!!

also respect the fact that even if you don’t write rpf (real person fan fiction) to a certain extent real people are going to be involved! not all directors are as fan-fiction loving as Chloé Zhao! and some of them are required by contract to NOT read fics because it can interfere with things and cause legal issues!

@/neil-gaiman (author of coralline, sandman, good omens, ect.) has a post about this where he explains it better than I do lol! it’s pinned on his account 👍 i’m not tagging him because he has expressed that he doesn’t want to be tagged in fics, so even though i don’t write for any of his characters i still wanna respect that decision.

also you never know how actors are going to react so don’t try to shove it in their faces? because they’re real people!

it’s not even that actors or writers or directors hate fan fics and want them completely eradicated. some people just aren’t into it and that deserves to be respected!

#6

write even if you think no one’s reading and write even if you’re only getting 10 likes <3

i remember how happy i was when i hit 30 followers!! lmao i bought myself a cupcake and everything!

so always celebrate the little things and HAVE FUN BABY!!!

reach out if you need anything, i like to think i’m a pretty nice person to talk to? and i love making new friends :D

okay bye!

xoxo,

allie🕊

p.s.

always tag your work! especially if it’s 18+ and especially if it’s dark!!

[kanna-ophelia]

Hey! I love your blog! I got into good omens recently and have been obsessed. Anyways, I came because I saw one of your old posts about fanfiction and how fictional characters do not exist and can't give consent/be abused. I was just thinking, do these same rules apply to RPF as well? I don't think they do because they're dealing with real people right? And if they don't follow the same rules, what do they follow? Just wanted to hear your thoughts!

Sorry for the late reply! I'm very rarely on Tumblr these days.

Good Omens is joy, so glad you found it. RPF: This is all kind of complicated. Disclaimer: I used to be pretty anti-RPF, but I don't hold that position anymore.

Basically I think there's a distinction between, say, someone making up stories about someone at school and work and passing them around, which affects people's immediate circle and can do real harm, and stories on a clearly fictional archive like AO3, Wattpad, Nifty or Literotica, where everyone knows it's fiction and it's not the "real" people who are doing and saying those things. No one actually thinks BTS are US high-schoolers or that fans are depicting realevents in their romances.

RPF has a longer and more established legal basis than fictional person fiction. Even my mother's "girls' papers" had fiction with pop stars in them, and years and years ago someone gave me book of women's dreams (some very explicit) about Madonna. I think it's pretty clear that people are treated as "characters" in RPF and are not the real people. I have far more problems with bioepics like Bohemian Rhapsody and Stardust which villainised people but were taken as at least generally true by audiences, or with the gossip/paparazzi media which claims their own made up stories are true. Both are which way more mainstream than Youtuber RPF, which is clearly fantasy.

I don't think the presence or absence of sex or gayness in a story should be a deciding factor, either.

Personally, I'm far more comfortable with fictional canons and characters, or at least long-dead historical ones. But as long as fic and art is kept clearly marked as fiction and on sites for fiction where it has to be deliberately accessed, and so long as RPF is never ever forced on creators (see also inappropriate questions at cons), I think RPF characters are actually just that, characters, and can't be harmed in a story.

(Footnote: I've ended up in people's stories, both in flattering ways and insulting ones. It felt weird, but the problem really was having my attention drawn to it. Either way, it was very much their impression of me, and not me as a person.)

[multsicorn]

fandoms for a reason for a season for a lifetime

It’s funny how even spiralling into a new obsession I can tell - this isn’t one of the big ones, probably. Not unless it pulls out a whole lot more ~something~ in the last seven eps I have left.

Because when I look back at the fandoms I’ve been in here on tumblr over the last decade, there seems to be a sharp dichotomy.

[this got way too long? have a cut.]

There’s fandoms I think back on as ‘damn I love/d that. For so many reasons. Even if, for other reasons, good reasons, I am not in the fandom anymore - or not currently.’ Glee, Hamilton, Check, Please!, (where I never liked the canon much at all! but I loved my corner of fandom so much, I kept coming back to it for years.)

The Untamed. (Which I hope I may still come back to? In some form, if it’s still going, like, next year? I never quite managed to find myself a cozy corner, and wore myself out trying and failing, but I also never managed to really exorcise the feelings I wanted to there, so, I’m still like - I love it? I love a lot of things about it. But I cannot currently ~engage.)

Nirvana in Fire, which I am fully planning to watch for the third time, and hoping to create content for this next time round, … whenever I get tired of Word of Honor, probably in a few months from now.

And then there’s the fandoms where I just kinda needed - a fandom. To be in. Which does not mean I didn’t love them at the time! Hockey RPF (where I pretty much only read fic - and also wrote in my head a good handful of fic. based on fic. but I never cared much for the ‘canon’, lol.) Yuri!!! on Ice; Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812; Good Omens. There are things I remember with fondness about all those canons (… rpf fic, the way I look at it, is the canon) - but - like. They’re not *so* much, to me. Obviously, to other people, some of these fandoms are their very favorites!

There’s more or less stuff that I love in each fandom. Or, maybe, more accurately, if I think about the things that draw me to each - they mean more to me, or less.

I was fully immersed in Glee fandom for … almost four years. I’ve never had another experience like that, because for almost all of that time Glee was actively, um, happening to us ;). I joined in the middle of season three, I left the fall after season six ended - in part because I fell head over heels for Hamilton, but mostly just because. I’d spent almost four years reacting to the unfolding story (and spoilers for it etc.), writing fic and meta and so forth, having my enthusiasm refreshed every few months (at least) by injections of new canon. Of course half the time I was reacting against new canon info instead of in favor of it, lol, but in any case - I was kept interested! And so by five or six months after canon ended… I felt like I’d chewed it over enough. I still loved Glee, and I will always love Glee, but I’d had most of the thoughts I’ll ever have about it. I was ready to find something else to have new thoughts and fresh feelings about.

(I was in Hamilton fandom for about a year and my experience there ended because of the aftermath of a pile of pan-fandom-famous wank. Fuck Israa, I say, from the bottom of my heart. Although what got me to leave ultimately wasn’t the flames or dogpilers, but the fact that so much of the fandom at least passively agreed with and supported them, meaning that I never knew which of my fellow shippers I could try to befriend or interact with.) (And then, after Trump was elected, I became far less interested in writing any fic about any Founding Fathers than I was in 2015. Which was after I left the fandom, but not irrelevant to why I never went back.) (seriously tho, I will remember ‘i would hope that it is clear who i do and do not associate with’ 4ever.)

And then! I was obsessed with a fandom built out of a few strips out of a webcomic that I don’t even really like… on and off over four years!? Goddamn. When I needed something else cause I was frustrated with Hamilton, I fell into Check, Please! and Jack/Parse (<3 <3 <3), and, because (that segment of the) fandom was tiny, and (relevant to my interests) canon updates virtually nonexistent… I ran out of interest/excitement/engagement repeatedly, and took up - one after another - Hockey RPF, Yuri on Ice, Great Comet, and Good Omens - each for just two to six months, iirc. And then I boomeranged back to Jack/Parse.

(at some point I will finish the post in my drafts about why Jack/Parse had such a hold on me, ‘living in the wreckage of what you thought your life was going to be.’ But that is not this post.)

And THEN I fell in love the with The Untamed, (thanks, stulti! For turning me on to *two* of my all-time favorite fandoms), and it was just, like, amazing, for a while. I hadn’t loved a canon that much since Hamilton, which had been five or six years ago? Even though I’d been in a number of fandoms between the two. It was so nice to love something so very much!!! And I ended up kind of overdosing, I think, cause I was eating from the fandom buffet more-or-less indiscriminately… there were so many riches in that fandom! And so many that weren’t quite to my taste, lol, because there was (and is) SO MUCH STUFF in that canon for its fans to love. (there’s another post in my mental drafts about that.)

Anyway. My point is. I guess. That I hope to come back to The Untamed, sometime. I fully expect to come back to Nirvana In Fire. (It is, actually, so good? As a canon as well as a fandom.)

I don’t expect to come back to Check, Please! ever again, because, weirdly, I don’t think I need to. Of course my understanding of what it means to ~reconcile with one’s past~ etc. has changed in the last mumble-years, but more than that… I have Nirvana in Fire, now, to deal with almost the same issues. I don’t think I fully got the Extent of Mei Changsu’s (Lin Shu) identity issues until the end of the show? But in retrospect - now that I have -

Nirvana in Fire is a pretty perfect fandom/canon for coming back to with gaps between, lol. It’s small enough that I can read through all of my favorite AO3 tags and be left wanting more; it has enough of a strong but slowly-spreading appeal that new people do come and go between say, last summer when I consumed the canon for the first time, and this spring when I watched it again.

And maybe I won’t need to come back and back! Maybe a third watch will be enough for me to say the things in that I want to say. I certainly cannot guess ahead of time!

But - yeah. There are those fandoms I love ~forever,~ some of which I may not be done with…

And then there’s Word of Honor. Which I love right now. Even if it’s not as deep, or ~intense, or… whatever… as some of my other fandom loves; I still love it! Even if I can see ahead to six months from now when I bet I won’t, anymore. I still can’t believe that I spent the past hour-plus writing this post rather than dashing on to watch episode 30, which is what I was intending to do when I sat down.

It’s just - funny. That sort of double vision. How I know this fandom is Mx. Right Now, but that doesn’t make me squee any less.

[moscarific]

Some of you might have noticed that I have a new fandom. As often happens, the fandom itself isn’t new: Roswell, New Mexico, has aired for two full seasons on the CW, and a lot of the fans jumped on board at or near the beginning. I, on the other hand, sauntered in late, martini in hand, and binged the whole thing on Netflix in a week to get my mind off the fact that my HVAC had died in the middle of a heat wave and nobody could figure out how to fix it. The stubborn appliance is now fixed, and my condo is now a placid 74 degrees Fahrenheit throughout, but in the time it took, I not only watched all of RNM but wrote and posted my first fic in the fandom. It is a classic case of new fandom glow, and all it took was an aggressively mediocre TV show about attractive queer aliens and two weeks of sustained negotiation with the heating-cooling repair company.

Since I have friends in the fandom and they seem happy that I’ve shown up - especially since I brought martinis for everyone - I’m now on a Discord server where a lot of the RNM fandom stalwarts hang out. (Discord: yet another fandom platform that reminds me that the days of Livejournal were terrible but also makes me feel ancient.) Here I am, two days after joining the server, giddily chatting with my fellow nerds and plugging away at fic #2, when someone starts fretting that everyone is leaving RNM fandom and there will soon be nobody left. 

In my mind, this fandom is vibrant. My Tumblr dash is full of new gifs, fanart, and stories. The Discord is not overwhelming, but there is plenty of action, most of it on topic. AO3 listings indicate a steady stream of new material. It’s possible that things have slowed down since the initial boom, but this fandom is still moving at a healthy clip - especially since, as someone else on Discord pointed out, we’re in the middle of a long show hiatus (made longer by the pandemic and by some behind-the-scenes tsuris) after a season that mostly separated the fandom’s consensus OTP. 

My reaction to this concern is that RNM is the kind of fandom that has legs. At first, that was an inkling, fueled by the desire for more Malex fic to be injected directly into my bloodstream, but the more I thought about it while folding laundry (You know what else got fixed last week? My dryer. I am so happy. Never get old, kids.) the more I saw myself responding to a pattern. The upside to being old - and by old, I mean that the Star Trek fans I used to hang out with on a Yahoo Group dubbed me a Brassy Old Fandom Queen in approximately 2002 - is that you have perspective. 

At this point, I have written upwards of 200 stories in something like 50 fandoms. (Not all of these stories are on AO3; some of them are buried on Dreamwidth where they belong.) You know what still gets read? Stories in fandoms with a large amount of canon that is readily available on a major streaming platform. I haven’t watched a Gilmore Girl since there was a Bush in office, but I still get kudos almost daily on Rory/Paris fics that are older than the characters were in the first season of that show. Sometime around 2011, I wrote Mass Effect femslash because I was modding a fic exchange and took a difficult sign-up for the team, and that thing still gets read all the time. Not only are my own Star Trek: DS9, Teen Wolf, and Firefly fics still being discovered by new readers, but I continue to find new fanworks for all of those fandoms on my Tumblr dash and on AO3, mostly created by people who just now took a deep dive on Netflix and fell in love for the first time. Some of these canons have become dated, and several were not great in the first place, but they’re easy to become obsessed with and to say fresh things about. They’re also easy to maintain interest in. I’m not really creating new works in any of these fandoms anymore, but I eagerly pick up new fanworks by others when they come my way. One of the best fics I’ve read in the past year is a sparkling Garashir AU that you should read if you have any DS9 feelings at all. I’ve been disillusioned with the central Avengers storyline of the MCU for years now, but I’ll be damned if I ever stop reblogging Stucky gifsets.

You know what doesn’t get new fans or fanworks? Short, time-dependent fandoms that everyone consumes at once and then gets tired of quickly. I got a bajillion kudos in the first 48 hours when I wrote my one and only Venom fic, and I don’t think anyone has touched that thing since. It’s a pretty good fic, but nobody cares anymore. A decade ago, everyone was wild for Kradam, but I suspect that if I ask the dewy-eyed college students on my dash what a Kris Allen is, they will blink at me with sweet incomprehension. Last year, when Good Omens was the place to be, I followed a bunch of fandom-specific side blogs, all of which are now either abandoned or so slow they’re effectively defunct. I have dim memories of lingering on endless LJ photosets of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at some point in 2008, but I think we have erased this from our collective memory. In all of these cases, people got all their ideas and excitement out in one explosion of fannish energy, and then they moved on - usually drifting back to the large-canon fandoms they’d come from.

The flavor of this month is The Old Guard. Everyone is making gifs and writing fluffy backstory for Nicky and Joe. Almost everyone will be bored with this by Halloween. By then, there will be some other movie or RPF ship or live musical extravaganza that we are all either obsessed with or incepted into via fannish osmosis. Fandom needs these large, centralizing events to remind ourselves that we can all feel something in unison. But they don’t last.

That’s not to say that one kind of fandom source is better than another. Gilmore Girls is not a purer or more admirable source text than Lost Girl simply because you have forgotten that one of these shows exists. It’s just that some canons are better equipped than others to draw in and retain new fans, while others can’t sustain themselves without collective fannish energy to prop them up. And the best way to sustain any fandom is to lure your friends and neighbors into it, whether by talking up the merits of the canon or linking everyone to That One Fic or reblogging pretty gifsets until they give in. If everyone’s leaving the party, make a fresh batch of martinis. Chances are, a lot of people wanted to keep hanging around anyway, and a bunch of others were lurking by the door, wondering whether it was safe to come in.

[pastelbrachypelma]

Sooo...

Remember how I said ages ago...that I might write some Good Omens RPF?

Well...I did it.

David paced up and down the trailer, anxiously pulling at his shirt. He couldn’t rest, not until he’d heard from her.

“Hello!” Georgia’s bright, lively voice greeted him, and David felt himself relax a bit.

“Georgia...hi.” David smiled. “It’s good to hear your voice. How are you?”

Georgia giggled. “You worry too much! I’m fine! This is, like, my seventh time being pregnant. It’s not like I’m suffering.” She grunted, presumably as the baby kicked her; this little one was feisty. “...much.”

“I’m just wondering how you are, that’s all,” David leaned up against the counter in the trailer’s small kitchen. The Good Omens set might have had big-name stars, but it was a small-ish production, all things considered. Nothing like the movies he’d worked on in L.A., or even the massive demand of an American television set. It felt more like hanging out with friends...when the camera wasn’t rolling, anyway.

Georgia sighed at him fondly. “I know. I worry about you, too. You can get into your own head so much that you forget to have fun. Really, I promise I’m doing well. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.”

“That’s true.” And comforting. He never had to guess with Georgia; her candid nature was something that he absolutely adored about her. “How are the kids?”

“Being very helpful. They even made me breakfast!”

“Oh dear.”

“Yeah, it was a bit of a mess...but they meant well.”

“Don’t they always?”

Georgia chuckled, and David could picture her smile perfectly, which made him smile as well. “Don’t work so hard, all right? You’ll make yourself sick one of these days.”

“I’ll be fine.” David rolled his eyes fondly. “Suppose I’d better go catch kraft services before someone takes the last plate.”

“You had better,” Georgia warned him. “If there weren’t labor laws, I swear you’d work straight through lunch daily.”

“I just go where they tell me, Georgia.”

“As you should.” Georgia made a kissing noise through the phone. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

David held the phone away from his ear, smiling as he fiddled with it, sliding it between his fingers. He’d been so worried about leaving Georgia while she was pregnant to do the filming for Good Omens, and now that she was showing in proper fashion, he worried even more. Especially because he couldn’t exactly catch a taxi or an Uber back home to see her. They were filming on location, which was sometimes a pain if it was far away and he got nervous like this. Most of the time, it was nice, though.

David sighed, stretching with a grunt, and pocketed his phone. Now that his fears were abated, he realized he was hungry. He’d been so preoccupied that morning, what with hair and makeup and costumes, that he’d barely caught kraft services, and by then, he had to eat a banana and report to set. It wasn’t the worst, not by a long shot, but sometimes, he longed to work on American productions again. Kraft services were amazing in America, and always well-stocked.

However, upon following his nose to where the lunch catering was set up for the day, he found that the kraft service workers were clearing up, and that only a few assistants were hanging around, drinking tea and chatting. His heart sank, and he felt his stomach turn over itself once or twice. It wasn’t very pleasant.

With a heavy sigh, David turned back to his trailer. He probably still had a granola bar or something left over from breakfast, something to tide him over. He liked to think he was never a very grumpy person to work with, but he knew that if he started to get tired, he could end up being much more aloof than usual, and with Neil and Michael and everyone watching…

“Hey! David!”

Speak of the devil. David mustered up a shy smile, crossing his arms over his chest as Michael appeared from the lingering crowd of people. That white-blond cloud of hair, chosen for the character he was playing, looked out of place with Michael’s street clothes. It only really suited him when he was in costume.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Michael clasped David’s shoulder. He was bombastic and full of energy. And loud. Living in America had really rubbed off on him, not that David minded that most of the time. It made him great to play off of in interviews, and made David laugh in between takes, helping him relax and get back into character. Whatever Crowley and Aziraphale were actually supposed to be with each other, it always helped him visualize a centuries-old relationship after he’d broke character because of Michael making faces at him from across the room. “Where were you?”

“Trailer,” David shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “Calling Georgia.”

Michael’s smile burned from wide and beaming to fond and sympathetic. That was another thing that bonded them; they both had someone pregnant waiting for them at home. It was nice to talk to someone who understood. “Yeah, I understand, mate. How is she?”

“Well enough to tell me off for worrying,” David admitted sheepishly, chuckling. “She’s done this all before, so…”

“All your fault for breeding like rabbits,” Michael teased, elbowing him and making David laugh genuinely. “Hey, mind running lines for a bit before we have to head to set?”

“Ah, no…” David shook his head, feeling a bit woozy. “Think I might go have a lie-down before call time…”

A knowing glint sparkled in Michael’s eyes. “Ah, you missed lunch, didn’t you? Bad luck, that. It was, as Aziraphale would say, scrumptious.”

“Aye, rub it in, why don’tchya?” David swatted at him playfully. “Seriously. If I don’t get my head down, I’ll be a broody monster, and I don’t wanna frighten off the techs.”

“Nah, fuck that!” Michael exclaimed joyfully. “C’mon! Catering’s got leftovers! I’m sure we can ask them for some.”

“No, it’s all right--oi!” David found himself jerked forward as Michael grabbed him bodily by the arm and dragged him forward. “Knock it off, Michael!” He protested, though it was rather ruined by his laughter. “We’re like kids in a schoolyard!”

“Damn right!” Michael called back at him, grinning like a fool. “You’ve got top billing, David. There’s no way Neil, Douglas, or any of them would want you on set half-starved!”

“Ah...well…” David tried to protest further, but the words died in his throat as Michael dragged him towards the catering trucks. He couldn’t help it; his mouth started to water, and breakfast seemed farther away by the minute. “Mmm.”

“Good, yeah?” Michael was smiling like a dog that just brought back a particularly impressive stick. “I swear, they sprung for the good stuff today.”

David looked around helplessly at the caterers putting away half-full dishes and soup containers and felt his stomach growl. Georgia would kill him if she found out he’d skipped a meal to fuss over her for nothing, but he didn’t want to be a nuisance either. “Michael, they’re already packing up for the day, I can’t--”

“You can,” Michael said seriously, his eyes glinting, “and you shall. C’mon.”

“W-wait--!”

But it was too late. Michael paraded them in front of one of the attendants, who was busy packing away a large container of some kind of pasta alfredo dish. “Excuse me, miss, but my friend here missed last call. Any chance you could sneak him a plate?”

The catering lady shrugged. “Sure thing. We’ve got plenty left.” She grabbed a disposable plate sitting nearby and piled some pasta onto it. “Would you like fish as well? We’ve got breaded flounder.”

“Yes, please,” David said shyly, smiling kindly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The woman handed David the plate she’d made with a bland smile. He returned it with a genuine one; this was already more than he expected.

But it seemed Michael wasn’t done yet. “Oh, look! Those grilled vegetables were outstanding! And you’ve got to have a roll, of course...and that cheesecake was divine..!”

Once the two men reemerged, each of their hands carrying a plate, they realized they had only a half an hour before call time.

“C’mon,” Michael beckoned, tilting his head. “My trailer’s closer.”

David snorted. “I swear if I find your boxers on the counter again…”

“That was one time! And you surprised me!”

The two men laughed, sitting themselves at the booth in Michael’s trailer. The older man shoved the plates he was carrying over towards David, relaxing in the booth as the leaner of the two of them tucked in with rightful enthusiasm. Michael couldn’t help smiling, his eyes and mind drifting to the bustle of the crew outside. He marveled at them sometimes, how they did as much, if not more, work than himself and his fellow actors, and yet only got credit when the award shows rolled around. If that.

David’s fond laugh brought him back to the present moment, and he leaned in towards his friend, elbows resting on the table. “What’s so funny, eh?”

The other man sighed, twirling a bit of past around his fork. “Just thinking that I’m not going to be able to eat all this. And the scene I’m filming...I don’t think I can be too full for it.” he frowned.

“Oh, go on,” Michael flapped his hand dismissively. “By the time we get into costume, you’ll be all right. Honestly, you’ll burn it off in two seconds. Remember what we’re filming.”

David nodded, mouth full, and spoke only after swallowing. Bloody man and his manners. “Right, yeah, the church scene.”

“Exactly,” Michael watched David easily polish off the rest of the pasta and half the fish with satisfaction. “Crowley’s supposed to rescue Aziraphale. It won’t do if you’re swooning into my arms.”

“Oi,” David laughed, kicking at Michael’s shins. “You’re always saying that’s what Aziraphale really wants. We’ll give the fans what they ask for.”

“Hm,” Michael pretended deep contemplation. “Well, guess it depends on who you ask...some people seem to like Crowley dominant.”

David sputtered, coughing, and reached for his water bottle. “Oh my God,” he breathed, mock-glaring at Michael. “Bastard. I could’ve choked!”

Michael snorted. “I’d have saved you. Who else would play Crowley, if not you?”

“Aww,” David crooned sarcastically.

There was a bit of silence while David finished his plate. Michael yawned, stretching, and threw one arm over the back of the booth as he slouched, definitely not watching David eating the cheesecake. Well, he could sympathize with Crowley, at least. What was so...interesting about watching someone eat, anyway? At least David had some food in him. His co-star had looked incredibly piquey during the morning’s filming, and when pressed, he admitted to missing the breakfast cart. He’d been worried when he hadn’t seen David at lunch, but hadn’t thought to check his trailer.

“Still need that nap?” Michael asked. “We've still got fifteen minutes, and you can have my couch for a bit.”

“Nah, i’ll be all right,” David beamed. “I feel better now. Thank you.”

“It’s like I said. Can’t have you swooning into my arms.”

“Oi. I am not a blushing bride!”

[justlikeeddie]

for the ask meme - can I ask you B, R, T, X?

B:  What was the first fandom you read fic in?  Which was the first you wrote fic for?

The first piece of fanfiction I ever encountered was some terrifyingly explicit Draco Malfoy/Ginny Weasley, which I found very much by accident when I was about 11 or 12. I think I literally didn’t know what fic was, or really understand what I was looking at. (I definitely didn’t understand why anyone would have written about two characters getting together who theoretically didn’t like each other.) But the first time I read fic on purpose was a few years later, when I’d joined LiveJournal, and someone’s Alan Davies/Stephen Fry QI RPF showed up on my friendslist. I remember sending it to a friend and describing it as “a hilarious Stephen Fry love story”, still presumably not understanding that fanfiction was, like, a thing. But I think this led me down the inevitable rabbit hole, and so the first fandom I regularly read fic in was… Stephen Fry RPF? New QI Stephen/Alan fans vs old-school Stephen/Hugh shippers. Wild. Robert Sean Leonard was in some way involved.

Writing-wise, our family computer had a big hard drive crash in about 2006, which meant that— perhaps for the best— I lost any fic I wrote from the ages of about 14 to 16, because I think I was trying to figure out how to write stuff but not actually posting it anywhere. I remember that some existed and I lost it, but I’m genuinely not sure what most of it was, or what would have been written first. I’m guessing the first experiment was probably either something QI-related or the Mighty Boosh, a fandom that I segued into at some point from the Stephen Fry RPF situation, and where I met most of the fandom friends I still now know in real life.

The first fandom in which I started regularly posting fic was Life on Mars, which remains the oldest stuff of mine I can actually find online, and/or am willing to be associated with...

R: Which writers (fanfic or otherwise) do you consider the biggest influence on you and your writing?

@the-omnishambles and I started writing with and for each other about 13 years ago— initially in Life on Mars fandom, in fact— which probably shaped the way I write today more than anything else, and I’m sure I still produce thoughts or sentences or turns of phrase that have some ancestry in her writing. @septembriseur writes probably the most technically impressive fic I’ve ever read, and I’m still trying to emulate her ability to create an astonishingly complete world around a perfectly-calibrated emotional core. Uh, what else. I think I tried to learn how to use restraint from Pat Barker, depth from Michael Chabon, an outsider’s eye from Christopher Isherwood, and surprising quantities of naval terminology from Patrick O’Brian. And Resonant’s How to Write a Sex Scene should be on some kind of curriculum.

I also once read a completely bonkers, unbelievably clever Monty Python RPF story in a former Yuletide— “READ THIS ONE FIRST”— that wasn’t so much a fic as a multimedia experience. There were three versions of the same story, and a bunch of supporting webpages with text and images and video, and you jumped between them all to create the effect of coming unstuck in time. There were Easter Eggs hidden in the source codes of the pages and secret hyperlinks in the little lines used as scene dividers. There was a whole bit where you discovered and logged into a Gmail account set up specifically for the purpose of existing within the world of the story. It blew my fucking mind, and I think about it semi-regularly to this day— which, having just looked it up again, is apparently a full decade later. I think some memory of this story, including the buffeting back and forth in time, made me want to write Your Mirror, although obviously that became significantly less complicated and clever an idea; but I think originally I’d wanted to hide clues and surprises in it in the same sort of way. Anyway, I think lots of the external links and stuff don’t work any more, but I might go back and read this again nonetheless.

T: Any fanfic tropes you can’t stand?

There’s stuff I don’t tend to read, but I’m not sure there’s anything I can’t stand the existence of. Like, I’m not particularly interested in coffee shop AUs or kidfic or mpreg, but it’s fine that they’re there and that other people are enjoying them. (This doesn’t include that one mad Merlin RPF mpreg fic that I think about constantly and is obviously the pinnacle of literature.)

I don’t tend towards an interest in AUs or wildly canon-altering tropes in general, I guess, because I think when I get into a fandom I’m usually interested in its world as well as its characters, and how the specificities of that time and place and situation affect those characters. This doesn’t mean I don’t understand why people like seeing how other situations affect the same characters, but all the same, the trappings of 60s policing is partly why I want to read about Endeavour, the politics and philosophy of the early 18th century is partly why I want to read about Black Sails, etc etc. So, like, I’m not going to read your modern-day vampire AU, but I will defend to the death your right to publish it, as I believe the big man Voltaire once said.

X: How would you categorize your fanfic reading?  Are you a voracious reader?  Do you carefully pick and choose?  Something in between?

I tend to follow recs and favourites from people whose taste I trust to agree broadly with mine, although sometimes I’ll just trundle around a pairing tag on AO3 looking for a summary that grabs me. And then, obviously, if I particularly love a story, I’ll try and follow up on the rest of that author’s work too.

I’ve been reading almost exclusively Good Omens since last summer, and optimistically opened SO many tabs in June and July that I’m literally STILL working through them. It’s hard to compare like for like in different fandoms of different sizes: I guess I read a far greater proportion of the fic that existed in the JSMN fandom, including literally an entire anonymeme, and was probably less choosy about it than in something like Good Omens, where the sheer volume of content makes that level of coverage impossible.

(Fanfiction ask meme)

[pearwaldorf]

fanwork roundup 2019

LIST OF FANWORKS NSFW is denoted with an asterisk. All Good Omens is Aziraphale/Crowley unless noted. the last witness before the wave hits (Good Omens, gen) can you feel my heart beat fast (I want it to last, need you by my side) (Good Omens) *well you laughed baby it's okay (it's buzzcut season anyway) (Good Omens) take care to leave a trace (KOTOR 2; Jedi Exile/everybody, Jedi Exile/Visas Marr) of some other man's belief (Good Omens, gen) I've got this feeling, so appealing, for us to get together and sing (Good Omens, gen) [archive-locked work] (RPF) I knew that sullen hall (Good Omens/Dragon Age: Inquisition crossover) *we gladiate but I guess we're really fighting ourselves (The Last Jedi; Finn/Poe/Rey/Rose) healing spirit (Good Omens) [archive-locked work] (RPF) better than anything else that I've tried (Good Omens) gotta blame it on the goose (Good Omens/Untitled Goose Game crossover) *don't know you super well but you might be the same as me (Good Omens) sleeping at last (Good Omens) *don't need a crown to know that I'm a queen (Good Omens) *just let me try (and I will be good to you) - an Anthonavery RPF (Slow Show) *I can make you boil up baby, let it simmer (Slow Show) an instrument of thy vision (Rise of Skywalker; Finn) Tumblr ficlets I also did two challenges this year: Ineffable Fictober and Drabbletober. TOTAL WORD COUNT 

62423!!! By fandom: Good Omens: 36697 Star Wars: 7421 RPF: 5808 KOTOR 2: 2505 Dragon Age: Inquisition: 1105 Everything else (Critical Role, MCU, Hannibal, Mass Effect): 8887

OVERALL THOUGHTS 

Oh god it was so good to get my words back, and not only that, surpass my word count for my previous best year. The past two years have been super fucking bad for writing, and to be able to write with ease and joy againi feels like a marvelous gift, and I am grateful. And copypasta from last year, because it seems worth repeating: If, despite everything, you were able to produce work this year, congratulations. And if you couldn't, that's okay too. Next year will hopefully be better. 

PERSONAL BEST/FAVORITE I really do feel like I leveled up as a writer this year. The words were good and they came easily. I branched out a lot this year: RPF, really strange metafic, things that should be fic but the thing it's fic of doesn't actually exist. I had a lot of fun writing all of it. 

MOST UNDERAPPRECIATED (IMO) 

I feel like everything was appreciated the right amount. I would have loved more people to have seen I knew that sullen hall, but niche crossovers are hard to attract attention.

MOST POPULAR

well you laughed baby it's okay, aka the hair-pulling fic. People really seemed to like it an almost disproportionate amount to its length and quality. Maybe it was exactly what fandom wanted at the time. Also somebody tried to plagiarize it so I guess that must mean they liked it a lot. :P 

STORY WITH THE SEXIEST MOMENT Don't need a crown to know that I'm a queen. I like stories where characters know they're a snack and aren't afraid to show it off.

MOST FUN STORY TO WRITE 

Gotta blame it on the goose, for sure. It's so silly.

STORY THAT SHIFTED MY OWN PERCEPTION OF A CHARACTER

I knew that sullen hall. I never spent a whole lot of time with Blackwall, so it was interesting to get into his head for a bit. And in the course of writing the story, I had to think about things that he and Aziraphale would have in common, and it was useful character work for both of them.

HARDEST 

Of some other man's belief was a strange, recalcitrant story where I never really knew where I was going with it. All I know is it wanted to be written very very badly.  

BIGGEST SURPRISE/S 

The fake RPF I did for the Slow Show universe. The everything I wrote in the Slow Show universe. But it was great fun, and the Warlock Party House is a wonderful group of people. 

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT  

I wanted to get out a vid this year, but I don't think that's going to happen. 

MOST UNINTENTIONALLY TELLING STORY 

Like I say every year, all my shit is out in the open.  

FAVOURITE LINES/SCENES

Occasionally, as she is drifting off, she feels something shift in her awareness of him, like the brush of a hand on a curtain.(from we gladiate but I guess we're really fighting ourselves) “Jesus fucking christ, angel. You can’t just say things like that.” “Leave that poor boy out of this. Now tell me, do you like the red or the black better?” (from Ineffable Fictober prompt "anything you like") He reached up to grab the other man’s hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Come for me, he tried to communicate with his touch. Flood me with your release. (from just let me try. I was writing it intentionally badly but sometimes I'm not sure people got that 😆) 

LINES/SCENES YOU’D CHANGE 

I try not to think about it because then I'll want to change them and then I'll never stop fiddling. 

TOP FIVE SCENES YOU WISH WOULD BE ILLUSTRATED

The alley scene in can you feel my heart beat fast Nanny, Warlock, and Aziraphale at the concert in I've got this feeling Crowley tending Aziraphale's hands in healing spirit This chapter (wings) from Ineffable Fictober Crowley chasing after the goose 

2020 WRITING AMBITIONS

As always, a look at last year's:

(Creative) Survival is still a laudable ambition. I will endeavor to produce as much as I can creatively, and hopefully exceed this year's incredibly pathetic word count. I haven't made a vid in a while, and I have a new NLE (VEGAS Pro 15) to take for a spin. Art is also part of resistance, and integrating it more into my life will be good. 

I think I did pretty well with the first two. Didn't make a vid, but I'm starting on one now. Good Omens was more important to me this year than I realized. Coming off Endgame, I needed something to feel excited about, and Good Omens is a very enthusiastic fandom. It also got me through the lead-up and release of Rise of Skywalker. For a while I was deeply suspicious a shoe was going to drop re: how much fun I was having in GO fandom because it felt too easy. People weren't wanking the day away (or I could avoid those that were) and they were so happy to love on the characters. And then I realized no, that's actually how it should feel to be in a fandom community. So I guess that's one of the things I'm going to do next year: prioritize joy, especially when it comes to fandom. I've never been exactly bad at writing whatever the fuck I want, but that is something I should continue to do. I would like to write something long with at least a modicum of plot. I am bad at both of these things, and it would be nice to prove to myself I can if I wanted to. I am going to try and make two vids next year and see if I can learn Vegas 15 and maybe another NLE. I also want to get a captioning/transcription guide up for fans who want to make their vids more accessible, as somebody asked about it.

[imaginedmelody]

...You know what, since I already stuck one foot into the murky waters of Fandom Discourse with this Good Omens comment, I’m gonna go all in and double down with a rant about my other fandom pet peeve of the moment. And now, a potentially controversial statement:

I do not give a flying fuck whether people ship Shcherbina and Legasov from HBO’s Chernobyl.

Apparently this has been a matter of some debate in fandom circles. The arguments against it usually run in two directions: they are/were real people who actually existed, and the show is about a real tragedy so it’s not appropriate to be focused on shipping these characters. And here’s the thing: I actually don’t ship these two characters or anybody from the show, not really, and I still disagree with both of these arguments.

I do understand the argument against real-person shipping in general. It can seem like a really invasive thing to do. It’s why in the rare cases that I do dip into RPF, I usually prefer fandoms that keep their fanworks and discussions under pretty diligent lockdown- meaning that they don’t share fanworks with the real people in question, and they certainly don’t ask/goad/pester them about their relationship or friendship. There are actual stories of celebrities whose chemistry with one another evolved into a popular shipping culture, and then those same celebrities were hounded so much about it that it damaged their bond with that person irrevocably. I’m not condoning that sort of behavior under any circumstances. If you choose to ship real people, there are boundaries that should be strictly adhered to. People’s real lives are not your intellectual property, and you don’t get to dictate or intrude on them

But I don’t think shipping two fictionalized portrayals of real people on a historical-biographical (and yet still semi-fictional) TV show is crossing that boundary. The Shcherbina and Legasov that these people are focused on are not the actual people: they’re Stellan Skarsgard’s Shcherbina and Jared Harris’ Legasov specifically, and it’s their specific chemistry within the show that people are seizing on. And we as humans are fascinated by complex human dynamics and attributing unexpected depths to relationships; that’s the case with all shipping, and fandom works in general. So I see no problem with people being so interested in the existing dynamic between these characters that they choose to explore what it would be like in another variant.

Now the second argument- that shipping these characters is somehow a frivolous exercise that takes away from the gravity of the show’s tragic message- also rings false for me. It does not, to my mind, minimize the horrors of the show’s events to fixate on a couple of characters and write them being romantically or sexually involved; honestly, the show is so searing that I highly doubt anything could minimize its terrifying impact, but that’s just me. We don’t live with the mutually exclusive choice paradigm of “you can either take seriously the brutality of the show, or you can pair up these characters and make them kiss.” I don’t think that any show, no matter how compelling, is so sacrosanct that it’s exempt from fandom revision (”re-vision” in the literal sense, meaning “to see a new way”) by mere virtue of its intensity or realism. And I also don’t think that subjecting it to these kind of headcanons and such minimizes its legitimacy in any way, or the legitimacy of the fans who engage in it.

I went recently to check out the fanfiction for this show. Like I said, I did not come out of this series shipping anything, or even particularly intending to look at fic- but I had seen people shipping characters, and also seen the outrage about it on my dash, and so I wanted to go and see what exactly I would find if I ventured into a fandom corner I didn’t personally have much interest in. And you know what? It’s not especially my cup of tea. But I found at least one fic that was so good and so compelling that it will, with 100% certainty, make it into my next fic rec post. Guess what romantic pairing it centered on.

I’ll tell you one thing: I’m much more concerned about the people who are going and taking glamour selfies of themselves at the Exclusion Zone for instagram than I am with anyone who chooses to imagine two fictionalized portrayals of real historical figures making out with each other. And I won’t be taking any further questions about that at this time!

[ingravinoveritas]

I wonder how deep into fanfic Michael has gotten? He was very direct and specific about the the idea that most GO fic is of him and David Tennant having sex; and as if he was perfectly ok with that. Not to mention he also brought up Twilight fics being of him having sex with “other people”. He must have found the crossover stuff too!

It’s both strange and rather comforting that in a way he is one of us!

Hi, Anon! Oh, gosh. We are going to be buzzing over that Graham Norton interview for a long time to come, I suspect. Because there truly are more layers to this the more we look at what Michael said.

Since the show aired, I’ve noticed some really interesting reactions to Michael’s comments--specifically, the now-infamous “me and David Tennant having sex.” One of the things I’ve seen people say is “I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal out of it. Obviously he was talking about Aziraphale and Crowley.”

Except...Michael didn’t say “Aziraphale and Crowley.” He could have, of course. He absolutely could have, but instead he said “me and David Tennant,” and that’s not nothing. And I almost think Michael deliberately said it because he knew people wouldn’t take him seriously, and damn if he wasn’t right. At this point it seems like he could post pictures of him deep throating David’s cock, and fans would still be like IT’S JUST A JOKE, IT’S FOR THE SHOW, HE’S METHOD FUCKING ACTING. Because for some reason, it seems people will always stretch really hard to assert that Michael and David are “BFFs” and nothing more.

What I’m about to say next might seem a bit controversial, though I truly don’t mean for it to be. But this was my big takeaway from all this, and I hope it will be for others, too.

The last time I checked on AO3, the majority of Good Omens fics fell under the G rating, and certainly outnumber the Mature/Explicit fics. We know this. But the E fics are the ones that Michael seems to be reading, and when he reads those Aziraphale/Crowley fics, he is seeing it as him and David. So when I see people say things like, “Yeah, when I read fics I never picture the characters as the actors, and this is why” in response to all this, I have to laugh because, while that’s all well and good and fine...Michael clearly does.

Because in Michael’s eyes, there is no distinction between he and David and the characters, and to him, Aziraphale/Crowley fics are RPFs. So if all the people who have attacked me and others for reading/writing RPF are going to have such a problem with RPF, then they should also have a problem with Aziraphale/Crowley fics for the same reason. In my opinion, anyway.

In that same vein...could Michael have been talking about RPF? It’s difficult to say. You asked how deep into fanfic Michael has gotten, and I actually wrote on my blog ages ago about a fic that I did indeed think could have been written by Michael. (I expounded on my reasons for thinking why he could have written it in a separate post, here.) But what’s clear is that he knows people are writing about him and David having sex (in and/or out of character)...and, to echo what you said, Anon, he doesn’t seem to have a problem with it. Amazing.

So yes, I agree with you, Anon, that it is both strange and comforting to know that Michael is one of us. This certainly isn’t the first time he has defended fanfic, and I have a strong feeling it won’t be the last, nor will this be the last time we talk about it...

[ingravinoveritas]

I'm the previous anon. So I've read your blog a bit and this is what I think: There are shippers who ship real people just for fun. Yes, they write RPFs, but still, they're not very serious about it. Then there's another type of shippers. They're more serious about it, they can't stop talking about it, write RPFs and they want and hope those people are/will be together, even if they have partners and kids. You seem to be one of them (come on, admit it). Your posts are mainly about their ship, even if it's just a new small thing. You're saying you're respectful. My opinion is: you're trying to be, but you're not completely successful. Am I right?

About their sexualities: Ah, that gossip site. I know about that one. I have a hard time believing any of those things are true. I hope you understand me, it's just a gossip site. He kissed John Barrowman, that doesn't prove anything. There are a lot of celebrities who kiss the same gender, just for cheers and attention. Nothing serious.

About MS: Yes, I know his first crush was on John Taylor, but I completely forgot about it. Same about the Tom Jones thing. But wow, I didn't know about the last one. That's interesting.

Last two things: 1) M's mouth staring- he does it all the time. 2) I'm still not sure why he called DT his lover, but he's often reckless, says things impulsively, even if it's just fun, he doesn't mean it and then he's like "why tf did I just say that?" So, yes.

Okay, Anon. Let me clear a few things up, because I feel I may not have addressed them adequately (or at all) in my previous response to you.

I’m glad you took the time to read through my blog, but I’m sure you didn’t dive far back into the archive to see the trajectory of how I came to post about shipping Michael and David. Before mid-2019, there was nothing. I had just discovered Good Omens then, and I fell headfirst into being a fan of the show and of Michael (I did become a fan of David’s as well, of course, but initially I was drawn more to Michael).

I had no intention of becoming a Michael/David shipping blog, but as time went on, people began to Anon me and send messages asking questions about Michael and David. When people ask me questions, I like to take the time to answer as thoroughly as I possibly can, and people seem to like that I give my answers a great deal of thought. So it becomes this cycle that I continue to receive questions, and consequently the Michael/David shipping become the focus of my posts. (At the moment, I have four anons in my inbox asking Michael/David shipping-related questions. I literally have no control over the fact that people ask me these things, but I am damn sure going to do my best to answer.)

The second thing I’d like to clarify is something I have stated on this blog before, which is that a large portion of the pleasure I get from shipping Michael and David is because they seem to enjoy it so much. But if either of them came out tomorrow and said that they were uncomfortable with fans shipping them, I would gladly respect that and close up shop. I might think it’s wildly out of character, considering all Michael and David do is the exact opposite by encouraging the bejesus out of it, especially when they have had a hundred chances to shut the whole thing down, and could’ve easily said that they’re just friends and don’t want fans to ship them, but they never have. That speaks volumes, in my opinion, and what matters isn’t whether you are okay with or I am okay with it...only whether Michael and David are.

But that is as far as I am going to go in answering this. Because I did take the time to write you a thoughtful response earlier, Anon, and then you came back with this (particularly that first paragraph), casting aspersions on my character and making this whole thing personal when it had absolutely no reason to be. And the truth be told, when I have seen comments like yours in the past, it’s almost always an indication that the person making them is more uncomfortable with RPF than the celebrities they are purporting to defend. The same goes for Michael and David’s sexual orientations, because you also seem more uncomfortable with the idea of them being not straight than either one of them do. Straight is not necessarily the default, Anon, and if you’re going to come and tell me I need to “prove” that Michael and David aren’t straight, perhaps I should ask you to prove that they are, even though that is something neither of us can do because only Michael and David know the truth.

So I think we are at an impasse, because I have a dozen more recent examples of Michael and David’s flirty interactions that I could link you to, but it seems clear that you’ve already made up your mind, and nothing I say is going to matter. I will leave you with one final thought, however, which is this: Maybe, just maybe, let people like things? And if you don’t like those things, don’t read them? I know it’s a radical concept, but you can absolutely block me if you’d prefer not to read my posts, or the responses from my wonderful group of regular commenters/rebloggers that I have on here. I will even lovingly wrap your knickknacks in bubble paper and make sure your gas tank is full, because you’ve officially used up the last of my kindness and good nature.

As the song goes: “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here...”