Eight Days of Happiness: Storyfinders Communities. And Poetry.

[thefourthvine]

The Ones That Suggests Some Plots I Never, Ever Want to Read. And Some I'm Delighted I Already Have. Found and Searching, by linabean.

Know this: I love storyfinders communities. I love them unashamedly, unabashedly, unironically. One of the first things I do in a new fandom is hunt down the local storyfinders. Yes, there are some risks inherent in this - every tenth post on one of these communities is absolutely horrifying, and every fortieth makes me recoil from the screen, cover my ears, rock in my desk chair, and weep silently for my people.

And yet. And yet. The other entries are educational! Every time someone posts, I learn what people consider the money shot of any story. (Hint, anyone out there who is searching for either the story that starts with a spanking that John gets because of Rodney or the one where they find all the extra control chairs called cathedrae: it's Indelible, it's by Shaenie, and there's about a million words of awesomeness and plot between those two apparently very memorable points. Enjoy!) I also learn that there are many kinds of people in my fandoms, and some of them are very different from me. Some of them even seem to speak an entirely different language than any of those ever spoken on the planet earth. (This means I am sharing my fandom with aliens! I am always delighted by that news. Hi, aliens! Hi hi hi hi hi!) But most of all, I just love seeing what people look for. Sometimes I get links to stories I've read and loved and need to put on my Kindle. Sometimes I get links to great stories I somehow missed. And sometimes I get links to stories that are so mind-bogglingly horrible that I have to tell myself the person was just searching for it because she was trying to deal with a very serious story-induced trauma head-on.

But, as much as I love storyfinders communities, I love these poems even more. They capture everything that's fabulous about the communities. (The desperate tone! The pleas for help! The one where McKay is turned into a puppy with many exclamation points, like this: !!!) And they also capture an awful lot of the essence of SGA fandom. And then they create something entirely new, all in themselves - I mean, these are really awesome poems.

I smile helplessly every time I read these. And then I giggle a lot. And then I want to cuddle fandom to me. And then I want to slap it in the face. These poems bring me many feelings, is my point. But the dominant one is happiness. Pure, unadulterated joy that there could be something so awesome that storyfinders communities are only one small part of it, and that someone could take a segment of that awesomeness and distill it and purify it and make it even better.

Fandom, I big pink line you. Totally.

Comments

[ellen_fremedon]

I love those poems SO MUCH.

My favorite stanza is

McKay gets zapped by some machine
Rodney
and Teyla
get zapped
by something.

which (possibly by design) always makes me think of

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

[idlerat]

Me too. I mean, no, it doesn't especially remind me of 13 ways, but the poems are really just amazingly wonderful.

[norah]

I BIG PINK LINE YOU TOO.

[thefourthvine]

YOU ARE MY FAVORITE PINK LINE IN ALL OF HISTORY.

[copracat]

Your joy makes my day shinier.

[thefourthvine]

Thank you!

[eisen]

I like these poems!

... but what does "I big pink line you" mean. I have no idea.

the same thing as less then three

[eileenlufkin]

There is a way to make a pink heart in a post. (I don't know how, but I've seen posts with it.) If done wrong, or possibly if the person you are posting to has different settings, it just makes a big pink line. So "I big pink line you" means the same thing as I <3 you.

[idlerat]

I must be the last person in the world to see those pieces of Linabean's - I really wasn't on LJ at all around them. So thank you so much for linking them. So special!

And indeed all your happy links this week have been happy making for me. :)

[thefourthvine]

You aren't the last person in the world! And I'm so glad you've seen them now, for they are the definition of YAY.

And I'm glad you've been enjoying the 8 days!

[ratherbe4gotten]

As someone who helps run the insanely busy spnstoryfinders on lj I'm glad to hear you like XD

I love them too! I have to read through every post I accept and some of the things people are looking for just kills me... but more than that it's the fact that chances are someone somewhere will have written it... and then, against all probability, someone else will wander past and take the time to tell the OP where they can find that one particular fic where Sam and Dean hunt monsters wearing sparkly princess tiaras >.<  

[cofax7]

... and now I want to write that story with the sparkly princess tiaras.


*g*

[dhara]

omg, I almost posted looking for Indelible recently! And then found it on my own, so yay. (FWIW, it's one of those where I was like, "It's that one with JOHN AND MATH." Specifically that one scene where John is having a Math Moment, and Rodney reaches for his notepad and John stabs him in the hand with a pen. Except, you know, I would've posted exactly that description, knowing full well I was completely failing to remember huge tracts of the story except for a general fond feeling of awesomeness, and people were going to judge me for being That Weird Girl, With The Thing About John/Math.)

...I fucking love that story so much. *happy sigh*

[nakedbee]

Oh my! I had previously not paid any attention to storyfinders communities and I have to thank you for bringing this glaring gap in my fannish experience to my attention. It is both fascinating and just a little addictive to see what other people are searching for.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for sharing those! &hearts

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Aren't they WONDERFUL? Seriously, linabean is a genius of no minor order.

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

I adore story finding communities too! I ended up maintaining one in Merlin fandom (merlin_finders) and going through checking the tags and carefully reading entries and comments I might have missed brings me much delight every day!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Merlin finders! I had no idea you ran that one! I joined it without very high hopes, because the fandom was so new that surely there would not be very many awesome summaries, but I reckoned without fandom's fabulous ability to a) forget something basically the instant it's finished and b) remember only one really embarrassing part, or remember most of it, but be unable to describe it at all. <3!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I love storyfinders comms, but I won't lie. I love them totally ironically. I don't think I've ever seen a story requested and wanted to read it, but the posts are my daily dose of hilarity.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I've seen stories requested and TOTALLY wanted to read them. (And then, very often, I am utterly horrified, but that's a different thing.) You have more irony than I do!

*is not ashamed*

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

I am CRYING from laughing so hard. Thanks so much for reccing those!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Are they not awesome? For maximum, joy, read them aloud!

[annakovsky.livejournal.com]

Oh MAN, those are awesome.

Every time someone posts, I learn what people consider the money shot of any story.

HEEEE, that is SO VERY TRUE, and amazing. It's so funny what people remember. Also, I love storyfinder comms because the stories invariably sound SO APPALLING when summarized by someone who doesn't quite remember them. To the point where at least once I've been reading one, thought to myself, "Oh my GOD, who would write something that horrible" and then realized they were talking about something I had written. HAHA OH NO.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, YES. I once thought that someone should do a special storyfinders challenge - summarize a classic work (in fandom or out of it) in the style of storyfinders! ("I don't remember much, but it was about this girl. I am pretty sure she was a lady, and she met this guy, and he was like rude and stuff, but then it all turned out okay because they were secretly in LOVE. And she had some funny sisters, I think.")

And there was the week I was convinced that someone was running that kind of challenge, except it required you to post your summary to an actual storyfinders community. (That was the Week of Resonant in SGA. Every other entry was a really well-known Resonant story. Sometimes the same one, in a very limited space of time.)

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

I recently discovered that someone searched for one of my stories on a story finder site. It was interesting to see what stuck in their head when they went looking for it, but it was also a little uncomfortable, because while I'm proud of the scene in context, when described on its own it sounds...either stupid or incredibly classist.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Fear not! All stories sound incredibly stupid when viewed through the storyfinders lens. It's part of the charm of the concept! (No, I am not kidding. See annakovsky's comment, above. Everyone has had that experience of going, "Um, I don't know about this - WAIT THAT'S MY STORY.")

[laura47.livejournal.com]

your warnings should have kept me from reading this in a computer cluster, but nooo... and i've never even watched stargate!

when i graduate
i am going to
lead a secret mission
to save over a hundred puppies
from a ritual sacrifice

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the computer cluster was enlivened by your laughter. Um. I hope no one was studying for a test or anything, though.

And you don't NEED to have watched SGA, is the beauty of this. You just need to know fandom. And then there is glee!

*apologizes to your computer cluster*

[malnpudl.livejournal.com]

I love those poems with every molecule of my great big fannish heart!

I cannot WAIT for the vid -- and that happy anticipation is doubled because I was one of the three or four dozen podficcers who contributed recordings of the first poem. *happyflail*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

THERE IS A VID COMING? How did I not KNOW THAT?

(And there's podfic? Where where where where where where where?)

I am out of the fannish loop, obviously. Please bring me back in!

[busaikko]

I remember being all bouncy when Found came out, because I *swear* one of those searches was mine *g* I got taken way down a peg in HP fandom, when someone searched for my epic fic by asking for 'the one with the vegan chocolate cake recipe'. I guess words come and go, but cake is indelible! Thanks for the recs, you find such good stuff!

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I guess words come and go, but cake is indelible!

Well. Cake. I can understand the problem, there. On the one hand, epic story. On the other hand, CAKE. I guess it's better to be remembered for your cake than to be totally forgotten?

(And Patricia C. Wrede once had a story sent back from an editor because she failed to include the recipe for the chocolate cake she mentioned in it. Moral of the stories, here: writing about chocolate cake is DANGEROUS.)

[badesquisse.livejournal.com]

OMG, I'm SO glad I stumbled upon your journal not a week ago, because I've never seen these two gems before, and just a thought that I could have missed them! I knew my fandom was crazy, and ridiculous, and outright insane sometimes, but that just capped it. I have 3 stories in my mind from a year ago when I just started reading SGA, that I'd like to find someday, and two of them I remember for sexual situations, one for the first line. Oh yeah, I fit right in.

About that storyfinders analysis community that you discussed with annakovsky - an enthusiastic YES with both hands! I'm just the right kind of insane and a geek for this fandom to be my natural habitat, so I always want to see more meta numbers about fics, authors, readers, etc. My blue dream is to organize fandom population census with like 50 pages of questions.

On serious note, if it's not too much trouble, maybe you could point me in the direction of real statistics for fanfiction (preferably SGA fandom, but others will do, too), and if it's been done psychological analysis of said statistics? I think that's what interests me most - what fanfiction preferences tell about people in general and a person in particular (be it an author or a reader).

Fun fact: I bookmarked those poems on Delicious, and the server supplied "recycle" for Recommended tags.

Sv.

"The important thing is: they have sex." (c)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

OMG, I'm SO glad I stumbled upon your journal not a week ago, because I've never seen these two gems before, and just a thought that I could have missed them!

I'm glad you found this LJ, too, because NO ONE should miss those poems. They are masterworks. And also, I hear laughter is good for you.

I have 3 stories in my mind from a year ago when I just started reading SGA, that I'd like to find someday, and two of them I remember for sexual situations, one for the first line. Oh yeah, I fit right in.

You do indeed. And, um - you realize it is a violation of the Fannish Decency Act to mention that you have those stories and then not include the parts you remember, right?

About that storyfinders analysis community that you discussed with [info]annakovsky - an enthusiastic YES with both hands!

You should go tell her so! We need MORE YES VOTES.

maybe you could point me in the direction of real statistics for fanfiction

...I totally can't. Every four minutes, we get people asking us to take surveys for various theses/dissertations/papers/whatever, but I never see anyone providing the results (even though by human subjects rules, they SHOULD). Maybe I'm just not paying attention? You could have a look at the Journal of Transformative Works and Cultures (http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc), though. They must know of something there.

[stasha2g]

I love storyfinding comms. :)

People remember such odd and random things, so the requests are like small logic puzzles to be solved. Sometimes with an added alien to human translation element, and often solvable just by googling all the terms mentioned, but still! Puzzles! I love puzzles.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I am glad I am not alone in my love of these communities! And, yes, PUZZLES. Possibly that's part of why they appeal to me. I have an active puzzle drive. *g*

[ariadne83]

I always enjoy re-reading those :D

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Man, who doesn't? That linabean is brilliant, is what she is.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

this is trufax. I keep looking at the story finders for tagging purposes, and possibly the occasional new-to-me story, but mainly for the searches themselves.

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

The searches are MAGIC. I mean, yeah, I do keep an open for old favorites, but mostly it's for the pure artistry in the posts themselves. (And I think linabean did an awesome job of distilling said artistry.)

[aurora]

I love storyfinders communities. I love them unashamedly, unabashedly, unironically. One of the first things I do in a new fandom is hunt down the local storyfinders.
Yesssssssss, I do that too! Storyfinders comms are love. And so is linabean. (Also, one of those poem lines is totally one of my searches. \o/)

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Also, one of those poem lines is totally one of my searches. \o/

YOU WIN!

[delurker.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying these posts! :D

[azurelunatic]

agh, whoever owns the domain of the archive that Indelible is on needs to renew their domain.

[bluevsgrey.livejournal.com]

The link for indelible seems to e expired at the moment. I found the story at the authors lj(http://shaenie.livejournal.com/332275.html).

Feel free to screen or delete comment or whatnot.