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Apr. 1st, 2021 05:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sidewaysThis post is brought to you by the (possibly-probably unfounded) rumours that Fanfiction.Net might go down the gurgler and suggestions one should rescue any fics they're concerned about, and by rionaleonhart's brave deep dive into sharing and annotating their oldest work of fanfiction, which has been very entertaining and honestly adorable to read.
Unfortunately I cannot claim to be so brave. I wish I could look with kind eyes upon my oldest available fan works, but the psychological evisceration is proving enough that I keep getting up and walking away from the computer screen! She was a young teenager and she was having fun and she does not deserve to be cringed at; but she was also needy and flawed and me. It's somehow a lot.
(Looking forward to coming back to these posts in another fifteen years and sighing.)
I've nonetheless managed to read a few fics, and despite the existential mortification there are some real reflective gems to be plucked out.
• The featured archive is my first Fanfiction.net account - there'd be another two after this as I repeatedly tried to distance myself from the shame of being me. They're also not my oldest fanworks, being predated by some stories on a Halo forum that I have to assume is well and truly lost to time. If I recall they mostly featured some Marine OCs in high-octane action-adventure dramatics modelled on both the works of Matthew Reilly and the other Halo fanauthors, and a WIP about the Master Chief finding a half-Elite girl, because of course.
• It was active from July 2004 (14 year old Winger) to July 2005 (15 year old Winger - and the exact month I discovered The Forum). I wrote 30 fics over the year's span, the longest of which was a 12k incomplete literal self-insert Bionicle fic. Where did that creative energy go.
• There is only one Bionicle fic. I wrote mostly for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - no, not the comic books. The movie. The movie so terrible it killed Sean Connery's interest in acting. I was deeply, tragically, in love with it. (I'm still fond.)
• Other fandoms include The Invisible Man (the 2000s TV series), and a smattering of X-men Evolution and Jedi Apprentice era Star Wars.
• It's unfortunate I fixated so heavily on the adult movie: characters talking and emoting like teenagers is much more bearable when those characters are teenagers. The X-men: Evo fics are alright! Watching a grown man from the year 1900 call someone else a "wimp" is withering my soul on the vine.
• Can't even make myself open the songfic I wrote based on another author's LXG fic, in which the characters - again, nominally from the year 1900 - sang an Avril Lavigne song. (I remember the author left a nice comment, however. It was honestly a fandom that was surprisingly kind to the enthusiastic youngster in their midst.)
• The overarching theme of this point on my writing timeline is "I have discovered whump exists and I'm kind of into it".
• Hadn't quite shucked the homophobia yet! I had also discovered slash existed, sure, but it was... weird. ("You should know by now slash isn't my thing," one set of author's notes reads, and I can feel the judgemental lift of the nose.) It would be another year or two before I'd grow out of that; and then a few years more before I realised that continuing to often feel put-off by sex fics was itself not the height of heterosexuality :P
• It's actually quite fascinating how the basic patterns have remained the same in terms of what I like to write. "Yes, I admit it. I have this thing for filling in unseen scenes," I say circa August 2004, unknowingly describing 90% of my fanworks for the next 16 odd years. There were short, silly antics (hello, House Rules). There were pieces in which a couple of characters would have a conversation about something I found interesting in the canon (hello Kinship). There were a bunch of navel-gazey, often wangsty monologues that I was about to say I mercifully left behind me many years ago until I looked at Palamon's Last and groaned. That was specific to the stylings of the canon, dangit! I otherwise eventually learned to fold those sorts of fics into more engaging packages... which accounts for pretty much the rest of the Palamon series.
• I also had a habit of locking onto a Favourite Character and going ham about it, and, well. ...Well.
• At 14 years old I'd figured out punctuation, paragraph breaks, and the concept of letting dialogue trip along quickly by eschewing dialogue tags altogether. Alas, I had not yet grasped the power of the word "said", or that it's preferable to use someone's name many times in a row when the alternative is referring to everyone as various shades of the American, the Indian, the vampire, the gentleman thief. I also tended to float freely between the POVs of whoever was in the scene, though it was a habit that was starting to settle, and it was very amusing to see author's notes on one fic stating "I don't do accents". GOOD. I already have to tolerate my inability to not drive a speech tic into the ground, I don't need my own poor attempts at phonetically sounding out German or Cockney on top of it. (Of course, this was very much the fashion - hence the need to declare my ground and stand it, I suppose!)
• I actually think my prose is purpler now than it was then. A number of fics are downright spartan on the description, instead favouring dialogue, action, and emotional reflection conveyed almost entirely through telling. It's been a slow switch. Presumably an improvement? Hm.
• Actual description: "It was green. Really green."
• There was the expected amount of copy-catting and cliches, all defensively bracketed by self-conscious author's notes. Oh, wee thing.
• I never did write and finish a proper chapter fic. Set those standards young, I say.
• And yet I am still left staring in incredulous envy at the 7k fic I assume I pumped out in a day or two. Where did it go.
rionaleonhart's brave deep dive into sharing and annotating their oldest work of fanfiction, which has been very entertaining and honestly adorable to read.Unfortunately I cannot claim to be so brave. I wish I could look with kind eyes upon my oldest available fan works, but the psychological evisceration is proving enough that I keep getting up and walking away from the computer screen! She was a young teenager and she was having fun and she does not deserve to be cringed at; but she was also needy and flawed and me. It's somehow a lot.
(Looking forward to coming back to these posts in another fifteen years and sighing.)
I've nonetheless managed to read a few fics, and despite the existential mortification there are some real reflective gems to be plucked out.
• The featured archive is my first Fanfiction.net account - there'd be another two after this as I repeatedly tried to distance myself from the shame of being me. They're also not my oldest fanworks, being predated by some stories on a Halo forum that I have to assume is well and truly lost to time. If I recall they mostly featured some Marine OCs in high-octane action-adventure dramatics modelled on both the works of Matthew Reilly and the other Halo fanauthors, and a WIP about the Master Chief finding a half-Elite girl, because of course.
• It was active from July 2004 (14 year old Winger) to July 2005 (15 year old Winger - and the exact month I discovered The Forum). I wrote 30 fics over the year's span, the longest of which was a 12k incomplete literal self-insert Bionicle fic. Where did that creative energy go.
• There is only one Bionicle fic. I wrote mostly for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - no, not the comic books. The movie. The movie so terrible it killed Sean Connery's interest in acting. I was deeply, tragically, in love with it. (I'm still fond.)
• Other fandoms include The Invisible Man (the 2000s TV series), and a smattering of X-men Evolution and Jedi Apprentice era Star Wars.
• It's unfortunate I fixated so heavily on the adult movie: characters talking and emoting like teenagers is much more bearable when those characters are teenagers. The X-men: Evo fics are alright! Watching a grown man from the year 1900 call someone else a "wimp" is withering my soul on the vine.
• Can't even make myself open the songfic I wrote based on another author's LXG fic, in which the characters - again, nominally from the year 1900 - sang an Avril Lavigne song. (I remember the author left a nice comment, however. It was honestly a fandom that was surprisingly kind to the enthusiastic youngster in their midst.)
• The overarching theme of this point on my writing timeline is "I have discovered whump exists and I'm kind of into it".
• Hadn't quite shucked the homophobia yet! I had also discovered slash existed, sure, but it was... weird. ("You should know by now slash isn't my thing," one set of author's notes reads, and I can feel the judgemental lift of the nose.) It would be another year or two before I'd grow out of that; and then a few years more before I realised that continuing to often feel put-off by sex fics was itself not the height of heterosexuality :P
• It's actually quite fascinating how the basic patterns have remained the same in terms of what I like to write. "Yes, I admit it. I have this thing for filling in unseen scenes," I say circa August 2004, unknowingly describing 90% of my fanworks for the next 16 odd years. There were short, silly antics (hello, House Rules). There were pieces in which a couple of characters would have a conversation about something I found interesting in the canon (hello Kinship). There were a bunch of navel-gazey, often wangsty monologues that I was about to say I mercifully left behind me many years ago until I looked at Palamon's Last and groaned. That was specific to the stylings of the canon, dangit! I otherwise eventually learned to fold those sorts of fics into more engaging packages... which accounts for pretty much the rest of the Palamon series.
• I also had a habit of locking onto a Favourite Character and going ham about it, and, well. ...Well.
• At 14 years old I'd figured out punctuation, paragraph breaks, and the concept of letting dialogue trip along quickly by eschewing dialogue tags altogether. Alas, I had not yet grasped the power of the word "said", or that it's preferable to use someone's name many times in a row when the alternative is referring to everyone as various shades of the American, the Indian, the vampire, the gentleman thief. I also tended to float freely between the POVs of whoever was in the scene, though it was a habit that was starting to settle, and it was very amusing to see author's notes on one fic stating "I don't do accents". GOOD. I already have to tolerate my inability to not drive a speech tic into the ground, I don't need my own poor attempts at phonetically sounding out German or Cockney on top of it. (Of course, this was very much the fashion - hence the need to declare my ground and stand it, I suppose!)
• I actually think my prose is purpler now than it was then. A number of fics are downright spartan on the description, instead favouring dialogue, action, and emotional reflection conveyed almost entirely through telling. It's been a slow switch. Presumably an improvement? Hm.
• Actual description: "It was green. Really green."
• There was the expected amount of copy-catting and cliches, all defensively bracketed by self-conscious author's notes. Oh, wee thing.
• I never did write and finish a proper chapter fic. Set those standards young, I say.
• And yet I am still left staring in incredulous envy at the 7k fic I assume I pumped out in a day or two. Where did it go.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-01 11:23 am (UTC)I laughed aloud at this.
The overarching theme of this point on my writing timeline is "I have discovered whump exists and I'm kind of into it".
This is delightful. There's something so strangely endearing about looking back at your old writing and seeing your interests developing.
Actual description: "It was green. Really green."
APPLAUSE
I love this entry! I'm glad that Rachel's Pokémon Journey could have a hand in bringing it about, although I'm also slightly sorry for any embarrassment caused.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 03:00 am (UTC)I also randomly discovered a few weeks ago that I can recover and open my ancient ClarisWorks/AppleWorks documents and retrieved an ancient unfinished Slayers Try fic that - I'm actually tempted to slap an ending on and post when I figure out how I meant to end it/an acceptable substitute... (It's not good, but it has a lot of charm, somehow. And also there's an unironic "let out a breath [character] didn't know they were holding"! No, I will not cut it. Teen!me's poor writerly choices must be preserved.)
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 05:03 am (UTC)Pleeeease give that Slayers fic the limelight it deserves. Is it difficult to figure out where you were going with it?
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 04:04 pm (UTC)I will do my best! Probably not too difficult to figure out something, it's just a matter of discipline. (... my writerly discipline has hit ROCK BOTTOM in the last, uh, year. Not having anywhere to go and do some hand-writing is difficult, and being always at home with internet and XBox to distract me is a problem. /o\ )
no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 04:08 am (UTC)It sounds like younger you was having a lot of fun! These works all sounds cute. I'm especially fond of the idea of an Avril Lavigne songfic; I certainly wore out her first CD (still have it around somewhere even though it skips too much to be listened to). I'm glad that person was kind to you.
I recently read some of my old fic that I still happen to have too and the cringe feeling is real! "I keep getting up and walking away from the computer screen!" <<<--- I understand this wholeheartedly lol. But it is fun to find positive takeaways. I think some of the stuff I wrote was genuinely funny.
I wasn't really into writing too much when I was in middle and high school tho, instead I drew (manga ofc... lol). This reminded me of how much Bionicles fanart I drew when I was younger, but drawing them was too hard so I turned them all into humans lol.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 05:05 am (UTC)Is looking back at old art less of a cringey feeling than old writing? It seems that way to me, but I could just be kidding myself.
no subject
Date: 2021-04-21 12:13 am (UTC)Hmm, I think it does have less of a cringey feeling than writing because it's easier to notice how much you've improved at a glance. Sometimes people even redraw an old piece of theirs because old art is kind of cute to look at and compare to your current skill (at least that's how I feel). People who are harsher on themselves might not want to see their old art at all though, so I guess like everything: it depends on the person ^-^
no subject
Date: 2021-04-02 05:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-11 05:07 am (UTC)