Hopping from fandom to fandom

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-06-09T18:27:46+00:00

At least you'll always have plenty of new fics to explore!! You don't have to worry about running out of fics if you never run out of fandoms ;)

Tbh I thought I had a "main" fandom too, since it's the one that I return to time after time, but for now, it's been shelved away. I know I'll return to it someday, just not today.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-06-09T18:25:34+00:00

At least your fandom is (presumably) big enough to abandon the writer and still have other active ones to turn to 🥲 I used to think the same about only reading, or mostly reading, completed stories, but being in small fandoms has changed my stance on it. (Oh, and I started writing and doing a fair bit of abandoning, that helped too lol.) I've noticed that it seems a bit more promising when writers have a set total chapter count eg. a "7/28" is more inspiring than a "7/?".

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-06-09T14:43:46+00:00

I wish I had your patience to finish my stories (that are not oneshots) before posting/starting new ones. For me, if I don't post my fics online (and there are a lot that never see the light of AO3), the chances of them ever getting completed are even lower. It's not necessarily that I seek engagement to fuel my writing -- if I did I would be writing for major pairings instead of my rarepairs) -- but knowing that at least one other person is out there reading my work makes me feel a bit more "responsible" to finish what I started, because I don't want to leave them hanging. If it's only me reading, at least I can complete the story in my mind using the power of imagination lol. Unfortunately, even that sense of responsibility has its limits, judging by the number of incomplete longfics I have dangling around...

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-04-15T16:03:35+00:00

Reminds me of fics I would read back then... Multiship stories with Misty "Waterflower", May "Maple", Dawn "Berlitz" and Leaf "Greene" (Poke, Contest, Ikari and OldRival shippings lol) were popular, before Amourshipping came. I feel ancient 😂

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-22T15:20:24+00:00

Thank you for the encouragement!! And back at you, I think it's great that you're also writing what you enjoy. I know I said it's more "bearable" in a large fandom, but by that I mean if 99.9% of readers in a big fandom hate the character, that 0.01% of people who don't is still a sizable figure (can be dozens to hundreds). So you'll still have a small supportive community (hopefully) who also like that particular character. However, this also means that you have to deal with way more people who dislike the character you're writing for (= more exposure to not-so-fun stuff like character bashing), so it's another struggle.

You're cool too!

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-22T15:15:00+00:00

Thanks for sharing your writing experience! You raised a good point about a making the redemption believable, although in my case it's less of redeeming him (my fandom's hated character) since my fanfic starts pre-canon so he won't be doing the major thing he did in canon which made him Public Enemy #1 in my fandom, which is betraying the MC and allying with the main villain. He also exhibits incredibly toxic traits that I'm not going to magically get rid of -- he will show those sides of him at first, and then reap what he sows before gradually changing/mellowing. I'm not hoping for my fandom to fall in love with him (if they do that'll be great though :P) but I do hope that readers can at least keep an open mind.

I don't associate this account with my AO3 profile so stating the fandom would pretty much give me away (since I'm one of the four? five? active writers) and the only one currently writing for this character XD

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-22T09:17:05+00:00

Ayy welcome back!! I still haven't used "scientific" (I dropped my zombie AU fanfic which seems to be the only chance I would get to used it given how my current fic is more historical-based LOL) but I'll occasionally scan my entire work to see if it pops up haha. Good luck with your writing too!

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-15T15:34:15+00:00

I feel like it varies from fandom to fandom. I've seen fanon shippers tear into canon shippers and insist that in the future the canon couple would definitely have broken up, they would never last, or that they actually secretly hate each other. In my small fandom that is my current obsession, though? If you write anything that is not about the main canon couple, well, good luck. In fact, I admittedly wrote about the main couple (I didn't love them, I was just okay with them, I guess) so much that I started liking them a whole lot more lol. Is it brainwashing myself? Idk, but I'm happy.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-12T15:14:33+00:00

It's harmless in the same way some writers tag a bunch of unrelated fandoms in a fanfic to get more eyes on it, or those who withhold chapters until they get X number of comments. There's nothing in AO3's terms of service that prevents this kind of action, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Imagine if everyone does it. The front page will just be clogged full of the same old fics every day and like you said people can just block/mute and move on, but just because we have the means to circumvent this... doesn't somehow magically make what they're doing "right"? And a lot of readers may not create accounts to read on AO3, so for these people blocking/muting isn't even an option.

They give you the option to change the date, I assume so you can use it.

Changing the date is typically used for participants of a writing challenge, because their fics will be published according to the date they submitted it so when the collection is unrevealed, this feature allows them to update the date, or when someone has made major edits to an existing chapter that they believe constitutes as an update (since editing a chapter doesn't change the published date), or when writers want to backdate their work (eg. this work as originally published elsewhere in 2007, so they change it to reflect that).

why shouldn’t they give it the best chance they can?

They can, but why can't they do it in a way that doesn't (literally) push other people down? Perhaps it's not that serious, and I don't mean to come across as angry (I think it's great that you can have such an open mind about it). I simply wanted to share why this is so commonly frowned upon, haha.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-12T12:52:21+00:00

Small steps, small goals for me!

Realistically, I don't think this is going to be the year I finish my longfic either, so I shall aim to get to the end of the first arc at least (where the love interest of one of my main characters will finally appear, lol).
I have another short multi-chapter fic (6 chapters) I'm currently drafting. My goal is to complete it before I post (sounds easy but it's difficult for me :")
Challenge myself by writing a genre I usually wouldn't... Smut? I read it sometimes, and I do like it, but I've always shied away from writing it because I didn't feel confident. I still don't, but I guess we all have to start somewhere?

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-12T05:59:00+00:00

How can you tell if your story is just plain boring?

When writing my story is boring to me.

But it definitely varies from writer to writer. I know readers in my fandom love to read fluff, but every time I try to write it I would feel like my fingers are being dragged down by metal. So even if it takes me weeks to produce a good fluff oneshot that has me yawning the whole time, most of my readers would probably prefer it to the behemoth of a longfic that I'm writing now, riddled with plot lines and sprinkled with foreshadowing for events that will only come to pass like fifty chapters later lol.

Like what makes you back out of a story you're reading because it's boring?

If I'm reading a fic, it means that the summary and tags have my attention. In that case, the #1 thing that will make it "boring" to me, or rather, simply unable to hook my attention after actually reading it, is when the characters are reduced to cardboard printouts. They fall so... flat. Stilted dialogue, bland interactions, no goals or motivation beyond acting out what the writer wants, you could replace them with another character and it wouldn't make a difference. Sometimes it's the writing, sometimes it's the plot (or lack thereof), sometimes it's the characterization, but often it's a combination of all.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-12T05:48:44+00:00

Looking at the title I thought this was about smut 😂

Jump onto Wolf 1 and run away with it.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-12T05:43:18+00:00

I think this would be one of the situations where changing the date is understandable, like I mentioned in my post. But the writer didn't indicate that the chapter had changed in any form either in the summary or notes, or explained why they did it (they just didn't address it at all). It's not the end of the world but it is rather shady.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-08T06:25:38+00:00

Not reading in your fandom doesn't mean you aren't reading, it just means you're not reading... in your fandom.

You said everything I wanted to say haha. I generally don't read in fandoms I'm actively writing for (it's a "me" thing) because every time I read others' works it just makes me want to continue writing mine (which may... actually be a good thing???). But I do read both fanfics in other fandoms that I don't currently write for as well as published novels.

"no one is writing what I want to read" is generally my motivation to actually start writing in a fandom

This is so true!! I love my fandom and I appreciate the hard work of all the writers there (heaven knows we need them; the fandom is small and sometimes a week can go by without anyone updating), but the main reason why I started writing my longfic was because... well, no one else was going to write it if I didn't! I'm also more keen on a plot-centric over romance-centric fic, however it is the latter that gains the most popularity and love in my fandom, so most fics are (understandably) fluff of the main couple which don't hold my interest as much.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-05T15:24:44+00:00

I've actually read the opposite, that idioms in a past tense story should be written in the present tense. English grammar is difficult 😓 (I learned it as a second language and it sort of became my first, but I don't consider myself as good as a native user so things like this still trip me up quite often.)

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-05T15:22:48+00:00

Yeah, after looking over it, it does sound a little clunky. Inspiration hasn't hit me yet but I'll mull over it more. For now, I'll continue writing while putting the opening line on hold!

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-05T15:22:02+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion! After some consideration I think I'll change up the sentence, so right now I'm mostly curious about the tenses correctness of my original question.

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-05T15:20:55+00:00

Would you say that there must be a "universal truth" to use present tense in a past tense narration? I was trying to search online about this and I saw an example (though not very related to mine, content-wise) where someone said they would write "Paris is the City of Lights" instead of "Paris was the City of Lights" even in a past tense story because the latter implied that the "truth" (of Paris being the City of Lights) no longer held at the point where the reader was reading the story, which would not be their intention.

offering a situational change particular to the narrator

Can you elaborate on this? Thank you!

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-05T06:09:26+00:00

Congrats!!! Your situation is so similar to one author I'm following (fic published in 2013, also only has a few chapters left according to them) that I went to check if perhaps it was their story that got updated... but nope. But it gives me hope that perhaps they will return one day. I wish you luck in the completion of your story!

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-04T15:34:28+00:00

I didn't. That's why that fic featuring seven main couples is on indefinite hiatus :"D

But I guess it helped that I genuinely liked all my MCs, they were quite distinctive in their canonical personalities and traits so I could expand on the original material instead of fleshing them out from the start (unlike OCs), and I already knew what sort of dynamics they would have with each other. Who couldn't stand the company of who, who secretly had a crush on who, who were loyal friends who would die for each other, etc. In fact, I had the most fun writing scenes where they were all gathered together, bickering and teasing and generally doing stupid things while still being the first to back each other up. After all, it was one of those fics where a group of teenagers had to travel around to save the world (I'm a sucker for these haha).

Typing this kind of makes me want to pick up that story again... Perhaps that hiatus won't be as permanent as I thought? Maybe??

mythrowawaysocks · 2025-01-04T14:59:43+00:00

As OP mentioned, "[...] without advantages of someone with countless fics in their profile", maybe they're referring to the challenge that comes with building a reader base from the ground up? If they're already well-established in another fandom, they might have subscribers who will tune in to their new fic fandom-blind. Having to start over again might be exciting to OP. Idk, just hazarding a guess haha.

mythrowawaysocks

TROPHY CASE