rodo's journal

snowflake_challenge: Challenge #3
In your own space, Scream Into the Void. Get it all out.

This is kind of hard for me, because I tend to prefer not to vent, but there is one thing that frustrates me about fandom-as-a-whole: the more time marches on, the less accessible it becomes, for me at least.

So, I’ve got sociophobia – actual, diagnosed sociophobia. It’s gotten a lot better. Ten years ago, I couldn’t leave the house or phone anyone, and I can do that without much of a problem nowadays. I’m never going to like it, but I can manage. Unfortunately, other aspects haven’t gotten better: I still can’t stand chats, or basically any form of fandom interaction that relies on timely replies. I just need time to prepare myself to be social online, and sometimes I’m going to be really late – if that isn’t okay, community-wise, I’m just not going to be there at all. Discord, Twitter, even platforms like Tumblr, all move so much faster, and that just makes them impossible for me. (Besides some other issues.)

I just wish things were different, you know?

Okay, I'm beginning to think this exchange summer is seriously cursed for me. It started when I had to choose between everywoman and an exchange that sounded far more relevant to me that was being proposed on fail_fandomanon. There was a prospective mod, and they had a writing period in mind that would have overlapped with everywoman, and since I only do one exchange at a time, I decided to chance it and bet on the latter. Which, of course, never happened at all. Yay.

But okay, I said to myself. Shit happens. There's still fandomgiftbox. It's been run well for years, I've participated three times as a writer and twice as a recipient. I always had fun. I'll just throw myself into that one. Yeah, if it were on schedule, it would reveal on September 5th, otherwise known as next Sunday. It never really reveals on time, but this year, the question is whether it'll reveal at all. The mod has vanished off the face of the earth, leaving everything in limbo, which of course means I didn't get to write much for it either. The uncertainty certainly put a damper on my creativity - and due to my rare fandoms, my chances of getting a gift are pretty slim.

So, I thought. There's the great autumn exchanges coming up. I won't sign up for shipoween and trickortreatex, but I've pinch hit for the latter before and I could always write treats! I want to write something for people, feel the excitement of being part of an event! And now that's happening. I don't even know what "that" is, but it feels kind of like a follow-up to the multifandomdrabble meltdown, although don't ask my why I get that feeling. I honestly don't know. Both of those happening so close together, maybe. And the shoddy modding.

I just wish exchanges were a bit more robust, I guess. Better modding, people communicating their decisions well in advance and listening to the community, exchanges not relying on one person doing everything.

I don't want to jinx it, but at least there's always Yuletide. Although with my current luck, who knows?

The English version of this post.

Ihr braucht mich allgemein nicht um Erlaubnis zu fragen, wenn ihr Charaktere, Schauplätze oder andere Elemente aus meinen Geschichten, Originalen wie Fanfictions, verwendet. Ich verlange nur, dass ihr bei euren Werken angebt, welche Teile meiner Werke ihr übernommen habt. Wenn ihr also eine Geschichte schreibt, die als Fortsetzung zu einer meiner Geschichten gedacht ist oder die einen meiner OCs enthält, müsst ihr das zu Beginn der Geschichte in einem Vorwort klarstellen (vorzugsweise mit Link). Um das Ganze noch weiter aufzudröseln und jeglichen Missverständnissen vorzubeugen:

( Genaueres hinter dem Cut: )

Zu guter Letzt möchte ich euch darum bitten, mir Bescheid zu geben, wenn ihr ein solches Werk hochladet. Das ist kein Muss, ihr müsst auch definitiv nicht um Erlaubnis fragen oder Angst haben, dass ich euch im Nachhinein irgendwas verbiete, ich bin einfach nur neugierig, was mit meinen Werken passiert.

Does it really make me mean and elitist that I think that Sturgeon's Law applies to fanfiction? Even my own? Because it's wrong and insults the average fanfic writer by calling them incompetent (which, btw, I didn't, I was talking about stories, but apparently story = author).

I really, really should stay away from the internet for a while, or at least certain parts of it. It's just making things worse for me at the moment. Because whatever I try, if I'm feeling even remotely positive about it someone else comes and tears it completely apart.

The only problem is: I don't have anything better to do at the moment.

*whiny post is whiny*

☞ I'm officially tired of kink meme fics. Am I the only one? Am I weird? I see everywhere at the moment, and I'm really longing for plotty fic with romance and non-explicit sex scenes. Or no sex scenes at all! I think I overdosed or something.

☞ I really hope ficathon_de will decide for DW. I decided not to post fic on LJ anymore (my stupid principles tend to be very persistent), so I wouldn't participate on LJ and I don't think using both would work.

☞ Rec: Captive Prince by freece. Summary: Damen is the true heir to the throne, but when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity and sent to serve the Prince of a rival nation as a pleasure slave. It doesn't sound like much, but I am very much in love with the story. So I rec in, even though it has been recced a lot already.

First of all: This is all lian's fault. And the fault of the anonymous person who so generously gifted me with two months of paid time (&hearts). This is also a follow-up post to my last post about fandom and language, in a way. It's also my first poll, so please tell me what I could have done better.

Note: For the purpose of this poll, I won't define "fandom" or "(language) fandom". I'll leave that up to you.

( On to the very long poll— )

PS: I would appreciate it if you would pimp this poll.

Okay, I think I found my topic for today's meta (I'm keeping my schedule, see?): long stories.

Not stories that are long, mind you. Stories that feel long (not necessarily the same thing). A good story should make you forget time. It should suck you into its world until you wish the story would never end. I've read quite a few stories like these, and I love them. But there are other stories too. Stories that promise to be these amazing stories that you wish would never end, and then ... they just don't. They get longer and longer, full of stuff that is totally unnecessary, that deters from the purpose that is just plain boring to read. These are stories that I wish were betaed by those competent people who know when a story might be better off being shorter. I know I told an author once to cut a few scenes. Am I just an exception or do other people really not mind these stories?

Anyway, I will list a few stories that felt too long for me, and why:

( List under the cut )

I'd like to know about your experiences and theories about this as well, because I don't think I'm the only one who hates feeling that reading a story becomes some sort of chore that I only keep doing because I really used to love them. And is there any way to tactfully tell the authors that their beloved hydras really aren't as lovely as they seem to think?

Note: This is probably not very well thought out (I'm running on caffeine). I also apologize if linking these examples hurts the authors. I will take out the links if it does, just leave me a comment.

English:

Well, needless to say, I haven't been well. I hope I can sort it out some next term. I at least managed to go to a doctor and got a note which allowed me to take a break from university. And I handed in a homework today which I hope will find its way to the lecturer (secretaries at my university always get ill when students have to work on a deadline) and that she will be okay with ten pages plus bibliography instead of ten pages including bibliography. *sigh*

( Fic Progress )

Deutsch:

( Ein neues Rating auf ff.de )

Well, my last post was rather depressed, so on a lighter more fanish note:

( Cut for spoilers for Supernatural, Dexter and Merlin )

Today, I got two anonymous comments on two of my stories (Well, one HP fic and the essay about male pregnancy). They weren't flames, they were just rather critical and not exactly polite. I didn't mind that at all. What I did mind very much was the fact that I had no way to reply to the criticism, and that really bothers me. Generally, I reply to all comments I receive to say thanks, to reply to questions asked and to respond to criticism, and to these two I wanted to respond really bad. I am even thinking about disallowing anonymous commenting on my fics now, to avoid something like this happening in the future.

I assume both comments were written by the same author. One of them, the one I got on my essay, made it clear that the person didn't really read my essay but just wanted a place to rant about mpreg. Not all that unusual, most of the readers react that way to it. This one, however didn't even understand that I didn't intend to write a "What is good mpreg?" essay but rather one about the phenomenon and why people write it. It's more about the authors and readers of mpreg fic and less about the fics themselves.

The second comment criticised the first sex scene I ever wrote. I agree that it's not a good sex scene and that I could have done a lot of things better. However, the commenter focussed on the mechanics of sex, which, as I learnt on fanficrants, is different for everyone. The statement "anal sex without lube hurts like hell" is not true for everyone. I really want to tell this to the person, complete with links and all, but I just can't. That's really frustrating.

I always thought the main problem with anonymous comments were flames, but I think they are much easier to deal with. You can get them deleted, or you can delete them yourself (depending on the site). This is something different. Am I silly for reacting this way?