Fandom

[brigdh]

Bleeegh. I feel left out of fandom! (Possibly because I am not, you know, directly participating in any fandom at the moment.) But I want to participate. Tell me what is going on! There must be something to do. What big challenges are running? Fic-communities? Interesting communities? I would even be posting memes, if only any were going around at the moment.

What are y'all doing?

Comments

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

(http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)kink_bingo (http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) over on dreamwidth is my newest obsession. Through this I will discover if it's possible to write so much porn that your head explodes.

I'm very sad that femslash09 passed by without me knowing about it. Wah!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oooo, kink_bingo looks interesting. I signed up; now we'll see if I actually produce anything.

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

Yay! I have lured someone to the dark side. Now, if I could only convince people to join my poor small, dead fandoms. (My sinister plans are a multitude.)

Er, anyway, I saw further down that you're not sure whether you want to write PWPs, so this is where I assure you that the fics don't have to be PWPs. My latest story has seven pages of plot and two pages of sex. It's kind of embarrassing actually. It's like, "Where did all of this plot come from? It was only supposed to be an excuse for crossdressing porn!"

...I'm just going to shut up now.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Haha. Thank you for the comfort, but all I meant was that, to me, PWPs are almost too easy to write. I have no problem with them; it's just that, hey! No plot! No meaningful themes! Just hot sexxorz. Now, something like your story, that would take effort. :)

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yay! I have a card and haven't done anything yet.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha! I'm in the exact same position.

[gamera.livejournal.com]

All the challenges I'm in right now are over on Dreamwidth-- Kink Bingo (http://kink_bingo.dreamwidth.org) (which has already been mentioned) and Genretwisting (http://genretwisting.dreamwidth.org).

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Kink_bingo looks interesting. I signed up for that. And dude, Genretwisting is an awesome idea.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Damned if I know. I feel deeply flail-y and uninspired. Everybody else seems to be doing these kink memes, and my brain just hasn't been in the right place for PWP -- that is, assuming that it ever was. And the giant fandom-eating canons of the day still aren't working for me.

I'm actually kind of sad about Torchwood, but it was a no-go. I watched all of it, and I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed it on the level of a beach book, not on the level of a potential fandom. Maybe if it had actually been about Evil Mrs. Peel, who was a total hoot -- but no. Its themes are not mine.

All of which is to say, if you find anything, for God's sake tell me. I feel like the closest I've gotten to actual participation in ages was my brief starring role in the Great Warning War.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I knoooow. I whine because I feel the same way. That is, I have no problems with PWP, but when I consider which characters to put into the story, it all starts to seem uninteresting and repetitive. I could write about Tsuzuki and Hisoka. I know I could. But why? I don't have anything to say, it feels.

And then I tempt myself and say, if I write Merlin/Arthur, think of the comments, if nothing else! I've seen stories get five pages of comments in a day. I want five pages of comments, instead of a fandom with five people. And yet. I keep trying, and I keep not quite finding that point of intersection with the canon that would make me feel like I'm not writing an Any Two Guys story.

So perhaps what we really need is some new compelling fandom. The universe should get on that.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

The universe should get on that.

It should! Or else it should produce a live-action version of YnM, so that we too could suddenly have pages of comments.

I've had the same temptation, but my results are no better than yours. I could probably write Uther. I've got a decent chance at the (pretty much gen) Merlin/YnM crossover lady_ganesh gave me a prompt for ages ago. But Merlin/Arthur, or even Morgana/Gwen? My brain isn't engaging on that level, at all. It's maddening, I tell you. Maddening!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Or else it should produce a live-action version of YnM, so that we too could suddenly have pages of comments.

Yes, this is totally an acceptable alternative.

I keep almost feeling it for Merlin- I'll read someone else's story, and suddenly get a glimpse of oh yes, this is interesting, this is a world, this is something meaningful, but I can't create it myself. I'm holding out hope that it'll arrive somehow, but in the meantime, I feel like if only there were something like Remix, that sense of community and deadlines and obligations (and also, 'here's a plotline ready-made for you, ta-da!') would be such a help. If only I had not realized this need immediately after the conclusion of Remix.

And so: maddening!

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Well, but the problem with Remix -- at least, for me -- is the exchange part of things, where you offer up something of your own to be remixed.

Which is a deceptive way of stating the issue, because I love seeing remixes of my stuff. Unlike Yuletide, where I tend to feel like the point is to write, and if you get something you enjoy in return it's just a neat bonus, seeing what somebody else did with my bizarre stories is at least as much fun as doing the writing for Remix.

And this makes me feel paradoxically awkward and guilty. Because if I haven't been churning out interesting new work, the same six people are stuck with me, and with the same handful of things to choose from, over and over and over again. I'd feel bad about that even if the six people weren't my friends, and the fact that they are my friends only makes it worse.

So on one hand, I feel as you do: something like the Remix community would have been great (if it wasn't awful, which is of course always a risk when you have an unpredictable brain). But if signups were to open today -- no, really, I couldn't. I'd feel too rotten about it.

Maybe we'll get lucky, and the next season of Merlin will work for us.

Or yeah, okay, maybe pigs will fly. But we can still hope, can't we?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I see your point, but I can say that, personally, I wouldn't mind getting assigned to you in some remix-type challenge, even if you haven't written anything new lately. In some ways, it's even more interesting: Velada wrote a different remix of 'And Not Your Yellow Hair' than Dorian did (would? I feel like she did, but now I can't remember if that story actually exists or if I'm imagining it). And, at a point, it even becomes possible for the remixer to play with not just the story itself, but the cloud of other remixes around it.

Maybe we'll get lucky, and the next season of Merlin will work for us.

We can hope indeed. Although personally, I've suddenly become deeply interested in reading as many variations of the Arthurian myth which I can get my hands on. Conveniently, I asked for recommendations on that very topic years ago, and so I'm going through the ones I never read the first time I had such a phase. I just picked up Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, which has an adorable new cover (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MSMUHA/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1/191-3687206-3493715?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_r=1Z1FE8TMBQC4EK0996KN&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_i=0374523789), but, quite horrifyingly, an introduction written by the author of Eragon. Seriously? That's the only person a publishing company can think of to introduce this book?

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Excuse me just a moment while I pound my head into a table?

-- Okay, thanks. I just -- Steinbeck wrote his own introduction, and a very tasty one it was, too. Not to mention, a gorgeous dedication. The idea that they need the author of Eragon to sell it, or that they think they do, makes me shudder. You're right, though; it's a perfectly charming cover, so I shall do my best to think about that instead. I hope you like the book, is all. When I recommended it the first time, did I think to tell you to keep reading, because it gets better as it goes along, like a flower slowly opening?

In some ways, it's even more interesting

Hearing that actually does a good deal to resolve my feelings of guilt. In fact, I agree with you, and one of the things I've always thought would be fun would be to do a remix challenge where all the players, or all the players in a given fandom, got handed the same story to play with. But I had also thought that this was probably a manifestation of my own eccentricity, and that probably no one else would find it nearly as interesting. Knowing I'm not the only one whose mind runs in this direction makes me much cheerier about the prospect of doing it next year.

Meanwhile, the DVD commentary challenge has been announced for this year. Maybe I should think about trying that again? Although I seem to remember that attempting to write an intelligible interpretation of "This Unique Distance From Isolation" was hard. And also, intimidating.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm finally settling in with the first season of Meine Liebe several months later than planned. I'm quite enjoying it, despite a few unintentional LOL moments in the first episode that I feel was the result of introductions and set-up more than anything else.

...I can't really say anything; I'm writing HP fic again for the first time in years thanks to Tom Felton's performance in the latest film. Not exactly what I was expecting.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

ML didn't quite grab me enough to be fannish about it, but it's a great show. Really well done.

And hee. I have not yet seen the new HP film, but I suspect one friend or another will drag me to it before too long.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I has giant robots still. But I have to admit I've got to that stage where I am not reading anyone else's fanwork any more, just plugging away at my own and hoping people will read that @_@

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Giant robots are good. Though I admit I have not seen either of the movies.