september's coming soon

My first fic finished in a year was one where I expressed surprise at having written something “bittersweet leaning on sad”, but then I went over my bibliography and realised that for someone who does not expose herself to hurt without the promise of “comfort” as a reader, I sure publish a lot of fic where happy endings are debatable or at least comes with a distinct aftertaste.

So even though I really had better things to do, I went back and looked it over and did a bit of a rating. And then I did the stats.

( Me talking about my own fanfic )

My main fandom production is and has always been meta.

Of which maybe 1% ever got posted, presumably because I'm a wuss who don't like getting into arguments online or don't like upsetting people or whatever. I'm afraid to try and do estimates based on the sizes of the dozens of .txt documents saved in a carefully buried folder on an external hard drive. I've got fandom commentary going back to 2005 at least. There is a lot of it, and most of it is at least halfway finished, and got left behind as my fandom interest waned.

Today's topic included two drafts on a lengthy defence of the NO. 6 anime contra the novels (and technically the manga, but no-one ever brings up the manga in this discussion and we all know why). A long take on why Luka Coffaine is a shite character next to Kagami and why I'm not about to forgive that even IF he gets a personality outside his guitar next season (tl;dr amatonormativity). A near 2000 words of exploration of Chloé, Kagami, Lila and Alya in how they're placed around Marinette and around each other.

I was about ready to post that last one, in fact, because pointing out that "Lila" and "Alya" are near anagrams can't possibly upset people.

Point is, this was the results of my latest laptop decluttering a few months back, consisting of the pieces that were good enough and interesting enough to maybe be worth finishing and sharing. There were some 15 000 words on it. But GUESS WHAT GENUIS did something something with her shift and backspace button when she was trying to delete a few empty lines, and hit ctrl+s on instinct before se realised what she'd done.

What's left is some non-English tweet on subtitling practices that I wouldn't post anyway, and three lines of imaginary explanation on the topic of how Kino's NB status is definitely arguable but far from hard canon that I also wouldn't post anyway, because good god that is one discussion you can't win.

And, I mean. I probably wouldn't post that Luka piece, since my main beef with him isn't his existence so much what it says about or society that large parts of the fandom l o v e s him but is all "ew, Kagami" even though she's objectively a far better character. I'm not sure I'd do the NO. 6 piece either - I mean, it consisted of a separate preface about adaptation theory and that no, I don't in fact think the anime in particular is good but jesus christ, neither are the novels. The issue is that the fandom has recently got into reading a lot more meaning into said novels than I suspect they ever were supposed to have, and I don't particularly want to get into the it's-not-that-deep-fam debates with people who are political about them.

I remember the content of these essays well enough. I can re-trace them and make the same points, and at least that NO. 6 one, I can maybe get RIGHT rather than being torn between two pretty good but not perfect versions. And ultimately - what's the use of hauling around essays on fandom topics that nobody would ever read? I mean, I like going back to read them sometime, probably just becaues I like my own points. If nothing else, maybe this could be a lesson in having the courage to say things before the chance is gone.

Or maybe just something about using a file format that only allows for undoing one thing.

F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it?

I'm not sure what the correct terminology for myself would be - I don't consider myself a fandom butterfly at all, and as my history with Hikaru no Go and Kyo Kara Maoh well should prove, I'm not the person who jumps at anything that's shiny and new. I find something to love, and I swear to god I always think that I'll stay there forever until a new flame comes along and I get curious and suddenly I'm spending more time on the New Thing and feel vaguely guilty about it. (I'm sorry, NO. 6. I still love you, I promise)

I made an attempt at my personal fandom history a few months back.

Going by that, the longest I've been in what I'd consider my "main fandom" would be either Hikaru no Go or Hetalia, both at around four years. I'd pick Hetalia over Hikago, simply because I was more active there.

The worst thing about all the time I've spent on fandom through the years is unquestionably the endless text files with meta and other commentary I've written and never had the guts to post.

Seriously, to the point where I've re-installed Cold Turkey and blocked a number of websites and a single app, and you bet that app is text files because even if I can't go online, you bet there's going to be some dumb fandom topic on which I have opinions that I can detail to my heart's content even if it has like a 3% chance of ever making it online.

I'd love to say that I've avoided this at work by the mercy of keeping fandom stuff strictly off computers to which others have access, but hahaha what do you think the e-mail drafts are there for. (yes, I'm going to empty them too just to remind myself to not start down that path again)

The internet war on sex is here, about other platforms cracking down on female-presenting nipples.

Tumblr's porn ban is the middle of the end of the old internet, about the demise of noughties online platforms being bought out by the big companies and then shut down.

Tumblr's porn ban reveals who controls what we see onlin, about Apple wielding the IOS store hammer over porn on third-party platforms.

It's "YA fantasy gothic romance", apparently. I have no bloody clue where no less than two of the people writing blurbs found the 'gothic'. The romance does very much not play the narrative role you expect from something defined within the genre, and the fantasy is... somewhat the same, honestly. It is, however, written for teens, so... one out of four?

This isn't a problem with the novel as such, but with the way people are trying to sell it. You should definitely give it a try if the description below appeals to you, because I enjoyed it a lot. The "a lot" because of admittedly dumb spoilery reasons I'll detail under the cut. Overall, it is funny and occasionally touching and I liked all of the main cast.

The best summary I can give is probably this fine illustration, greeting you as you turn the page to the first chapter:



In more detail: Neglected British child goes to ~magical school~, keeps on being somewhat of an outsider there and spends his days with genius girl who is also somewhat of an outsider, and part of every summer holiday with the cheerful family of a boy who is very much a part of the establishment.

Or: Blaming the victim is always wrong but even slightly-shorter-than-average-for-his-age Elliot Schafer knows that he'd have an easier time if he wasn't compulsed to sass popular kids who taller and stronger than him. And at least he's not beat up in diplomacy classes in The Border Camp of The Otherlands, where he elected to stay because of the hot elf babe Serene-Heart-In-The-Chaos-Of-Battle. Unfortunately, Serene has attached herself to Luke Sunborn, who is tall and strong and popular and Elliot is most certainly not his friend, don't be disgusting.

Yes the core of the plot is inescapably Potter, but that's about as far as the similarities go. The standard fantasy plot of "ending a war and saving the world" is nominally there, but takes a definite backseat to Elliots social and romantic going-ons. Elliot, Serene and Luke are about as far removed from Harry, Hermione and Ron as you get. Elliot is bookish but otherwise unremarkable, Serene is a culturally out-of-sync warrior. Luke is... an inversion of Ron Weasly, mostly: the kind and polite and introverted and unconsciously popular kid who excells at everything concerning sports and martial arts, descending from one of the most revered families in the land. Also, there's this thing about Elliot worshipping the ground on which Serene walks so loudly and so out of character for him that no-one thinks he means it. There's his on-going, one-sided contempt of everything that is Luke Sunborn. The dynamics are so different that you'd be hard-pressed to get Hogwarts flashbacks except for the few reminders that Elliot's dad is a dick.

The illustration hints at the tone. In Other Lands follows Elliot through ages thirteen to seventeen, for his education in ~magical school~. Since Elliot is a precocious bookworm full of salt and vinegar, his narrative is a running line of snark about most everything - that is, when he's not lapsing exceedingly poetic about Serene's virtues. Four years are crammed into fourhundredandsome pages, and it's hardly a surprise that the fantasy keystones of "worldbuilding" and "political plot" take a definite backseat here. More than anything, this is a novel about growing up and becoming a better person, and I - at least - certainly think that shit is more entertaining if it comes through mermaid fanboying and casual elvish sexism ("A woman's experience of blood and pain is, naturally, what makes womenkind particularly suited for the battlefield. Whereas men are the softer sex, squeamish about blood in the main. I know it's the same for human men, Luke was extremely disinclined to discuss my first experience of a woman's menses.")

There's a plotline about a theatre club setting up the Romeo and Juliet of The Otherlands. For god's sake.

Yes, this is essentially a high school AU set in Narnia. It was not terribly surprising, when googled, that this started out as an "online novel". And wouldn't you know it: On the author's webpage, the commentaries she'd made to her work as she initially published it was links to good ole' eljay.

I have to talk about that, of course. Because I definitely suspect that part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much, was that there are elements of this book that definitely read like fanfic. Less so than The Captive Prince, for what it's worth.

SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT.

( i shipped it from like page two )

I have absolutely no idea where I caught wind of The Captive Prince, but it must've been online and it was probably fandom. This is very fitting, of course, since you won't have to search long to discover that this trilogy began on LJ, and I'm 80% certain the author has a background in fandom. Remove the context of paper, ink, blurbs and the author's full name, and you might as well be left with the AO3 tag set of Damen/Laurent fantasy au, slow burn, slavery kink, enemies to lovers. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but it reads incredibly fanfic-y.

Which means it went down in like three or four days, of course.

( It's better than it sounds )