LethanWolf

30daysofbleach:

If you’re trying to decide whether you should read that favourite fic for the 17,000th time even though you have the whole thing memorized?

If you’ve never read/written fanfic before, but you think you want to try it?

me (internally);

me (externally): have you considered just starting at the good part? It's called in media res. It's a whole thing.

fic writer: but I have to establish-

me: characters and tropes your readers are already familiar with? The concept of an alternate universe? The reason why two characters are in a relationship, even though your reader has clicked on a story labelled as those characters being in a relationship?

fic writer: but-

me: it's okay. This isn't school. You can still get an A in fic writing without all that stuff.

Ah, fanart. Also known as the art that girls make.

Sad, immature girls no one takes seriously. Girls who are taught that it’s shameful to be excited or passionate about anything, that it’s pathetic to gush about what attracts them, that it’s wrong to be a geek, that they should feel embarrassed about having a crush, that they’re not allowed to gaze or stare or wish or desire. Girls who need to grow out of it.

That’s the art you mean, right?

Sports is a fandom. It requires zealous attention to “seasons,” knowledge of details considered obscure to those not involved in that fandom, unbelievable amounts of merchandise, and even “fanfic” in the form of fantasy teams. But this is a masculine-coded fandom. And as such, it’s encouraged - built into our economy! Have you *seen* Dish network’s “ultimate fan” advertisements, which literally base selling of a product around the normalization of all consuming (male) obsession? Or the very existence of sports bars, built around the link between fans and community enjoyment and analysis. Sport fandom is so ingrained in our culture that major events are treated like holidays (my gym closes for the Super Bowl) — and can you imagine being laughed at for admitting you didn’t know the difference between Supernatural and The X Files the way you might if you admit you don’t know the rules of football vs baseball, or basketball?

“Fandom” is not childish but we live in a culture that commodified women’s time in such away that their hobbies have to be “frivolous,” because “mature” women’s interests are supposed to be marriage, family, and overall care taking: things that allow others to continue their own special interests, while leaving women without a space of their own.

The concept of fanfiction formed and forged the earliest stages of literature in Europe. Because the majority of authors in France, Germany and Great Britain looked at that funky little Celtic dude Arthur and thought “hey, he’s neat. I wanna write about him”.

The entire concept of a book outside of religious purposes was born out of fanfiction in my country.

There is no “first canon” for Arthur where he came as the prince of Camelot, with his sidekicks Lancelot and Merlin and his endgame love interest Gwen.

Arthur was some random hunter when he started out.

Someone’s fanfiction made him a prince.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him a round table.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him Merlin at his side.

Someone else’s fanfiction gave him Morgana, gave him Gwen, gave him his swords.

And, to this day, we still write Arthurian fanfiction. Literally last year there was a movie adaptation that is, by all intends and purposes, fanfiction, because it wasn’t even close to a literal adaptation of the source material (The Kid Who Would Be King). Heck, BBC’s Merlin, itself an Arthurian fanfiction, remains one of the biggest fandoms that people today write for on AO3.

You were a joke in the middle ages if you tried to write your own stuff. Who’s interested in your stuff? You were only a respected author if you wrote fanfiction. The most famous medieval German authors are famous because they wrote fanfiction about some knightly OCs they created who served on Arthur’s court. That is the literary legacy of the middle ages. Arthurian fanfiction.

Yet somewhere along the way, this concept of “I find x story/element cool and want to elaborate on it more, shift the focus onto an aspect of this original source material” has gotten this “eh, it’s fanfiction” connotation and lost respect.

Even though this very concept is still being used - even outside of the actual medium of fanfiction - and it is still being used for the very same purpose it was used for in medieval times. Original movies often don’t get as much recognition as adaptations of existing source material that the audience is familiar with. People see a movie about a character they’re familiar with and seem more inclined to buy a ticket to see the 10th new interpretation of Batman or Superman or Snow White. How are these new interpretations of familiar source material that usually add to the lore, reinterpret characterizations and dynamics, any different from fanfiction?

It’s the age old “If thing not make you money, why you care about thing?” that’s so prevalent in the system. Of course some people do make money with their fanart, but I think that is still part of the scorn. 

I am a man on a mission, and that mission is reintroducing podficcing into the fanfiction community. Tell your friends.

Yo it’s HitsuMatsu ship week in The Seireitei Discord Server and I am very excited to release my new fic and the gorgeous artwork (open it up for best quality) I had commissioned!

This artwork is by the extremely talented and lovely @iz-stardust 

The college AU fic is a prequel to my oneshot, ‘Dress’ (Ao3 | Fanfiction.net)

Title: Dancing With Our Hands Tied 

Pairing: HitsuMatsu (also background/eventual IchiHime, RenRuki, ShuNao) 

Rating: Explicit / NSFW

Summary: 

But what started as a game turned into a joke, and eventually became almost routine, well into college. 

They drank, they kissed, they laughed.

Toshiro hummed when they separated, but his forehead stayed on hers, catching his breath. They were in the dark end of the hallway, sitting on the carpet floor, their legs tangled together. 

“I’ve missed this,” he murmured, words slightly slurred from what was surely the world’s strongest punch more than it was the beer they had now. 

“Me too,” Rangiku admitted softly before reconnecting their lips. 

 Fuck, it was good to be back.

Links: Ao3 | Fanfiction.net