just a fan being a fan @its-f4nf4n-again - Tumblr Blog

howdy.

I’m f4nf4n. If you know that name (you probably don’t), it’s likely from AO3. I am a fan of anime & manga who occasionally writes fanfiction.

I’ve been here before & have no idea how active I’ll be. TBH, I have a very loveneed/hate relationship with social media, but I missed looking at fanart, lol, so I’m back for now.

Links to my fics exist below the cut, should you find yourself so inclined.

Thanks for reading if ya do. Take care of yourselves out there. <3

ao3legendarium

how the fuck does one achieve these heights

#fanfic writers anonymous

sarcasticsciencefictionwriter

"I sort fics by kudos and only kudos on stories with high kudos counts, why aren't there more stories with high kudos, I ran out of things to read." You're part of the problem.

"Authors artificially inflate comment counts by thanking people, I can't find anything with a real comment count to read." No they fucking are not, they're grateful for engagement.

"I can't read anything under 100k." That's the majority of fics you're ignoring, most novels aren't even that long.

"I don't have time to look for the incredibly rare diamond in the rough, so I won't read anything below a certain amount of kudos, comments, and hits." Those fics are popular because people gave them a chance and then snobs like you found them.

"I won't read anthing with a single typos." You made typos in that sentence, get off your high horse.

"One singular author didn't thank me for commenting, I'm never commenting on any fic again so I don't get burned." You're punishing people because someone didn't give you engagement they don't owe you that they might not have seen.

"This fic is three months old, it's so old, it doesn't matter if I comment or kudos, it's old." Fics do not have expiration dates, comment and kudos.

You're killing your fandoms with your snobbish behaviors.

kedreeva

When I was a kid, maybe 14 or so (which is, you know, 20+ years ago), I belonged to a Yahoo! mailing list for an anime called Gundam Wing. It was mostly populated by other teens, of varying ages, as it was started by a teen and her friends. Eventually it migrated, when Yahoo! groups started as forums, and even branched off into non-GW related stuff in a second forum.

One of the things I remember the most clearly is the oldest person in the group. Her name was Steelsong. She was a 40-something Dom with a sub whose name we knew even though we knew nothing else. She ran her own fanfic archive because the web was still handmade HTML and navigated in webrings and I’m pretty sure Google didn’t exist or was only barely, barely launched and not well known. She was kind and patient and we loved her. She treated everyone on the group with the respect given any adult, even though most of the rest of the world was still treating us like we were children. Not teenagers even, but children. She never once condescended to any of us, never made our youth a barrier to her respect, never treated us like we were incapable of being full people or like we were less than her because we were young.

I remember that she hosted our fanfiction, as absolutely terrible as it was (and I still have some of it, I am WELL aware of how cringingly terrible it is, just absolute nonsense garbage), right there alongside of other fic that was soul-achingly beautiful. Not a separate section for her friends or for kids, just right there like we were good enough to feature alongside other authors. I never once received crit from her that I didn’t ask for, only support. Only love. I am still writing today partly because Steel was so kind about our fic, fanfic and original.

I remember that when I started doing clay sculpture, she commissioned a tiny pair of dragons from me, to support me doing artwork. She sent a check my mom cashed for me, and my mom helped me mail it when it was finished. It broke in transit, and Steel assured me that she mended it and that it was still beautiful. It was a small gold dragon curled up with a small silver dragon.

I remember that her patience knew no bounds. I remember that she was there for us, regardless of reason. When we wanted to know silly things like what to do with a single AA battery, she answered. When we had serious questions about sex, she answered. When we had questions about writing, she taught us. When one of our group members, a young gay teen in Australia, ended up in the hospital and then stopped making posts, and we all knew what had happened, she let us talk to her about it because we couldn’t go to our own parents, even though we had just lost a friend.

She was not a replacement to my parents, but she was an extra parent, in some ways. A friend, certainly, but someone that had been through more life than we had and was willing to pass on knowledge if we asked for it. Someone older that we trusted with things that were too uncomfortable to go to our parents or teachers or whatever about, because we already knew she wasn’t going to judge us or something, and that we would get an honest answer.

I don’t know why I’m remembering this so hard tonight, and I’m not sure if there’s a point to sharing this, except that I know she’s gone now. She was ill the last time we spoke, and her site went down a long time ago, and I miss her. She was a huge influence on my life, then and now. She was hope, for me, that life as an adult didn’t have to be boring, it wouldn’t have to mean giving up the things I loved and Becoming Only Responsible With No Fun. Her presence meant I had hope I could still write and play with friends even when I wasn’t ‘a kid’ anymore. And she’s gone, and I miss her, and I wanted to share her from the perspective of youth, and the perspective over twenty years later has provided me.

And I think of her, when people go off about older folks being in fandom with younger folks. I’m an older folks now, or at least middle aged folks because there are certainly folks older than me still, but I wasn’t always. I’ve been here since i was a younger folks, and I know how much Steel’s presence and support meant to me, how much she helped not just me but everyone on that group. And I think of the people saying older folks don’t belong in fandom, and that they shouldn’t interact with younger folks at all, and I just think… I can’t agree. I needed that kind of solid presence in my life back then and even at the age I am now, I need the folks older than me to stay. I want them here.

So I guess, like, if you’re here and you’re 40 or 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 or whatever, I want you here in fandom with me, still. Your presence here is a comfort. It is hope. It is a reminder that life will continue to be fun, even as I get older, myself. And if you’re younger and you have this sort of elder in your groups, I hope that they are like Steel. I hope they are kind and patient and supportive, and that knowing them gives you hope for your own future. I hope in twenty years you look back and remember them fondly.

taraljc

*hugs you tight* fandom mother’s and grandmothers are important and how we keep and pass the Lore.

oh.

i guess i miss this.

There is constantly the Person I Am Now and the Person I Used to Be and I can never truly reconcile the two (or three or seven or 8,911).

Who is the person who used to have so much time for things? The one who enjoyed talking about fictional characters for hours? Whose heart broke open for them? I miss this time I used to spend - the people I used to talk with and write with and read and share and explore with.

People I have never met & will never meet and most of whom probably don't even remember me at this point.

Life is so Different™ now and I am so different and my time is so much more precious & limited & I hate that this is just how it goes - how getting older is.

You lose time.

You lose so much of it to so many things and it's not the sort of resource you can ever get back and I want to be 80 years old and still excitedly chatting about these things that bring me joy, but there is almost no chance that will happen. I don't even have the bandwidth or the time to do it now.

largishcat

starting to suspect that tech bros actually just don’t know what reading is

menaceanon

I know I just reblogged this but I think the really important takeaway here is that this techbro is not genuinely asking “how can we improve fanfiction?” What he’s asking is “how can we tap into this massive market?”

I keep thinking about how many of these chat bots are free—for now. And of course they are! It’s a classic marketing technique when you’re trying to get your foot in the door with a novel product: let folks use it, let them get used to it, then start charging for it. You don’t have to look any further than streaming to see a very recent example of how this happens.

And it’s going to happen with AI.

There’s nothing these assholes love more than making money off of other people’s hard work. But you can’t legally charge for fanfic! So how do you get around that? You charge for a chat bot (which you trained on other people’s fanfic). You can’t charge for the content, but you can charge for the thing that produces the content.

AI is theft, and there are a whooooole lot of people gleefully looking to make a buck off of our hard work.

Don’t use AI, don’t feed AI your favorite fic writers’ and artists’ work, don’t read AI fic, don’t engage with it. And if you do, well, I can’t force you to give a shit about other people, but AI is a paywall being built, brick by brick, between you and the things you love. Stop slathering on the mortar.

jonjos-library

👆👆👆

uneryx

This is it, right here

but AI is a paywall being built, brick by brick, between you and the things you love. Stop slathering on the mortar.

#fuck ai

jugacolours

#izuocha #they're in love your honor

dear-ao3

jonairadreaming

I might've organised this Devil's Sacrament, but you rocked up to it in full ceremonial garb

#fanfic writers anonymous

idlestories

me every single time i’m on the edge of going fully insane about a new fandom: haha what if i just checked ao3. just for fun. just to see what there is. i won’t save anything or get in too deep i’ll just do some recon. i’ll just go see. for fun

#yeah. for fun. nothing serious... haha... ha...

last saturday, i tripped in the woods.

stood on the deck for hours staring at the trees, at the shimmering stained glass archways they created as they reached for one another, braiding their limbs together overhead. a carpet of mosses spread out beneath me, tracing secret pathways through the forest. (but every path leads back to me - i can never truly run away from myself.)

everything sparkled, shimmered, breathed.

i wanted to race through the woods. wanted to stand perfectly still. (i did not want to lean, though, it felt too precarious.) i spoke out of the side of my mouth, spouted strange ideas like water running from between my lips, so easily loosed into the air around me.

i stepped over rocks like a child, afraid i would slip, walked a tightrope in the kitchen and pressed my hands into its marshmallow walls. stared out the window into a tunnel, wanted to dive into it, but i remained rooted to myself. a web of warm, unconditional love reached through the pane and covered me, holding me so tightly.

it left before i was ready, as all things do.

the floor opened up and i wanted to walk down, down, down into the dungeon, but i knew even if i did, i would have to come back up.

you always have to come back.

and when the tectonic plates of the world (and of myself) shifted and sank, dragging me down into the runny watercolored shadows of the underneath, i was afraid. my heart stilled in the shadows, as the sound fell away, my whole existence vacuum sealed in an unfamiliar place. but i knew if i just waited - if i was just patient - the fear would recede, and i would find something new and worthwhile to hold onto.

a cardinal flitting between the branches. bark like a science fiction masterpiece. a snail shell out of place, dirt spilling from its insides in a perfect spiral.

the realization that i can mourn without wanting; that i can want without replacing. that there is space in my heart for all i have lost as well as anything yet to come.

that spring will forever more be a difficult season, and that is okay.

i wish i could feel this way always - to know with certainty there is meaning and beauty and connection in each thing. that the spark inside me is like the spark inside the cardinal or the tree or the soft, sinking moss beneath my feet.

i want to sink. want to spiral. want to feel that same warm web of unconditional love. i want to turn time backward - just a few hours, just enough to savor the moment.

i want to step through that perfect stained glass world into a place somehow even more profoundly beautiful.

i never want to forget how to forgive myself, to let go of things which are agonizing, to create space for uncertainty and conflicting emotions.

i want to stand on the deck and listen to the bass thrum of hardcore music blaring through the trees, the most absurd end.

i want to breathe in time with the world around me, assured that i am exactly where i need to be.

#tw drug use #f4nf4n r4mbl3s

spacerockband

Strange Bird

#oh.#spacerockband

hello i am here to ramble to the void.

life moves so fast, lately. speed of light & sound multiplied until each breath, each moment, is a speck of dust against infinity.

was life always like this? time spiralling away from me like the echoes of a stone thrown into deep water?

i wonder if this summer has irrevocably broken my perception. of time, of love, of all things. if the way i felt dragged through marsh mud in july and august means that now my feet moving at normal speed makes me feel like the fastest man alive.

the farther we get from the inciting incident, the easier it is to forget about it. until a single moment threatens to unspool all the effort undertaken to regather the threads of existence and arrange them into order. often, it make sense. an announcement, a birth. sometimes it is a health insurance commercial, the produce aisle at the grocery store filled with so many strange reminders.

expensive yoghurt, left to rot in the fridge because it's too painful to look at. a label peeled from a bottle to disguise its contents.

and all the while, the earth spins, and time speeds onward like a train intent on destruction. it's winter, now. the spring will unfurl itself soon after and i will stare at the daffodils with envy and want. i will cry as the first blooms shake away their ice to puncture the frigid white with vibrant color.

and nothing will stop, the days will keep bleeding into one another--an endless parade of not yets and what ifs. i wish i could hibernate, refuse to participate in a world designed to make me forget, to keep moving forward when i'd rather stay trapped to my knees in the marsh, sinking; listening to the breeze sway the cattails and whisper songs through their broken stems, reeds like panflutes.

a lullaby, maybe.