thecuriousandtheshiny

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

The Curious and the Shiny is up in the library!

Genre: Slice of Life Rating: T Characters: Lucario, Luxray, OC Status: Ongoing Length: 200k+

(OC, Pokecentric) Two old friends, a Luxray and Lucario, reunite after five years, but broken friendships aren’t easily mended. Ghosts of their past haunt them in the form of a mysterious organization, GeL. In their journey to repair their relationship, they face their repressed memories, meet new allies, and teach themselves and others to bridge the gap between Pokémon and mankind.

Read it here: Thousand Roads (Chapters 1-17) Fanfiction.net (Chapters 1-38)

Want to see your story in the library? We’d love to have it! Check out our submission information.

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Do you love Pokémon fanfiction? Come join us on Thousand Roads’ Discord server! We welcome fanfic readers and writers of all genres and skill levels. Our server is LGBTQ+ friendly, with members from around the world!

Resolved to catch up with reading or writing in 2020? Our supportive community will help you meet your goals and have fun along the way. Now’s the perfect time to join thanks to our new year’s review blitz! It’s a great opportunity to get feedback on your work and get to know other members of the community, with the chance to win fun prizes, too!

Join today at https://discord.gg/BeWCYxk!

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

fanfiction culture is when you don’t wanna tell people you write fanfic but you do want to talk about writing, so you just say, “oh yeah, sometimes I write little short stories here and there!”

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

OMG, why does Smeargle sound like a dying old man in this??? Game: Pokemon Channel

Source: LongplayArchive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbFtvHYu5jk&feature=youtu.be&t=2940)

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

things i’ve learned as a slush reader

in the past month, i’ve read over 200 submissions for the literary organizations i volunteer with, and i want to share some of the stuff i’ve learned about writing as a slush reader.

(a slush reader is someone who reads submissions, and either declines them or pushes them through for editors/judges to make a final decision on whether or not a story will be published.)

a rejection does not mean you are a bad writer or that you’ve written a bad story. it’s all chaos. there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it. i was chosen as a reader for these publications because my personal taste in literature jived with the editors. that’s all it comes down to – personal taste. if your taste doesn’t match the taste of the slush readers, you’re not going to get published. there is no way you can predict that, so all you can do is keep writing and keep submitting and hope your work aligns with someone who gets what you’re trying to do. that said, there are some across-the-board things that are worth noting:

your story should be doing some kind of Work. what is the intention of your piece? what are you trying to comment on, explore, or do? it doesn’t have to be concise or obvious or complex, it can be literally anything in any way, but if you’re writing something just for the sake of getting published, or to validate yourself, it’s going to be pretty obvious to readers. that is not to say that self-validating work is not valuable, or that a story cannot be both Doing Something and self-validating, but readers want to see that you have something to say, some work to do other than, “i want to be a good writer.” 

readers will probably have made their decision by page 4. probably sooner than that depending on the quality of the writing. that means you have (if you’ve written in 12pt serif font and double-spaced, and please dear god, do these things unless you’re intentionally playing with form) about a thousand words to engage a reader. if you’ve written a short story, personal essay, or novel excerpt (sorry, cannot speak for poetry), this means your core conflict needs to have been introduced by this point and headed in some kind of direction. to put it more clearly: i need to know what’s going on. elusiveness is not your friend. i want to know: 1) who is the main character, and 2) what do they want? if you do not have these things established by page 4, your work might still be an early draft.

caveat being, of course, if you’re writing experimentally, in which case i hope you’ve submitted to an experimental publication. but there’s a big difference in good experimental vs bad experimental writing, and that is:

write with intention. intention is the difference between dancing alone in your bedroom and becoming a ballerina. both forms of dance might be good, you might be an innately talented dancer alone in your bedroom, but choreographed dancing takes discipline and practice. when it comes to writing, every sentence needs to be chosen to determine if it works for the piece. this is unfortunately one of the hardest parts about writing.

take risks. my least favorite stories are the ones that make me think, this has been done before. having to read hundreds of stories means repetition – i see the same themes over and over (white man feeling conflicted about cheating on his wife), the same writing styles (purple prose run-on sentences), the same characters (middle-class english teachers). i want to read words i don’t expect about stories i’ve never thought of. i want to see confidence in creativity. i want to see writing that acknowledges convention and destroys it for something better. show me newness, ingenuity, artistic expression. show me the stuff you’re afraid to write for fear of ridicule – that’s the stuff that gets published.

THE WORLD WANTS TO HEAR FROM FANFIC WRITERS. when i volunteered with one publication, the application involved a list of the last 15 novels i’d read. and i thought, i don’t want this gig if i can’t be brutally honest, so you bet your ass i put fanfic on there. i was accepted within a day. when i’ve told my writing mentors that i write fanfic, their faces have all lit up in excitement and they have a ton of questions. i cannot tell you how many submissions i’ve read where the interactions between characters feel stilted and normative, and all i’m looking for is the kind of dynamic tension and chemistry that fanfic authors have mastered. so if you write fanfic and don’t think you’re good enough to write “literature” i’m here to tell you, you absolutely are. 

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

OOF

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Not Pokemon art? Le gasp! No, instead, it's birb husbando, Kass!

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

hitch your heart to one small thing

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Snow… what makes you think of? Snowmen? Snow fights? Sleds? Well, I think about a nice trio of little Pokémon who enjoys watching the falling snow. :3

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

When Pokémon meets My Little Pony and Disney at the same time. This Galarian Ponyta seems to be enjoying its trip close to an Enchanted Castle.

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Hi! So I'm college prof. I've been writing fic for years, some of it explicit/darkfic. It's so nice to do writing which has nothing to do with work. Recently, because of anti culture and the visibility of AO3 (and maybe because I hit 40 😩) I've got more anxious about being "found out". Do other teachers or other professionals feel like this? If I wouldn't want my students or colleagues to know I do this maybe I shouldn't do it? 😔

Fandom is a subculture and fanfiction is one layer below even that. Lots of people really enjoy movies and tv shows and books and they’ll buy merchandise or collectibles and they’ll go to conventions and things and fanfic still won’t really be on their radar. It’s a lot more popular and accessible now than it used to be, but it’s not something that everyone and their dog is reading. 

As a subculture, there are also opinions that are hotly contested in the fanfic realm that are not really debated at all in the wider culture. There are very few people in wider world who would argue that something you write about in a story should be held against you as something that you, personally would do in real life. That’s an extreme worldview and if you asked a random person on the street if they believed that, they’d probably look at you pretty strangely. 

In the past, the biggest fear around writing fanfiction was being sued for violating copyright. There’s a reason why you can’t link to profit-making ventures of any kind on AO3, after all. The lack of profiting is a major point of legal defense when it comes to writing fanfic. I think that is the aspect that might cause more discomfort in professional spaces, depending on the profession and the people in the discussion. 

I’m also 40 years old and a professional (and I even used to teach at a college). I don’t personally hide the fact that I write fic. I talk about it like any other hobby because to me it is like any other hobby. I don’t link out to my stories or anything, but that’s just because I don’t think most people care to read them. It’s a niche interest. I’m cool with that. 

If you were writing those same stories and themes as original fiction and getting them published would you have the same worries? Do you think authors who write and publish disturbing stories with dark themes experience harassment in their workplaces? When you remove the fandom context, you’ll see that that kind of thinking and behaviour is not actual normal or acceptable at all.

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

After being washed, groomed and dried, Gyro felt like an entirely new Zangoose. He ran his paws through his coat, slick with a new lustre and shine. He purred appreciatively at Mom before she took him back upstairs into Andre’s room, where the stuff laid in wait. She pointed at the various boxes.

“Are you sure you have everything you want?” she asked, to which, he nodded. He fiddled with with the pen and pad in his paws, having it ready just in case she needed to ask him a complicated question.

“Good.” She sighed and sat back down on the bed, running her hand through the freshly-washed duvet. Gyro climbed up and sat next to her, and she fidgeted over to face him.

“I still feel him in here, you know.” She glanced at the keepsakes on the shelves, including some of his figurines. “I know that’s silly to say, but I just can’t shake it off. I guess you’ve spent longer in here than I have, though.”

Gyro nodded. 

“I’m still learning quite a bit about him. That Diancord thing, for starters.” She frowned. “To be honest, if I knew he was talking with random strangers online, I would’ve stopped him.”

Gyro tried not to growl at that. The people on Diancord were nice, well, most of them anyway. There was that one user who didn’t seem to like the idea of a Pokemon being on the chat, but aside from that, they helped him out a lot in times of need. He wrote on his own and handed the slip to her.

‘Y?’

“Well, didn’t you find it a bit weird at first?” Her lips pursed. “I never really had that technology when I had my run as a trainer, but even ma and pa told me about stranger danger.” She grabbed at the hem of her skirt. “I dunno. I’m just not sure about this meeting today.”

More writing on the pad.

‘DoNt woRRy tRainEr iS niCe’

“So I’ve heard.” Mom rubbed at her left hand, which had a ring-shaped mark on her fourth finger. “Maybe I’m getting old. Too old. Sometimes, you settle into a routine and you just don’t care anymore. The kind of stuff your kids get into go over your head.” She glanced at Gyro with tired eyes. “Sorry, I might just be talking rubbish again. I’m not sure if you understand, as a Pokemon, I mean.”

Gyro pressed a paw at his temple, deep in thought. He was a young adult in human years, so he guessed, but the amount of worldly experience humans had, especially in their responsibilities, were way out of his scope. He hadn’t thought to ask who the other human was in her past, or why she quit training to begin with. From what he gathered, she cut hair for money now. Not that he understood why humans didn’t do it themselves. But even when Andre was still at the house, she didn’t seem that happy. So once he gathered his thoughts, he wrote again.

‘I liKed bAtalIng. GAve me sum thing to do. GOt used 2 that. TIme flu.’

“Time flew,” she repeated with a snort. “That’s one way of putting it.”

She rose from the bed and walked over to the window, which faced the front garden.

“Do you know when she’s coming?”

Gyro couldn’t be bothered to get up and write it again, so he tried to say it as best as he could. “Mah. Mah, mid, dah, day.”

“Oh my.” She took a deep breath and glanced at Gyro. “I should get myself cleaned up a bit. I’ll give you a shout when she’s here.”

He nodded, and Mom almost walked out the door when she turned back and smiled sadly. “Thanks for the talk.”

Work in Progress Wednesday

Creators: work on or post something from your WIP. This is your weekly reminder to get something down on paper (real or virtual). It’s also a chance to share your progress with your followers and give them a sneak peek of what’s to come!

Fans: leave a comment on an unfinished fic and let the writer know how much you love it. Reblog an artist’s sketch and let them know you can’t wait to see the final product. Send someone an ask cheering them on!

Feel free to repost this image!

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

It’s October, which means that National Novel Writing Month is just one month away!

Are you writing a novel with us in November? Let the world know by updating your social media profiles with this participant flair! (We have a square icon image, as well as banners sized for Facebook and Twitter). 

You can also announce your project on the brand new NaNoWriMo website! If you haven’t seen it yet, log into nanowrimo.org with your existing username and password (or create a new one if you don’t have an account). You can go to “My NaNoWriMo” > “Projects”, and click the “Announce new project” button at the top.

Not sure what you want to write about yet? Don’t freak out! We’ve got a lot of resources to help you prep for writing a novel this month with our NaNo Prep 101 workbook and exercises. 

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Shine goes SICKO MODE

king

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Nice work, @drgnrder82​! It’s exciting printing out a hard copy of your stuff!

I am such a nerd. I finished fiddling with formatting in scrivener and printed a hard copy of my finished fic, Heart of Gold. Just because.

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Looking for peeps to follow.

Reblog if you are interested in:

-South Park -Cookie Run/ Hanja Run -Captain Underpants -BATIM -Rick and Morty -Pokémon -Gravity Falls -Star vs. The Forces of Evil

[thecuriousandtheshiny]

Fanfiction, I love you but you're bringing me down (A RANT)

Hi there! I know I haven’t been around here much lately and I know I probably should, but I just felt like I had to get this off my chest anyway. It’s been on my mind lately, as someone who both reads and writes quite a bit of fanfiction. In particular, I write OC-centric Pokemon fanfiction with an emphasis on worldbuilding, character dynamics and themes of sapience, self-actualisation and societal change.

I love fan fiction writing. Since then, it’s given my life a bit more purpose, with a project to constantly work on. I’ve poured a lot of time into it, constantly revising its still ongoing chapters (at 140k words and growing) and making art for it in order to improve my craft. It’s also introduced me to a very supportive community, some of which have become good friends of mine.

Yet lately, I feel a bit unfulfilled with the act of fanfic writing. Well, creatively, I find it fulfilling, but professionally and socially, I feel kind of inhibited by it, especially when the audience is still small at the moment (though dedicated). I mean, I love my fics to bits and I want to see it through to the end, but that also means it has consumed my creative outlets, through both writing and fan art. And I'm afraid that I'm not being taken seriously in what I do because of the fandom attachment thing. Admittedly, it’s partly to do with the feeling of being overshadowed in my fandom, but I’d rather not beat a dead horse over something mostly under my control.

Well, I'm pretty average at art, but writing is my professional field, since I intend to go further in it and have started looking at magazine publishing (my first article will be published soon-ish). I know I can't mix the fandom stuff with my portfolio, since it alienates a lot of potential clients in the publishing industry, which I'm fine with, but even when I talk about fics in a casual original writing circle, it tends to get looked down on. Not for the writing quality, ideas, or how the themes would resonate with others in real life, which is something I want to nail (and have been constantly revising to make it the best it can be), but because it's based off another work. 

In that fanfic writer to purely original writer context, the discussion is almost always about ‘why don’t you write your own stories?’ and almost never about ‘what ideas do you have?’, or ‘how do you make changes to the world you’re writing about?’, or ‘what point are you trying to make with this?’ Even when I build the stories and characters or even some worldbuilding concepts from the ground up, I can never avoid the association. Doing this much work, only to have to hide it because of the general fanfic stigma, kind of stinks. 

I’m still very much into fanfic writing and I want to see my projects to the end. Having said that, even though I hate the feeling that I have to hide what I truly believe in writing from others that don’t see the same way, there’s also a part of me that feels like I’m squandering my potential by focusing so much focus on this. Who knows? I’ll most likely take a brief hiatus once I’ve reached a certain point with my stuff, just to give myself a break. Maybe I’ll focus on some original stuff for once. I dunno. Maybe I’m getting hung up over a non-issue.

Anyways, rant over. I hope people with similar dilemmas look at this and get something out of it, or at least, adds something to the fan writing discourse. Sorry for being a downer; have a video of Kermit singing LCD Soundsystem.