LJ and Fanfiction
Fanfiction is part of my life. I have fandom friends, most of whom I met through reading and or betaing their fic and many of whom I follow on LJ.
I love learning more about these authors, and I feel privileged to call many of them friends.
But I hate reading fanfiction on LJ. It never occurred to me that LJ would be the biggest source for fanfiction.
I came to fanfic relatively late in the game. 'Zines were never my primary source for them. I own a couple in obscure fandoms that haven't been covered by Foresmutters or other projects to bring them to the net. I started with the UCSL list (Unconventional Relationshippers in the Buffy fandom). Lists are fine. But they are intensive for writers and can be so for readers.
I am no longer on several lists or maintain my presence merely for posting rights thanks to internal wars among participants. There is one person whose mere presence on a list has caused me to go dark on-list from that point forward because she has fouled the nest of every single list she's touched. And yet, most of my fellow readers and writers think she's a wonderful human being who only defends her most beloved authors.
When the Smallville fandom was cranking up, somewhere around the second episode a slashdom.com community was set up with automatic story upload. I thought I'd found heaven. I can go to that site (or Alphagate for Stargate) and find authors whose stories have touched me. I can search by pairing. I can ask for a random story and maybe find someone new to read.
These halcyon days didn't last long. LJ was coming up on the radar, and people started posting their own stuff in their own journals. Tags have made searching for stories easier, of course, but the simple mechanisms in place at story sites just aren't possible at either individual blogs or even most communities. It is virtually impossible to search LJ for new stories. I am an observer or participant in many communities that I never post in merely to be able to occasionally read stories that interest me.
I love the little niceties of fanfiction fandom. oxoniensis runs two comment length porn battles per year. I often find myself participating in fandoms that had never occurred to me. yuletide was introduced to me a couple of years ago, and I will be a participant this year. I did last year's Heroes big bang, and am kicking myself for missing this year's Criminal Minds one.
But, in general, I think LJ fragments the fandoms. It's great for finding your tribe if you're into something terribly obscure or way off the beaten path.
It can be stultifying too. If you're only interacting with your tribe, the ones who only write your favorite pairing your favorite way, the stories themselves can become cliche. Fanon slowly edges out canon, or authors complain of having been jossed out of their favorite AU. It will happen anyway, but I think open posting websites are far better overall for good writing than LJ is.
If anyone is interested in reading my stuff, riverfox has been kind enough to give me space at her website which holds almost every fanfiction story I've ever written. (There are several stories I wrote for a challenge list that I lost when my hard drive fried. Since the list and the website died, I no longer have those stories anywhere.) Many of them are slash, even more of them are porn. I really don't expect most of my friends list to be interested in it.
The website can be found here for anyone who is interested. The ratings are right. If you don't want explicit, don't read FRAO or NC-17. If slash bothers you, back away slowly from the male/male pairings.
I love learning more about these authors, and I feel privileged to call many of them friends.
But I hate reading fanfiction on LJ. It never occurred to me that LJ would be the biggest source for fanfiction.
I came to fanfic relatively late in the game. 'Zines were never my primary source for them. I own a couple in obscure fandoms that haven't been covered by Foresmutters or other projects to bring them to the net. I started with the UCSL list (Unconventional Relationshippers in the Buffy fandom). Lists are fine. But they are intensive for writers and can be so for readers.
I am no longer on several lists or maintain my presence merely for posting rights thanks to internal wars among participants. There is one person whose mere presence on a list has caused me to go dark on-list from that point forward because she has fouled the nest of every single list she's touched. And yet, most of my fellow readers and writers think she's a wonderful human being who only defends her most beloved authors.
When the Smallville fandom was cranking up, somewhere around the second episode a slashdom.com community was set up with automatic story upload. I thought I'd found heaven. I can go to that site (or Alphagate for Stargate) and find authors whose stories have touched me. I can search by pairing. I can ask for a random story and maybe find someone new to read.
These halcyon days didn't last long. LJ was coming up on the radar, and people started posting their own stuff in their own journals. Tags have made searching for stories easier, of course, but the simple mechanisms in place at story sites just aren't possible at either individual blogs or even most communities. It is virtually impossible to search LJ for new stories. I am an observer or participant in many communities that I never post in merely to be able to occasionally read stories that interest me.
I love the little niceties of fanfiction fandom. oxoniensis runs two comment length porn battles per year. I often find myself participating in fandoms that had never occurred to me. yuletide was introduced to me a couple of years ago, and I will be a participant this year. I did last year's Heroes big bang, and am kicking myself for missing this year's Criminal Minds one.
But, in general, I think LJ fragments the fandoms. It's great for finding your tribe if you're into something terribly obscure or way off the beaten path.
It can be stultifying too. If you're only interacting with your tribe, the ones who only write your favorite pairing your favorite way, the stories themselves can become cliche. Fanon slowly edges out canon, or authors complain of having been jossed out of their favorite AU. It will happen anyway, but I think open posting websites are far better overall for good writing than LJ is.
If anyone is interested in reading my stuff, riverfox has been kind enough to give me space at her website which holds almost every fanfiction story I've ever written. (There are several stories I wrote for a challenge list that I lost when my hard drive fried. Since the list and the website died, I no longer have those stories anywhere.) Many of them are slash, even more of them are porn. I really don't expect most of my friends list to be interested in it.
The website can be found here for anyone who is interested. The ratings are right. If you don't want explicit, don't read FRAO or NC-17. If slash bothers you, back away slowly from the male/male pairings.