#about fandom

girl don't put "tom" and "getting cast" in the same phrase like that 😭 you're gonna get jumped

*I’m focusing on RPF here, but really this same principle applies to fictional characters too. Although they can be slightly more narratively consistent, and make fewer directly contradictory statements. Because they’re fictional.

The Gallaghers are some of the most narratively coherent, argument-that-people-don’t-really-change people I have come across – they’re sitcom characters, but real! And we can make this assessment of them with more finality than we can for someone who has only been known for a podcast for the last two years, for example, because they have been in the public eye for so long. And because they have been very famous for such a long time, and there’s so much press and so many blogs/tweets and a ton of other sources, and we have some fairly reliable and fundamental information on their lives pre-fame available to us too, there are some elements of characterisation – comments and reactions and response types – that have by now come up tens if not hundreds of times. From these, we can build up some fairly fandom-fundamental ideas or what is ‘in character’, because there is such a strong pattern of evidence built up*. (And we love patterns, and love spotting them.)

*Although you’ll get plenty of lies and direct contradictions too, especially over such a long timeframe. Not that these can’t too teach you something about a person.

For example, there’s a giant body of evidence – words, actions – to point to the fact that Liam doesn’t like being told what he can and can’t do, and will tend towards some form of rebellion in many circumstances (especially when he does not feel in control of the situation), and yet ultimately who he wants to be for the few people he’s truly close to and really loves is a Good Boy – or, at a minimum, to be told he is one (whether or not he really has been good, which he might find difficult). It would also be relatively easy to posit a theory rooted in childhood experiences and behaviour for why this might be. If you tried to write a Liam that acted in a completely opposite way to this, even with attempted explanation and contextualising, this would probably be deemed by most readers as out of character.

(Of course, although there is always some fandom-built consensus, even agreed-upon common facts and tropes that are not proven facts but ‘feel’ true (i.e. ‘fanon’), there are also disagreements – or, at least, slightly-to-significantly variant views of what is in-character between fans.)

But particularly with smaller details, or facts and speculation that have never been covered or confirmed by press, documentaries, gig videos and any other publicly available material, we cherry-pick and construct argumentesque logic to tell the story you want to.

In one of my fics, I wrote Liam as saying about women (to Noel):

“I don’t mind a bit of hair on ‘em down there, like. It’s where all the best smells are.”

It’s mostly there in the fic to be hot (and to affirm Noel’s gender whatever’s-going-on-there), but it’s a suggested character note based on Liam seeming fairly smells-orientated when it comes to people he loves, his apparent willingness to gets stuck into sex (especially oral), and his tolerance for some bodily messiness – at least his own at a minimum. Rings true, right? (I hope so.)

However, in a completely different fic and situation – perhaps Liam refusing to go down on some girl, or, I don’t know, Noel trying to extol to Liam the joys of sucking dick or something, I could see myself leveraging Liam’s sometimes-lengthy bathroom and grooming habits, fussiness over things like food and clothes, the expectations built up for him by the likely state of groupies’ personal care situation in the body-fash (and low-rise jeans) of the late 90s/early 00s, and of course the constant low-level hum of misogyny reverberating around the Gallaghers like a car engine about to collapse, I could just as easily imagine writing a Liam who doesn’t really like heading down there unless she’s utterly hair-free.

Depends on the story. We don’t know. There’s too much information for a real person, too much inconsistency, to resolutely decide the unknown minutiae one way or another. We’re always cherry-picking.

(And then, blurring at the edges of empty space, there’s all the stuff we don’t know. The stuff not in the public domain.)

Think about it like building a body of evidence to support your argument. Not that you have to do original research and build up a whole dossier of background research for a fic – unless you want to! – but simply consider carefully what piece of information makes you think that person (technically, the RPF character version of your real person) would do x in y situation, and why. Writing fic is about putting these people in situations, always, and one of the potentially undervalued components of the fannish experience might be how we collectively build up an understanding of these people and debate what in their past and present results in them reacting the way we are suggesting that they do. They belong to us.

Also it’s literally fun.

awww, thank you anon! [questions link]

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

Answered here. (Wow, the question on everyone's lips.) (Three people.)

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

For current fandom (Oasis), I have a doc with 34 unwritten ideas, although lots of these are just an idea or a few sentences I'm sure most of them will never get written up into something full and finished. In terms of more 'serious' current WIPs it's 3 or 4. I posted a fic relatively recently, and know which one I want to finish next. (And I've talked about that idea recently.)

40. If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

oooooh I am a longtime RPF and smaller fandom connoisseur (as a general rule), and if I am writing in a bigger fandom I am often late to the party or in any case have never successfully broken through to the pages of comments level, so any and all fanart is a very rare and very exciting treat! I don't care! Anything is amazing!

having said that, can I say: porn. something really fucking filthy*. sometimes I am writing with a particular strong single or select image in mind, or have been inspired to write the fic because of that strong single or select image, and therefore naturally those exist as the strongest images in my mind - often these might be the fulcrum moment in a pwp, and/or slightly unexpected: the moment Noel sobs into the pillow in thinking hard about the weather, or Noel yanking Liam by the legs in go let it out, go let it in.

thank you, thomasmomwell! (love the new handle btw) [questions link]

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

Answered (excessively) here.

23. Best writing advice for other writers?

Oh my goodness... people do not tend to come to me for writing advice actually, because people are generally quite sensible.

Edit! But not until you have a start to end. You can put 'and then they somehow resolve the plotissue' and [write this later] to get there, but don't do it too much. If you don't want to write some dull whatever section now you won't want to later on.

And most importantly: have fun and be yourself. (I do actually mean that though - if the writing you're doing isn't mandatory, remember it's for your fun and enjoyment! And you are always bringing something unique to the table - your life experience, what you find horny, your favourite themes and words and tropes.)

I've nothing to say on habit and routine - it depends on your personal goals and you've got to find what works for you. And I'm no role model (I write very sporadically, usually between the hours of 11pm-3am after much procrastination.)

24. Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?

Any relentlessly absolutist advice - never do x, always do y - will serve you poorly, because of the need to learn to exercise your own judgement on the basis of contextual nuance.

ooh, thank you for these!

8. Do you prefer the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

The middle's the meat of it - if that's a slog, the fic might be too long; time skips and evoking a whole other whirl of possibility in a lone sentence - or at least trying to - are my very good friends.

Occasionally a beginning will come fully formed, but most of the time beginnings are hard.

If I've nailed it, endings are my favourite. If I'm satisfied that the ending is actually having an impact and doing something interesting, then I'm elated. But sometimes they're just a little bitch and you just have to go with the best you can do.

13. What’s a common writing tip that you almost always follow?

"Show, don't tell" is a classic for a reason. I'm definitely not claiming I never 'tell'! But it's not what I'm interested in. Character, emotions, interesting narrative voice tailored to the players - and with fic it's characters we all already know, so I'm especially not interested in exposition for exposition's sake. What's special to me is successfully making that best possible word choice or crafting that implicatory sentence to have maximum emotional impact on readers who are as knowledgable on the characters as canon as you are. And as readers, we love the positive feedback loop of connecting the dots ourselves.

14. How do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

How do you choose which POV to write from?

Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished? 

thank you for these questions!

7. How do you choose which POV to write from?

Depends - sometimes it feels immediately obvious and it just naturally comes out in a particular POV, other times in the early stages (i.e. when there lines or ideas that come to me spontaneously while I'm doing something else and I jot them down and then when that's happened enough times I think to myself 'okay this is worth writing the rest of and then editing to make it into an actual fic) I do have stuff in both POVs and then I have to choose (and likely lose the already-written stuff from the unchosen POV, sob). I haven't written that much in outsider POV but I do love to see it.

Basically, if it hasn't already been decided 'naturally' I guess I just decide what would best serve the story and what would be most narratively logical/interesting/satisfying. I suspect there might be some different patterns dependent on fandom and pairing as to whether I jump around or am more consistent, but actually in general I think I do try out different POVs for different fics depending on the nature of the story.

Occasionally I think there is quite a logical decision based on what I might be referencing or pastiching: for example, a recent fic in my current fandom was based on a scene in a different show (Half Man) and as that show has one consistent POV character I swiftly decided that the fic POV really had to be from the person being put into the Half Man lead character's role.

31. Do you start with the characters or the plot when writing?

Neither, exactly? In fandom, surely the characters are always 'first', the blorbos are the point, but they're not my own (although working on my rendition of them is, especially when it comes to RPF). Then generally with those characters I'm starting off with an idea (of a situation to put them into) - an idea, since it's a bit grand to call it a plot. I have never sat down and seriously intricately plotted something. I write short fics - stuff might happen, but it's character-study led and the sex is usually the structure and the narrative.

57. Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it’s finished?