fungi-maestro:

Shout-out to my fellow weirdo makers out there that create thousands of parallel universes that their OCs simultaneously exist in, where they are, at their core, the same character, but each have subtle differences that make it difficult to fully express what is perfectly consistent across all of them.

majestictortoise:

majestictortoise:

outsiders and boring normal people and fandom newbies always think that buckwild kinky porn fanfiction is the strangest fandom hobby but they are wrong.

the strangest fandom hobby is plotty fanfiction, the kind that requires research, because engaging in this hobby makes no goddamned sense.

it doesn’t even give anybody masturbation material, which is at least a logical and admirable goal that contributes to the betterment of society, or at least society’s solitary orgasms.

in other news i hope the cia spyware monitoring my internet usage understands that i’m googling information about smuggling drugs in thailand because i want the details to be right in a single paragraph in a 10,000 word story about a gay mafia guys.

this post has been making the rounds again and i just want to state for the record that it is a fucking delight to read in the tags all the random things people research for their fanfic and art. fandom, i love you. i love you with your flood maps and medical procedures and tentacle biology and historical fashion and traditional handcrafts and conlangs and urban geography and literally everything else. i am completely sincere about this. the enthusiasm with which people embrace detailed, deep, and often obscure research, just because they want to get it right, because they want to create something rich and interesting, it makes me feel better about the world. i adore it.

olderthannetfic:

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You have to actually be able to write to do any of that.

dduane:

Thanks so much for letting me know. 🙂

It just seems to me as if it would be a betrayal of where I came from, in terms of my own history as a writer, to deny the essential usefulness of fanfic as a gateway. But it seems equally wrong to attempt to deny its absolute validity as a source of pleasure whether someone’s considering a writing career or not.

Thoth knows there are people of the Everything Must Be Monetized To Be Valid stripe who will ever-so-condescendingly allow that fanfic might just be okay if it “gets you somewhere” in the professional sense. This, to put it as gently as possible, is poorly-reasoned profiteering elitist capitalist crap, and it makes me want to walk around kicking things.

In any case: I’m glad my position on this works for you. 🙂 So thanks again.

bethhiraeth:

Question for fic writers: do you find it weird when people comment on every chapter of a wip as it comes out?

It’s amazing and motivating!! Do it more, please!