Poll: Consensus, Part One

[thefourthvine]

So. I miss talking to and hearing from y'all. But I'm suffering from a tiny problem, namely absence of any ability to finish anything. Someday I hope to be able to write actual useful sentences that connect to other sentences again, but today is not that day, so I'm going to do a themed poll series instead of meta or a themed recs post. (There are only three parts to this themed poll set, but I realize that, from me, three posts is totally massive spamming. My apologies in advance.)

The poll's theme is: consensus.

In part one, below, I'm going to try to establish my relative fannish sanity by consensus. To do so, I need to take you on a brief tour of my brain, focusing on two particular fannish things it does that I'm starting to suspect are - well, weird. (And keep in mine I'm judging myself compared to other fans; we'd already be considered insane by many of Them Folks Out There.)

We will now depart on our trip through TFV's brain. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Imaginary Fandoms. I have, um, imaginary fandoms. I don't mean original fiction that I tell myself - I mean original fandoms, where I come up with, for example, a long and detailed original story, and then entertain myself with considering - and sometimes, um, even writing - various types of fan fiction or kerfluffles or meta that might result from given installments of the story. Sometimes I do, like, a TV series, and cast it with imaginary actors and plan out both FPF and RPF. In my most recent imaginary fandom, I've even begun mentally vidding it.

These imaginary fandoms hit basically all my buttons, of course. I'm not actually going to describe this in any kind of detail, because, um, oh my god so embarrassing that I kind of want to die just from typing it out, but the current one involves time traveling teams (one "temporal scientist" and one assassin-ish type) from the future. The main team, at this point (in my head, we have arrived roughly at book or season three), has uncovered evidence that they are working for - and trapped by, and no, I'm not even going to elaborate on the whole legal enslavement aspect, because I do not want to die of embarrassment - an organization of extremely questionable ethics and purpose, which opposes an organization that also has extremely questionable ethics and purpose. Oh, and the timestream, which they're supposed to protect, is slowly dissolving.

I have assorted mental fan fiction for this story, all carefully tagged to various chapters or episodes. I have, as I said, mental vids. I entertained myself on one long, hideous drive to Pasadena imagining the meta resulting from the end of book or season one.

I'm pretty sure that all this is the very definition of sad and pathetic. But, hey, this is fandom - maybe we all do this. Do you?

Epics That Must Not Be Read. (Term borrowed from the only other person I know for sure has written one of these. She will not be named here - unless she just wants to be - out of mercy for her.) Another thing I do is write these long, involved pieces of FF that are only for an audience of one, and that one person is me. They're always AUs of some kind, and they always start in canon and move sharply away from it, and they always entertain the hell out of me. But only me.

I've written two. The first is a BtVS story that currently stands at 80 pages of actual story, 30 more of notes and dialog, and 5 of outline, plus 10 pages of deleted scenes. It assumes that canon remains the same up to "Once More with Feeling." (Please note that "Once More with Feeling" is the only episode of BtVS season six that I've seen - and I haven't seen any of five or four, either. No, wait - I think I've seen one episode in season four. My point is, the first clue I had to the ETMNBR status of this beast was that I was writing in canon I hadn't seen.) At that point, a single line changes, and this massively alters everything from then on. In terms of timeline, I've written up to where season nine would have been if there had been one, and I know how things will resolve in season ten.

There are only two people in the world who would be interested in this story; one is me, and the other is Best Beloved. We've both read it. I know it's an ETMNBR, so I'm not worried about finishing it. But I re-read it fairly regularly, and I still write on it from time to time, because it entertains me so damned much.

The other one is much more embarrassing because I didn't realize it was an ETMNBR until after I sent it to be beta-read. It's also rather long (and needs to be much, much longer), an AU that assumes canon up to a certain point and then sharply diverges, and entertaining only to me. (My poor, poor betas - some of them actually read the fucker, and provided really helpful, thoughtful, useful comments - in short, they helped me make a story that was interesting only to me even more interesting. To me. At the cost of a lot of their time and effort. I would send them flowers and chocolate except that I'm embarrassed to speak to them.)

Now for consensus. Feel free to judge harshly.

[Poll #851020]

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

First, your current imaginary fandom is my imaginary fandom too. Time-travel and assassins? Did you not notice my imaginary meta and song-fic on that drive? (I am so excited about the whole idea of time-travelling scientists and assassins that it took me three goes to spell "assassins", and then another pass to realise it doesn't actually have a "u" in it).

Also, my ETMNBR . . . was posted. All of them. (Except the half written ones and the finished modern-day one that I showed to some people and then I started the sequel, OMG). I really and honestly never expected anyone else to want to read about gay Victorian soldiers (and assassins) in assorted lost valleys and on other planets, and was humbly surprised that people did. But the stories are still for me. Though the long and excruciating developments pre- and post- story for some of them remain on my computer/"safely" within my brain. . . . there's nothing like a bit of Victorian sexual shenanigans for ghetting one - or at least me - through a staff meeting. Just saying).

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Also, and I'm not convince I can actually type this out loud, so to speak, there's the imaginary fandom what got eaten in the old computer when my brother kicked it across the room in a fit of righteous fraternal rage (all perfectly reasonable at the time, honest): Iron Ages elves in space. With the stories and the sociological notes and the encyclopedia. Oh, dear God. *runs and hides*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

Oh my god. I should totally have realized that if there is another person on earth who might be interested in my imaginary fandom of the moment, it would be you. Because who else might get the importance of a temporal scientist and his legally semi-enslaved assassin partner time traveling on missions to protect the timestream?

Also, my ETMNBR . . . was posted. All of them.

Okay, but in all honesty, you are too awesome to write anything that must not be read. Sorry, but I think we have to disqualify you on the grounds of excessive talent.

But the stories are still for me. Though the long and excruciating developments pre- and post- story for some of them remain on my computer/"safely" within my brain. . . . there's nothing like a bit of Victorian sexual shenanigans for ghetting one - or at least me - through a staff meeting. Just saying).

This is the most reasonable approach to a staff meeting I have ever heard. Clearly, you are wise beyond anything I have previously encountered.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

Because who else might get the importance of a temporal scientist and his legally semi-enslaved assassin partner time traveling on missions to protect the timestream?

*makes undignified drooling noises*

You know, if you were to give me some canon details, I might have to write fic for you . . .

Also, the current wk_100 challenge is to write time travel drabbles. About assassins. I think I may have died and gone to fandom heaven.

[derien.livejournal.com]

bwahaha!