#fandomfloat

[floating-in-the-blue]

Oooo interesting, 5, 8, and 13 for the new ask game? <3

Thank youuuu! <3

5. What does a Comment mean to you?

I know I'm lucky that, by the time I consider something good enough to post, I don't really doubt my writing or the story so a lack of comments doesn't necessarily make me doubt that. But if you're proud of something you've made and show it to other people and then there's just crickets and nobody cares, well ... that's not a particularly great feeling. So I am not immune to craving comments. It's an 'I see you' and a 'no matter your flaws and mess of a life, this one thing you did well.'

8. What does Fanart of Fic mean to you?

THE HIGHEST COMPLIMENT if it's spontaneously created because it means something you wrote actually inspired someone so much that out of all the things they could have been doing with their time and energy, they chose to create art for your fic!!! And how cool is that?!?!?! (special shout out to the best @jonairadreaming <3 <3 <3)

SO MUCH JOY if it's commissioned because it's such a self-indulgent treat. Willex Star Trek AU pic my beloved <3 <3 <3

13. What does a Happy Ending mean to you?

That, despite what I may have gone through emotionally while reading the fic, I'm smiling at the end of it (maybe through tears).

What does [...] mean to you Ask Game

[floating-in-the-blue]

Ok, let's go with 6, 12 and 14 for the what does... mean to you

Thank you, hunny!!! <3

6. What does a Reply to a Comment mean to you?

I already ranted about this in a previous post but to reiterate: it's an opportunity to tell your reader that you appreciate them taking the time to not only read your story but to comment on it as well. Because as much as comments as a whole are very important for a healthy fandom culture, no single person owes you either reading time or a comment.

And ALSO: you can make awesome friends via comment conversation *waves at you* :D

12. What does a Fitting Ending mean to you?

It means that not all endings need to be happy but that they fit the themes and narrative arcs and character arcs of the story. That's not to say that I don't love a good happy ending but it needs to be earned in some way and not just an 'oh and then they were conveniently all happy because I want them to be' ignoring all problems previously mentioned. Or: if the ending feels unnecessarily contrived it's not a fitting ending to the story.

14. What does AO3 mean to you?

Provider of nice emails in my inbox :D

What does [x] mean to you Ask Game

[floating-in-the-blue]

What does 1, 5, 6 & 14 mean to you?

Thank youuuu! <3

1. What does Writing mean to you?

These days it's pretty much my only creative output (except for a short craze of magnet making) so it's a way to express myself and my ideas and worldview (even though that's making it sound very lofty, especially considering my latest fic output) and to play around with words.

Expressing yourself creatively with words is also a family thing (though not necessarily in a writing fiction context) and I like having that connection to my parents that way.

It's also become somewhat of a gauge for my mental health/energy levels.

5. What does a Comment mean to you?

An opportunity to say 'thank you' and an opportunity for connection and community and, depending on the comment, of course also an ego boost ;D

6. What does a Reply to a Comment mean to you?

If it's good manners to say 'thank you' to an author if you finished reading a fic, then it's also good manners for an author to say "thank YOU for taking the time and reading and commenting" back.

I realise that it can be overwhelming if you're a popular writer in a popular fandom or that there's a thousand other different reasons why replying to a comment can become a challenge (mental state, the comment is so overwhelmingly nice you have trouble to actually form words, ...) but I think we should all at least TRY to appreciate those readers who do leave comments.

Because this is supposed to be about community. We're not influencers on social media who say a quick performative (maybe even honestly meant) "hi, thanks for all your comments, I read all of them and cherish them. Don't forget to hit like and subscribe" at the beginning of a new video and yet I keep seeing that kind of behaviour more and more and it grates on me.

14. What does AO3 mean to you?

A convenient one stop for all your fic needs. A convenient one stop for all your fic posting needs. A (hopefully) safe place from censorship and purity politics and capitalism and ads.

What does [x] mean to you Ask Game

[floating-in-the-blue]

For the women themed ask game: 6, 9, and 10 :)

6. What's a relationship in media (romantic, platonic, familiar) that especially means a lot to you?

Since I'm allo, I do enjoy the romantic relationships a lot but honestly, all those relationships are important and fascinating to me. Like, there's so much potential in all of those. What I do NOT like is when a romantic relationship is portrayed in such a way that suddenly all other relationships these characters have with others become meaningless. I'm not one for super dramatic Romeo & Juliet types of romance in general.

Not sure if that really answers your question but ... that's what I have to say about that XD

9. What is a character you think was overlooked or given a poor ending by the creative team? How would you have changed their story?

Weirdly, one of the first characters that came to mind was Katherine Beckett in Castle even though she was neither overlooked nor given a poor ending. But after the producing team of the first seasons left, I was just very unhappy with how the new team wrote her, especially how she suddenly no longer trusted Castle and no longer involved him even though all the previous seasons had been about building that trust and realising that they're stronger together. So it just made absolutely no sense to me other than that they wanted to introduce some drama and obstacles but at the expense of this beloved character's characterisation.

10. Misogyny in fandom spaces is something that is a consistent topic of discussion. Care to weigh in?

My thoughts on this are complex because I believe it's a very complex topic with a lot of contributing factors that aren't easy to disentangle.

I do believe once you wear slash glasses you tend to approach new media you encounter with those on, looking for the next one, consciously or unconsciously. Just a case of "what you know is what you see."

I do think there's a tendency that's very worrying of shoving aside canonical female love interests and bashing them in favour of the "progressive" gay ship. Which I wholeheartedly condemn even while supporting everyone to ship what they like.

I do think there's a skewed focus on male characters from a mostly female identifying fandom when it comes to fanfic etc (because most fanfic writers are still women) that can come from attraction, from more male characters on offer, from the previously mentioned acquired habit, from internalised misogyny and body issues, from a spiral of femslash getting less attention so there's less "reward" in writing it, from a snowball effect of big ships with lots of contents reinforcing themselves, ...

But I very much do not support people telling other people in a hobby space what they should or should not ship for fun. It's good to discuss it. It's good for each and every one to regularly check their own bias. But at the end of the day, you cannot force someone to do something for fun. You can only encourage them.

And honestly, aggressively worded "name a female character you like. I dare you. You canNOT name a male character" posts are not helpful.

Right. This is more political than I usually get in fandom but ... yeah. Those are my two unhelpful cents.

Ask Game

[floating-in-the-blue]

Comments Count

I have 85 works on AO3 and I get a kudos email almost every day. Usually just for one to up to three fics, one kudos each, occasionally for more. Occasionally, there will be several kudos for one fic, usually after I've just published something new.

There's recently been an uptick for kudos on my old Metal Gear Solid fics which I can't quite understand but which obviously makes me happy.

But there's no comments.

There's hardly any comments.

I don't have the time for proper data analysis but I was curious and took a look at the comments I received within the last 250 days (arbitrarily because AO3 shows not the date when you've ceceived a comment but a "X days ago").

There were 79 comments* over those 250 days, across 32 fics, from 30 people.

*I did not count replies to my replies (about four instances), nor one person commenting on three separate chapters of a fic in a single day

That there's so many comments across so many fics at all is largely due to one single person, a dear friend, going through a lot of my fics. She managed to leave 21 comments in those 250 days!! That's almost 27 %, more than a quarter of all the comments in that time frame!!! (you know who you are and you know I love you for this!! 💕)

(how did we meet and become friends? She commented on one of my fics and we started a conversation; now we're tumblr and discord and Xmas card friends!)

38 of the 79 comments were on the date of publication (+ 1-2 days) of a new fic and there were 6 new fics in total (some mere ficlets but nvm), which averages out at about 6 comments per new fic, all on or around the date of publication.

Out of all of those 79 comments, only 13 comments came from people totally unknown to me (and 6 of those 13 were on one single fic in one recently popular and very active fandom).

18 comments were by people unknown to me, which have commented before though (and in total that was just 7 whole people). They might be subscribed to me or follow my tumblr because almost all of those were "date of publication" comments.

All the rest, 48 comments, are from people I personally know and am friends with (now) or at least tumblr acquaintaces with, which are actually just 11 people. And we already know one of them is responsible for 21 comments, which leaves 27 comments for the other 10 people, most of those, again, "date of publication" comments or "saw a reblog of mine on tumblr" comments.

I don't know how comparable my AO3 experience is with others because there's so many factors that play into this.

I don't know where I'm going with this other than me being incredibly grateful for those (tumblr) friends who are still loyally reading my fics (which is mostly 4 people + an assorted variety of guest stars) and I dread the moment they move into other fandoms.

It's putting some numbers to that feeling that if your story doesn't get read on that date of publication (or at least the first few days after), the chances of anyone commenting on it sink dramatically unless you attract the rare unicorn who will not only read and kudos your fics once they discover you but will also leave comments.

It's putting numbers to "the fanfic community only really works if we're a community" because strangers are so much less likely to leave a comment. It's "I know most of these people are writers's themselves" and know the joy of receiving comments. They don't see themselves as "consumers of content".

I am grateful I can get a little serotonin boost in the form of AO3's kudos email almost every day. But at some point, when my brain is not being kind to me and the world, you can't help feeling a little disgruntled at all these people who obviously read your story but didn't stop to say 'thank you.' Didn't say 'I liked this.'

I don't know where I'm going with this but to the people who still comment on my fics:

Thank You!

[floating-in-the-blue]

I hope this is ok... I saw in one of your tags that you've studied fandom and that's something that led me back to school (specifically this school, even). Is this something you'd be open to chatting about one day?

Hi, absolutely although it really has been quite a while so I'm very out of the loop. I only had one specific class on fandom (covering the waves of fandom studies, fandom hierarchies, and fandom economics as far as I remember) and then wrote my thesis on Pride & Prejudice adaptations.

If you're familiar with the history of fandom studies you'll probably know Henry Jenkin's term of the acafan (academics who are also fans) and I kind of used that for the idea of a profan, i.e. someone who is a professional in their chosen artistic field but employs fannish approaches for their works. Like established authors writing Austen "fanfic" or such productions as "Lost in Austen" as the self-insert fanfic as a commercial tv show etc. It's (as always) a spectrum of course and not fixed.

I find fandom studies super fascinating but I wrote that thesis in 2014, so almost ten years ago, and haven't kept up that much with the field so my knowledge is pretty outdated 😅But I'd still be happy to chat if that's at all helpful for you!

[floating-in-the-blue]

I wish, I really really wish, there was a polite way to let a person on AO3 know that they're using tags wrong without having to make a public comment about it on a fic you're not interested to read and so have nothing else to say about.

I wish, I really really wish, we had a fandom culture were pointing stuff like that out was seen as just being helpful to a newbie instead of attacking someone (which it might possibly be seen as).