Sunday, November 29th, 2009 09:27 pm
my learning curve took a decade
I had a Moment. It is not a particularly enlightening moment. I am never going to finish uploading fic to the archive. I will be doing this on my deathbed, poking keys and hating the universe.
I have also run into a problem with anything pre-Smallville; most my cowriters are not in fandom any longer, and that is a lot of fic, both at the series level and at the story level. I'm getting the impression we're not supposed to upload cowrites, which is a bitch, because some of the best work I did in those fandoms was done with Sare Liz and Bishclone. I uploaded a couple automatically, and now I'm staring at them blankly. I'm not sure what to do about this.
Also, what about a cowriter that's not speaking to you? How do you handle that, I ask? Which totally is not a problem I am having, of course, this is totes hypothetical and there might be two or perhaps three, and I'm really unsure about the etiquette of contacting them with a "Hey, so you are pissed at me and I totally take responsibility, now can I archive our cowrites in AOOO?" Or--something. Miss Manners did not cover the finer points of archive etiquette, and I have to say, I'm disappointed in her for that.
I'm enjoying uploading my bad fic a lot, in a weird way. It's comforting to realize I have gotten better. It feels like I have more authority to mock now when I can point and say "I did that. And it was bad."
Life Lessons Learned From Fandom (and Fanfic), by jenn AND HER FLIST
1.) Subject/predicate agreement is apparently a luxury, not a right, when one is going through a particularly pretentious phase.
2.) Sentence subjects are totes optional if you do it for ~art~. Goddamn I was ~artistic~.
3.) First person pov with mixed verb tenses is not confusing and weird, it's a goddamn ~style choice~ and DIAF grammarwhore.
4.) Repeating a single line over and over is okay when it's about angst. In italics, even.
5.) Always claim drunk posting if you can. It's called plausible deniability.
6.) The healing cock is real and go to hell if you don't believe me.
7.) Agricultural terms as metaphors for sex are hot like burning, bitch.
8.) THE THESAURUS IS YOUR FRIEND! -
amireal
9.) cliches are cliches BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME. -
winterlive
10.) It makes a story deep when grown men cry. Repeatedly. -
cathalin
11.) I like longwinded, unfinishable projects. -
tricksterquinn
12.) WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH EPITHETS? Why is there no love for them these days? Back In The Day, they were a staple of a good fanfic story. You just *knew* that "the curly-haired rebel" was Blake and "the curly-haired pilot" was Tarrant. The alien telepath, the Delta thief, and the computer tech would go off together and have exciting adventures. LIFE WAS GOOD FOR THE PETITE, BRUNETTE AUTHOR. -
teenygozer
13.) Also, you should never say "penis" when there are perfectly good manroots and hardnesses and members out there, waiting to be utilized. -
linzeestyle
14.) All facial expressions are primarily channeled through the eyes. Fuck all those facial muscles, what good are they. -
stripedpetunia
15.) Also, why use pronouns (or *gasp* names) when you can just use epithets? (I have occasionally received concrit suggesting that names and 'he' are boring and I need more, like, 'the blond(e) captain' and 'the catlike Vulcan', just for example. I have learned to agree to disagree with these commenters.) -
stripedpetunia
16.) Also, song lyrics. ALL THROUGHOUT THE FIC. Am I right? -
stripedpetunia
17.) I will never stop abusing parentheses, though. My thoughts, they can never be fully wrenched out of their non-linear, tangential form. -
stripedpetunia
18.) Eyes are never just, say, brown or blue. They are Cerulean. Taupe. Chocolate. Steel. -
cathalin
19.) Life is not complete until you have gazed deeply into someone's swirling cerulean orbs. -
transtempts
20.) There is no such thing as a sentence fragment. There *are* sentences without things like subjects or objects or verbs or any goddamn sense when taken out of context, but they're like that *intentionally*. Because of *flow*. -
serrico
21.) Also, writing dialect/accents via the use of a tonne of dropped letters and apostrophes is totally a valid style choice. *nod* -
serrico
22.) Don't forget that in the sex scenes, any males involved must be really, really hung. -
geeklite
23.) Two virgins will always have fabulous sex, culminating in multiple mutual screaming orgasms. 'Cause it's fated, or something. -
boochicken
24.) Any child that shows up in any fic should be precocious and adorable. More so if they are an MPREG assbaby. -
counteragent
25.) Should any gay anal sex happen in a fic a conviniently placed bottle/jar/whatever recipient of amazingly slippery lube will always be at hand. -
blackonice
26.) Also, when involved in a gay relationship, one or both of the members of said relationship will have this driving need to be inside/have inside their partner. (and that's when 25 comes in handy). -
blackonice
27.) Dropping into all smallcase, even for names, to denote whispering or something stylistic I'm too stupid to grasp, is a great way to let your reader know it's getting all intimate and stuff, you know? And combine it with ellipses in weird places FTW! -
janedavitt
28.) Killing a character makes my fic more *meaningful*, by which I mean *deep*, by which I mean, I am Hemingway. -
brown_betty
29.) The healing cock can cure cancer. Trufax. -
dorothy1901
30.) Quoting giants of English literature in my titles (and my ficcs, and my summaries) means I'm deep. And so does quoting Evanescence lyrics. -
elspethdixon
31.) Being summarily executed by McTabby is a badge of pride, okay? (said summary showed up on someone's icon when they commented on a much more recent fic I'd written about a year ago. My old badfic! It haunts me from beyond its ff.net grave!) -
elspethdixon
32.) The shorter guy/skinnier guy/guy with the longest hair is always the uke. -
elspethdixon
33.) Doyle is delicate and femininely beautiful. No, really! He's a very delicate and hauntingly lovely thuggish-looking bloke with a bad white boy 'fro. -
elspethdixon
34.) Everyone at Hogwarts/in the Pegasus galaxy/in Weiss/in Schwartz/who pilots a Gundam/who is a member of the British navy/who wears a superhero costume IS GAY. All of them. But especially Bobby Drake. -
elspethdixon
35.) Gambit and Duo Maxwell were both child prostitutes, as was every single other character who was orphaned and grew up on the streets. Yes, all of them. -
elspethdixon
36.) There can never been too many fics that rip off that episode of Starsky & Hutch with the kidnapping and forced heroin addiction. Never. -
elspethdixon
37.) Krychek/Avon/Draco/Snape/Sephiroth/Schuldig/Lex Luthor/Seshomaru/Darth Vader/the Joker/Adrian Veidt isn't a bad guy! He's just misunderstood! And angsty! And an abuse survivor! -
elspethdixon
38.) Werewolves mate for life! -
elspethdixon
39.) Songfics are totally okay if it's one character actually singing the song. REALLY. -
synecdochic
40.) Who cares if it makes sense, as long as it's ARTISTIC. -
synecdochic
41.) Only the male one, though. The mean streets and slums of Fanficland are entirely free of female child prostitutes. -
marinarusalka
42.) Female prostitutes are either filthy sluts who are bad mothers (hi, Sylvia Kovacs), hardbitten but heart-of-gold-posessing women who will take the pretty (male) child prostitute uke main character under their wing, gamine waifs a la Pretty Women who will be resuced by a good man, or Frank Miller characters. Or, sometimes in various CSI shows, murder victims. -
elspethdixon
43.) Frank Miller has taught me that all prostitues know some form of kickass martial arts. -
elspethdixon
44.) Different parts of the body live their own independent lives. X's hand roamed freely over Y's body. X's tongue snaked into Y's mouth. Etc. -
ev_vy
Anyone have anything to add? This is, of course, 100% hypothetical and of course you didn't do any of this. So you know, go for it.
I have also run into a problem with anything pre-Smallville; most my cowriters are not in fandom any longer, and that is a lot of fic, both at the series level and at the story level. I'm getting the impression we're not supposed to upload cowrites, which is a bitch, because some of the best work I did in those fandoms was done with Sare Liz and Bishclone. I uploaded a couple automatically, and now I'm staring at them blankly. I'm not sure what to do about this.
Also, what about a cowriter that's not speaking to you? How do you handle that, I ask? Which totally is not a problem I am having, of course, this is totes hypothetical and there might be two or perhaps three, and I'm really unsure about the etiquette of contacting them with a "Hey, so you are pissed at me and I totally take responsibility, now can I archive our cowrites in AOOO?" Or--something. Miss Manners did not cover the finer points of archive etiquette, and I have to say, I'm disappointed in her for that.
I'm enjoying uploading my bad fic a lot, in a weird way. It's comforting to realize I have gotten better. It feels like I have more authority to mock now when I can point and say "I did that. And it was bad."
Life Lessons Learned From Fandom (and Fanfic), by jenn AND HER FLIST
1.) Subject/predicate agreement is apparently a luxury, not a right, when one is going through a particularly pretentious phase.
2.) Sentence subjects are totes optional if you do it for ~art~. Goddamn I was ~artistic~.
3.) First person pov with mixed verb tenses is not confusing and weird, it's a goddamn ~style choice~ and DIAF grammarwhore.
4.) Repeating a single line over and over is okay when it's about angst. In italics, even.
5.) Always claim drunk posting if you can. It's called plausible deniability.
6.) The healing cock is real and go to hell if you don't believe me.
7.) Agricultural terms as metaphors for sex are hot like burning, bitch.
8.) THE THESAURUS IS YOUR FRIEND! -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
9.) cliches are cliches BECAUSE THEY ARE AWESOME. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
10.) It makes a story deep when grown men cry. Repeatedly. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
11.) I like longwinded, unfinishable projects. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
12.) WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH EPITHETS? Why is there no love for them these days? Back In The Day, they were a staple of a good fanfic story. You just *knew* that "the curly-haired rebel" was Blake and "the curly-haired pilot" was Tarrant. The alien telepath, the Delta thief, and the computer tech would go off together and have exciting adventures. LIFE WAS GOOD FOR THE PETITE, BRUNETTE AUTHOR. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
13.) Also, you should never say "penis" when there are perfectly good manroots and hardnesses and members out there, waiting to be utilized. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
14.) All facial expressions are primarily channeled through the eyes. Fuck all those facial muscles, what good are they. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
15.) Also, why use pronouns (or *gasp* names) when you can just use epithets? (I have occasionally received concrit suggesting that names and 'he' are boring and I need more, like, 'the blond(e) captain' and 'the catlike Vulcan', just for example. I have learned to agree to disagree with these commenters.) -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
16.) Also, song lyrics. ALL THROUGHOUT THE FIC. Am I right? -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
17.) I will never stop abusing parentheses, though. My thoughts, they can never be fully wrenched out of their non-linear, tangential form. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
18.) Eyes are never just, say, brown or blue. They are Cerulean. Taupe. Chocolate. Steel. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
19.) Life is not complete until you have gazed deeply into someone's swirling cerulean orbs. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
20.) There is no such thing as a sentence fragment. There *are* sentences without things like subjects or objects or verbs or any goddamn sense when taken out of context, but they're like that *intentionally*. Because of *flow*. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
21.) Also, writing dialect/accents via the use of a tonne of dropped letters and apostrophes is totally a valid style choice. *nod* -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
22.) Don't forget that in the sex scenes, any males involved must be really, really hung. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
23.) Two virgins will always have fabulous sex, culminating in multiple mutual screaming orgasms. 'Cause it's fated, or something. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
24.) Any child that shows up in any fic should be precocious and adorable. More so if they are an MPREG assbaby. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
25.) Should any gay anal sex happen in a fic a conviniently placed bottle/jar/whatever recipient of amazingly slippery lube will always be at hand. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
26.) Also, when involved in a gay relationship, one or both of the members of said relationship will have this driving need to be inside/have inside their partner. (and that's when 25 comes in handy). -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
27.) Dropping into all smallcase, even for names, to denote whispering or something stylistic I'm too stupid to grasp, is a great way to let your reader know it's getting all intimate and stuff, you know? And combine it with ellipses in weird places FTW! -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
28.) Killing a character makes my fic more *meaningful*, by which I mean *deep*, by which I mean, I am Hemingway. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
29.) The healing cock can cure cancer. Trufax. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
30.) Quoting giants of English literature in my titles (and my ficcs, and my summaries) means I'm deep. And so does quoting Evanescence lyrics. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
31.) Being summarily executed by McTabby is a badge of pride, okay? (said summary showed up on someone's icon when they commented on a much more recent fic I'd written about a year ago. My old badfic! It haunts me from beyond its ff.net grave!) -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
32.) The shorter guy/skinnier guy/guy with the longest hair is always the uke. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
33.) Doyle is delicate and femininely beautiful. No, really! He's a very delicate and hauntingly lovely thuggish-looking bloke with a bad white boy 'fro. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
34.) Everyone at Hogwarts/in the Pegasus galaxy/in Weiss/in Schwartz/who pilots a Gundam/who is a member of the British navy/who wears a superhero costume IS GAY. All of them. But especially Bobby Drake. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
35.) Gambit and Duo Maxwell were both child prostitutes, as was every single other character who was orphaned and grew up on the streets. Yes, all of them. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
36.) There can never been too many fics that rip off that episode of Starsky & Hutch with the kidnapping and forced heroin addiction. Never. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
37.) Krychek/Avon/Draco/Snape/Sephiroth/Schuldig/Lex Luthor/Seshomaru/Darth Vader/the Joker/Adrian Veidt isn't a bad guy! He's just misunderstood! And angsty! And an abuse survivor! -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
38.) Werewolves mate for life! -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
39.) Songfics are totally okay if it's one character actually singing the song. REALLY. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
40.) Who cares if it makes sense, as long as it's ARTISTIC. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
41.) Only the male one, though. The mean streets and slums of Fanficland are entirely free of female child prostitutes. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
42.) Female prostitutes are either filthy sluts who are bad mothers (hi, Sylvia Kovacs), hardbitten but heart-of-gold-posessing women who will take the pretty (male) child prostitute uke main character under their wing, gamine waifs a la Pretty Women who will be resuced by a good man, or Frank Miller characters. Or, sometimes in various CSI shows, murder victims. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
43.) Frank Miller has taught me that all prostitues know some form of kickass martial arts. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
44.) Different parts of the body live their own independent lives. X's hand roamed freely over Y's body. X's tongue snaked into Y's mouth. Etc. -
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Anyone have anything to add? This is, of course, 100% hypothetical and of course you didn't do any of this. So you know, go for it.