flying too high with some guy

[pensnest]

I have been very remiss about posting here, mostly because I have spent entirely too much time wandering through Reddit and becoming depressed about Fandom These Days. There's an AO3 subreddit where most of the participants seem to be children who like to show off how many views they've had, be faux-astonished at praise they've received, or whine about the stupidity of some of their commenters. It all seems so trivial. Also, they all seem to post chapter by chapter, white hot from under the typing fingers, and I have very little patience for that.

I should probably wean myself off Reddit. Far too easy to waste time there.

*

We have just watched The Buccaneers on Apple TV. It's a mixed bag, but overall, was worth watching. Looks lovely. Mostly filmed in Scotland (which explains the slightly French feel of some of the castles), and the costumes are very pretty. It also makes very little attempt at authenticity—music is modern, dancing is on the scale of "can you waltz? No? never mind, try it anyway, while we tie this hobble around your knees to make sure you don't go anywhere'. What annoys me far more is Getting The Bloody Titles Wrong, which I really should be over by now, but dammit! The second son of—well, the Brightlingsea lord must be a Duke or a Marquis (which I think they'd have made much of if he were, so he isn't, because nobody on the production team has realised he needs to be) to have a second son entitled to be called Lord, but the second son in question is not called Lord Firstname Surname, and his wife isn't addressed as Lady Husband'sFirstName, either, so they are just all over the place and I have an irrational hatred of this stuff. Grump.

However. Apparently it's more a teen romance thing than actual historical drama—it shows—but the relationships are interesting. I feel for the main heroine's dilemma in trying to figure out which beautiful chap to marry. I feel for the one who starts the season with her wedding, because she *really* didn't know what she was getting into. I feel for the abused wife who doesn't realise what is happening to her (the portrayal of the abusive husband is shudder-inducing). I feel for the lesbian lass who is trying to figure out how to be who she wants to be. And the other characters—the men, the parents—are really well drawn too, and have all kinds of quite interesting and logical problems and points of view.

So it is a series that is All About The Romance and the pitfalls, and not at all about trying to be in any way accurate to the actual behaviours of people at the time. And as such, it works surprisingly well. I found myself caring about these people, and the ramifications of Nan's situation in particular. If only I didn't get so cross about the damn titles.

*

I've not done any Snowflake Challenges so far because I've done them before and have nothing new to say. However, I guess I can point people towards my newest fic, which is actually a good nine months old (I missed Yuletide this year), so here it is for anyone who might be interested in reading a White Collar fic and missed it last year: The Fundamental Things Apply.

Comments

[jacieleigh]

It seems there have always been people who post chapter-by-chapter, whether the story is completed or not. The authors I've discussed it with admit they get more comments and feedback that way. Personally, I will not read a story posted like that. For one, I've delved into a few WIPs that were rather intriguing but were never finished despite the authors promising to do so (or I simply lost interest in waiting for the next installment and moved on). And I despise people who hold chapters for comment-ransoms ('I'll post another chapter once I get ten or more comments'. I will never leave a comment for any story with such notes, finished or not, because I dislike that tactic), but mostly because I'm not going to remember the details of a chapter for weeks or months, and I'd only have to go back and read it again. So, why bother? Why not wait until it's fully posted to read it all together? And, sad to say, no matter how excited I was seeing a summary originally posted, if it takes weeks or months for the story to be posted in full, I'll likely forget about it and read something newer that was posted in a single day more recently. Then again, I suck at leaving comments, so those authors who prefer to post chapter-by-chapter probably don't miss me at all! LOL

It's very easy to waste a lot of time online. So I limit myself to FB, DW and LJ. It's a shame DW and LJ seem so dead these days as those are the ones I like and can easily follow and FIND things again if I wish to go back. I do miss the heyday of PopSlash, where there were daily posts from someone. All the other sites, I just can't follow what the hell is going on with them! Everything is out of order or missing context. It frustrates me to try to reconstruct timelines, and I dislike when I go back to reread something and can't locate it again. Ugh!

I love the idea of the Snowflake Challenge, but sadly, I've not been very successful in finding other people with hobbies or fandoms that match my own. As my cousin would say, it seems I am unable to find my 'tribe'. But yeah, I love that people enjoy it and that it's a very active challenge. *G*

[pensnest]

I still remember how back in the day, nopseud and mickeym would post a new chapter of their epic TrickC story twice a week, and how my daughter and I would look forward to those days because there would be a new chapter! The authors had written it *all* before posting, and edited it together. I cannot understand why people don't take this approach—well, okay, I can, because I understand the urge to Post And Get Comments as soon as the last word is typed. And that's fine if it's a trivial little 1,500 word fic. But if you're going to produce an actual novel-length story (or, War and Peace, which NoPseud and MickeyM did), fer chrissake be sure it makes sense, and is the best story it can be, before you post it.

Sigh.

Popslash on LiveJournal was, for me, the peak of fandom.

At the moment, the Snowflake Challenge is too repetitive for me—I've done practically all of it before, and/or there is simply nothing new to say. Ah well. The Sunshine Challenge is at least different every time. But I'm compiling a list of possible prompts for, maybe, a mad March?

[jacieleigh]

I think I remember that story being posted every so often and they said it was a completed story. But yeah, I always planned to read it once it was fully posted and I don't think I ever did. I might get behind someone posting 2-3 chapters per day until it's fully posted, but I'm just not a fan of waiting for days between installments. I agree, it's always better to wait, let a story settle and do some editing and polishing before posting. But I also remember being new and wanting to post stories once they were done. Although, I'm pretty sure I proofread almost everything I posted at least once or twice before posting unless I was on a time crunch. Like for fic_requests, I may have posted something pretty quickly because I was about to leave the house for the day! LOL

I did post my epic 263K-word, 70-chapter, NCIS story as a WIP, just because I've lost so much writing to computer crashes over the years and I didn't want to lose it. It did take me 7-3/4 years to finally finish the story. And I totally appreciate all the people who stuck with it over so many years. But I'm sure I would have waited on that one as well. LOL

The great thing about PopSlash back in the day, was that the fandom was so consolidated. Pretty much everyone was on LJ. And so many people and communities were active. Until people started peeling off. I still have a soft spot for PopSlash and *NSync and imagine I always will. Nowadays, people are so spread out. There's no single spot where everyone gets together. *sigh*

[pensnest]

Now for me, the prospect of sitting down to read 100,000+ words in one lump just isn't appealing at all. It just feels like a too-big requirement of my time. Whereas regular updates worked very well! One could even post a fresh chapter every day until it's all out there. I do remember posting one of my stories on LJ in three pieces as a deliberate attempt to Get More Comments, and it worked.

Popslash on LJ worked so well. Prior to that my experience had been zines/newsgroups, and newsgroups weren't bad, but there weren't people around like turlough to act as 'hubs' and make sure everyone knew what was happening. Or indeed, weekly newsletters to make sure everyone had seen all the new stuff.

Did you see the Hot Ones footage on YouTube, Nsync eating wings with increasingly dangerous sauce and having an interview at the same time? It took me right back to the footage from twenty years ago!

[jacieleigh]

For something that's even 50K or more and maybe even 30K or more, I'd make sure I had some free time that I could read, and I may read 5-10 chapters or so per day until I was done reading it. I don't think I could read a 100K+ story in a single day. But I like that I can control what I read and if it gets to a cliffhanger, I can go on to the next chapter without having to wait for it for days, weeks, months, years and maybe have it never appear.

Posting in sections doesn't seem to help me all that much unless it's something long and posted over a long period. Even if I break things down to 2-3 days, I don't usually tend to get many comments.

I haven't found any other social network thing I like as well as LJ and DW. I like a format that is in chronological order. For my challenges, I do a lot of copy and pasting from the previous year and comparing to a previous year, so it's nice I can click a tag and find what I need in seconds.

It's a shame fandoms are so spread out these days. It's really difficult to connect with people like we used to years ago.

No! I did stumble over JC's cat food commercial, which was fun to see.

[tjs_whatnot]

Reddit terrifies me.

But yay! White Collar fic! I miss that fandom so much! Almost as much as I miss Willie Garson. 😭😭😭

❤️❤️

[pensnest]

I only discovered White Collar last year, having found it on Disney+, and enjoyed it enormously. I'm rather sad to have missed the fandom at its height, but popslash owned my life at that point.

[wenchpixie]

remember when people used to use invisible gifs to track views on LJ? Same old insecure nonsense, different toolset, I think, but it used to be kept to people's own journals.


Oooh, I've got the Buccaneers on my watchlist, because it looked frothyly fun - I hadn't realised it was filmed here though, and that's always VERY fun for me, particularly with castles as I've been to so many of them. I should delve.

[pensnest]

I have now watched (a) a film with absolutely no characterisation whatsoever (but lots of *action* sequences, bleah), and (b) a couple of episodes of a show with no likeable characters at all.

I can promise you that at least The Buccaneers will provide characters in situations that will leave you pondering what they ought to do next! And the castles are very pretty—generally more, hmm, symmetrical than your typical English stately home.

[turlough]

I've never felt tempted to explore Reddit. With how much time I end up wasting online on other things this is almost certainly a Good Thing.

I really wish more people would wait to post their long stories until they're finished and properly edited!

Yeah, that's why I don't take part in Snowflake either. I just don't have anything new to say.

[pensnest]

Not exploring Reddit is the right call, definitely.

I understand the urge to get a story out there right away... but until an author has finished writing it, it isn't actually a story. They are Doing It Rong!