Been quiet lately because I'm doing a bunch of stuff in preparation for a change in my energetic capacity, but I stumbled upon this old article of Corey Alexander's (rest in power, friend!) and I thought it would be really helpful to recirculate given some of the stumblings I've noticed around depictions of consent in kinky fanfiction and what "counts" as "responsible" portrayal. Not calling anyone out or saying this depiction or that is better, just advocating for a diversity of ways of incorporating consent into kink fiction that's meant to be realistic (while I also am totally down for throwing out the rules for the sake of hot porn that was never supposed to be):
https://xanwest.wordpress.com/2017/03/01/safewords-in-kink-life-and-in-kink-fiction/
"Just as I think consent and communication are complex and nuanced in life, I want them complex and nuanced in my BDSM fiction. I don’t want all kink to follow the same prescriptive model of checklist + safeword=consent. That prescriptive model didn’t work for me as a novice; it gave me a false sense of safety and led me to conclude a top was worth trusting because they did those things instead of assessing that myself, practicing my own discernment."t."
me to my rp partner: "When they said marijuana would lower my inhibitions I didn't realize they were referring to THE FOURTH WALL."
(no but seriously, if you have a "muses live in the brain" experience, do you find that weed makes them more active or just "we're taking over, bitches!" etc.?)
I'm vaguely curious if any other writers are inclined to answer, how many stories do you have running at any given time in your drafts?
I sometimes wonder, since I don't post anything WIP, if people think I'm just twiddling my thumbs LOL, but I actually have *counts* NINETY ONE stories in progress. A handful of those are outlines, but a lot are like, actual writing has been written, in some cases 50+ pages of it! Maybe a dozen are sequels.
I had this thought about process because I was checking something for continuity for a sequel I'm writing and I kind of went "...oh that was from 2018" and a lot of people requested a sequel and possibly will have forgotten the original six years later, but for me, time is just, you know, imaginary. 😂
How about 6, 11, and 14 for the fic writer asks for your KinkTok series?
Ooh, yay, my first ask! 😀 Thank you for playing the game ❤️ I love questions so please, folks, feel free to AMA! (Or ask my characters anything, the muses will totes respond directly.)
For folks unfamiliar, this is the series in question: a BDSM AU where real-world social media platforms have equivalents specifically for "dynamic" (Dom/sub/switch) people. One of my favorite sandboxes!
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
Well, I think the worldbuilding is the obvious thing! It's a pretty specific concept. But also, I don't often write about social media, other than the offhand mention, so that's been a really fun challenge. (What's kind of funny, though, is that I got into TikTok for a few months in 2020 and then left, so pretty much all the actual TikTok references are way out of date!) I also don't often spend much time on the challenging bits of trauma recovery, so this was a deeper dive into that, and into the experience of addiction, than I normally do.
11: What do you like best about this fic?
I think I just love the D/s dynamic between Steve and Tony. I'm a sucker for "the way we do kink (or ABO) is different from what's normal in our universe" as a trope, and I love how affirming both characters are to each other—Steve gets to have the familiarity of a dynamic that was more common in his own time, and Tony gets the healing of not having to cater to kinks that aren't really his. The latter is somewhat personal to me, as I've had periods for sure where it felt like I had to kind of adjust play to what was popular in a particular scene, and I really feel Tony's longing in that sense. I also just fucking love a bit of an old school leather dynamic, even if this isn't exactly that, and it was fun to explore the idea of punishment as a kink.
14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?
Hmm, not explicitly? I guess I kind of naturally included different kinks and dynamics, and maybe there's a bit of a *cough cough* kink doesn't have to be practiced in any particular way / domism is stupid subtext, but I imagine most readers are already on board that train! This one is less "educational" than some of my kink fic where I'm including things that a lot of people may not be familiar with, and more just meant to be affirming and a warm happy place. There might be a little bit of like, here's what it can look like to feel out switching, in future stories in the series, but I don't want to spoil 😉
So you know that thing where what's hot is whatever feels weird or unusual or edgy or new? (Okay, legitimately, actually, I wonder if this is an ADHD thing, but...)
I think somehow at nearly forty years I've ended up with a heterosexuality fetish 😂 😂 THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT.
No but seriously, this is fascinating to me. Basic trajectory of what's hot:
Age 11ish - 13ish: thinking about big dicks and boobs and people coming everywhere, wow, scandal!
Age 13ish - 15ish: dudes fucking each OTHER? Gasp!
Age 15ish - 21ish: BDSM? such edge! mm, delicious.
Age 21ish - 37ish: go merrily tripping through different kinks I thought I'd never be into one at a time but 95% with men involved because hey trauma / rape culture / gender stuff it's a whole thing, this seems like a safe playground
Age 38: suddenly start guilty-reading eroticized super fucked-up misogynistic shit that reminds me of my actual 20s
It's like some people have a trans fetish, I an ace-spectrum polyamorous queer trans kinkster have developed a fetish for straight people. *laughcries into a corner*
(No but I totally blame you people writing hot straight smut HOW DARE.)
I just learned the read more breaks are not automatic? Fortunately I think I have like three followers so far, but nonetheless apologies for the one post I've done that was kind of long and didn't have a read more break in it! 😭
Continuing on my "Vik tries to understand how people in fandom interact in 2023" tour 😂 I noticed that a lot of folks seem to post drabbles or snippets on Tumblr that come from their fic in progress.
I've never done something like this, but given that I am in fact pretty slow in my process (mostly because of the copious editing and the fact that I'm often rotating through 50+ in-progress stories at once, but I don't post things WIP), I wonder if folks would appreciate it. Granted, I wouldn't be able to promise that anything was final version, but I could certainly post written scenes way before posting the story they're a part of. So, a poll!
Do you like seeing snippets from stories that won't be posting for a while?
Yes, gimme!!!
Only if they don't contain major spoilers for the story
Only if I know they're not going to change
Nope, I only want to read the full context of the story
why tony is never beating the favouritism allegations
1. steve gets the first cup of coffee even though he's literally standing the furthest away
2. only steve gets a present
3. to scott: oh am i repeating myself? am i???? pissant. this plan does not involve you
to steve: honey i have an idea, do you trust me sweetheart, it's your call baby
4. *gets back from 1970* *immediately and i mean IMMEDIATELY checks to make sure that steve is still standing next to him*
6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?
7: Where did the title come from?
8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?
9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?
10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?
11: What do you like best about this fic?
12: What do you like least about this fic?
13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?
14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?
has anyone else been tempted to create an alt account as cis female "Reader" so that they can RP as this person and participate in all the horny feelings on /Reader blogs but like, not feel weird invalidation around their own gender and/or asexuality? no, just me? 😂
some rambling observations about being an autistic fan
So I've been thinking a lot about ✨The History of the Internet✨ lately, and in particular the history of how fans find community, and I thought I'd share these observations into the void. I'd be curious to know others' experiences!
Specifically, I'm thinking about how my autistic way of communicating and socializing maps (or doesn't) to fannish norms and how that's changed over the years.
Some facts about my specific neurotype (because every neurodivergent brain is different!):
I strongly dislike small talk, but I LOVE going on at length with someone about a special interest.
Shared SQUEEE is super affirming to me.
I tend to think in systems and lists, so I love to do things like think through the details of worldbuilding.
I'm on the ace spectrum, and I both experience a lot of my sexuality through my muses and interacting on their behalf and don't really have a personal feeling of desire towards actors (and sometimes squee based in sexual attraction makes me uncomfortable because it feels like I'm misrepresenting my own identity if folks don't get the whole muse thing).
I have highly variable spoons and social anxiety.
I tend to hoard information, and if I like a creator I want to see EVERYTHING they put out, and it makes me anxious to think about missing things.
Okay, cool, so given all that, here's how I've experienced socializing in fandom, and what I'm realizing in retrospect about how different "waves" of this map to my communication and social needs. Note that the "waves" are just how I personally interacted with fandom, of course your mileage may vary!
Wave One (2004ish-2008ish): LiveJournal, mostly. In this era, I was primarily interacting through LJ, and finding fic on random sites around the Internet. I didn't have a ton of sense of connection to other fans, except those I met in real life.
Wave Two (2008ish-2013ish): Dreamwidth, Ao3, and RP. And then DW and Ao3 were born, and choirs of angels rejoiced. This was my personal golden era. First, DW, where I started forming more personal connections through a journal site and its communities. This was the point at which I felt like I actually knew people through being "mutuals," and I generally tried to read everything on my feed, interacting regularly. I went to ConTxT a few times and met fans in person, as well as a few local hangouts hosted by fans. I also started RPing in this era, and for a few years spent regular time in an AIM chatroom pretty much daily with RP partners. I started dating two people long distance from this group, and most of my friends were here. Ao3 also came out in this era and made reading fic SO much easier. My brain fucking loves a database and structured tagging! I also did a bunch of prompt challenges, big bangs, and the like, which I think really helped structure my participation in fandom. Through co-writing I was getting a lot of my sexual needs met (though I didn't really understand that at the time, since it wasn't "real") and the nature of the RP chatroom meant that I could focus on a fictional world and building relationships there, which was far more interesting to me than hearing about the minutae of people's lives.
Wave Three (2014ish-now): Since that golden era, I've mostly been engaging with fandom just through writing and reading, with the exception of one fantastic RP partner I met two years ago through the comments on my fic, who's become one of my best friends. I tried Discord for a little while, but got super overwhelmed. Creating a Tumblr, I'm noticing how spoiled I've been by Ao3! I'm so used to engaging with fic in a way that I can easily see when there's new stuff, and it's really freaking me out that I can't do that here, unless I'm able to dedicate the time to reading everything the author posts about their life in addition to their stories. I think we hypothetically did that back in the DW days, but maybe the difference is that folks are used to social media here, so rather than posting a couple of essays a week like a blog, it's standard to do a bunch of short posts per day? Perhaps in some ways, Discord is more autism-friendly, because it's possible to say "I only want to communicate about THESE topics" and then get to know who the people are who are talking about those things. It's weirdly isolating, I think, to show up to a platform like "HERE ARE MY SPECIAL INTERESTS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THEM" and then to see others doing that but not be clear on how to engage. To be fair, that may be aging more than autism 😂
I'm not sure if this is, uh, actually reaching any conclusions, but hey, having space to process the thoughts and feelings is nice nonetheless!
Romanticizing reading fanfiction with 100 hits. Romanticizing commenting on fics from seven years ago. Romanticizing giving kudos to a fic with three hits. Romanticizing reblogging someone’s fanfiction post from two years ago, giving them the first note on that post. Romanticizing saying in the comments “I hope there’s a chapter two, this was so good!” On a fic posted in 2013
Romanticizing responding with appreciation to a comment someone left on your story a year and a half ago because you have no spoons but it is JUST AS EXCITING to see it at a point where they've long forgotten the story. 😂 (ILY, commenters!)
I didn't truly appreciate this until I made the decision to leave my career in my "real life" and start a business, and MAN. The slow growth, the number of times trying to sell something with zero responses, feeling like you're begging for folks to care about what you do and really believe in... I am SO grateful that I have fandom, because anytime I start feeling like a total fucking trash human who has no value to society at the age of 38 and is useful to no one, I can look at my AO3 inbox and be like "I MATTER." 😂 😭
And honestly, isn't this a fucking scathing critique of capitalism? Because here I am writing shit that I legally cannot get paid for, and yet this is the area of my life where people will say "omg you helped me figure out my sexuality, you changed my life," etc. but any time I spend doing that is time I'm not making sure I can put food on the table. ThE SYstEm Is bRoKeN.
nothing is more humbling as a fanfiction writer than your search history. the searches while writing range from “stupid questions” to “you’re going to be put on a government watchlist” and every step in between.
See, for me this is less "on a watchlist" and more Jesus Christ I'm a pacifist and all my ads are now about joining the Army given how much time I've spent making sure I fully understand the promotion pathways for all my AU characters despite the fact that this backstory will LITERALLY NEVER COME UP in the fic. 😂 😂 #autistic
