Come To The Dork Side Fic

her enthusiastic "i'm a very nice and bubbly person, i swear! but i love writing angst and major character death :)" nearly took me the fuck out.

Halt and Catch Fire by mashawisotsky

In March 2019, gambling syndicates dump data from 7,500 hacked athletes online - the biggest breach in sports history. Shane and Ilya's years of private texts are buried somewhere in three million leaked files. A story about privacy, professional hockey, and what happens when the internet finds what you thought was hidden. ----- (HCF): An early computer command that sent the machine into a race condition, forcing all instructions to compete for superiority at once. Control of the computer could not be regained.

So most stories take place when Events are Happening, and this means that no matter what kind of job the characters have, they’re probably not too focused on them. Fanfics, on the other hand, often show the down time. Which means that the writer has to figure out what the hell these characters do in their jobs. Unless the characters have a job the author understands or knows well, the author is often at a loss for what to have the character doing.

So they sit them at a desk and give them paperwork. What is the paperwork for? Rarely specified. It is Paper Work for the characters Important Adult Job they have and they need to read or sign it or something. And there’s always a line about how Character Hates Paperwork. Doesn’t matter if Character is a Mafia Boss or a General or a Diplomat, here they are in an office trying to get out of Doing Paperwork.

There’s also a sense of, like, humor and mundanity that comes with it. Like the examples above, it always particularly stands out to me when a dangerous individual is griping about some paper they need to sign or something. The less you can picture Character doing paperwork, all the better to force it upon them. If Character is saddled with Paperwork, they’re usually now concerned about the physical damages their motley crew causes, because damage = More Paperwork.

Timesheets

Expense reports

Requisition requests

Budget justifications

Payroll

Performance evaluations

Incident reports

After action reviews / post-mortem analyses

Incident Action Plans

Contracts

Contract proposals / grant applications

Incoming / Outgoing product

Scheduling contractors

Transcribing meeting agendas and minutes

Bank runs (or any form of movement of hard cash)

Recording of routine security checks

Inventory

Maintaining / updating client (and product, supplier, volunteer, etc) databases

Logging incoming / outgoing communication

Event request forms

Reservation / scheduling of event spaces

Schedules for events (involves location, materials, personnel, activities)

Mailers (writing, preparing, sending)

Reviewing / analyzing customer feedback

So whenever someone updates their fic, the ONLY way an author knows who their regular readers are is if they comment on each chapter. And we WANT to know who's still reading.

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