fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2940 ]

[ SECRET POST #2940 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2940 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

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02.

[Doctor Who]

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03.

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04.

[Fire Emblem Awakening]

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05.

[Sleepy Hollow]

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06.

[Agents of SHIELD]

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07.

[Babylon 5]

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08.

[Sinfest]

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09.

[Weekly Wipe with Charlie Brooker]

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10.

[Sailor Moon Crystal]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 026 secrets from Secret Submission Post #420.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Do you reread your old fanfiction? Sometimes, often, never? Do you constantly edit it forever? Do you post it again on every new platform that comes along? Have you never posted it? Do you pretend you never wrote it?

Is there one story you're really proud of? One you would burn if you could?

Basically, what's your relationship to your old stuff?

(Feel free to rec your stuff!)

Ugh. Pretty much the only things I've written that I'm proud of are porn because it is just about the only thing I can write well. My old fanfics are awful. Everything I write is always so short, and my old stuff I didn't even know how to write dialogue correctly. I always have these ideas for fics, but I can never write the details. Except porn, somehow.

I think my old fics are still up on ff.net, but I haven't gone near them in years.

I sometimes read one of those 3 fics I wrote way back when. And I just lower my head and go, WHY????

I re-read my old stuff (which is going on 20 years old!) every once in a great while. I cringe through most of it, but the only stories I've removed dealt with transgender issues--they were horrible because I didn't know enough about the topic to write anything about it at that time in my life. I might edit for typos but I never re-write anything; I look at it as showing where I was with my writing at that point in time.

I have a website with fic, but it's not up to date as I'm now on A03. I think (hope) my newer stuff is better than my older stuff.

I flip through it (and the fanart I did illustrating it) sometimes. Every 6-7 months or so, I'll remember that ff.net has stats and check them out. My most popular posted fic isn't my favorite one, but it's the longest one and in a decently popular pairing.

Some time last year, I got talking about my old stuff with an anon here and sent them one of my unfinished fics that never got posted-- the one that I'm most proud of, as you say. I had an outline for the rest of it that I added to the story, and then I expanded on that a little. I don't know what anon thought of it, if she ever got the time to read it, but it was pretty amusing to go back into the world of that story I abandoned almost 10 years ago.

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-22 02:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

ginainthekingsroad - 2015-01-22 02:34 (UTC) - Expand

My first fan fiction (that I never put online thank Christ) and that I deleted featured a relationship between a 14 year old and a 25 year old. I was 14 when I wrote it. Now that I'm 23, HOLY HELL does the idea of that skeeve me out. Ew. NO NO NO NO NO.

But it's gone. So no worries.

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-22 04:19 (UTC) - Expand

I read my old fanfiction all the time and lament how much better I was at writing back then. Most of the fic was horribly self-indulgent, but I can enjoy it because I always wrote it for myself and (sometimes along with) my real life friends and never put any of it on the internet.

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

asecretchord - 2015-01-22 03:33 (UTC) - Expand

I reread my old stuff because I generally write stuff when I can't find what I'm looking for. I still have that itch, so my writing satisfies the need I'm looking for.

Some of my really old stuff (never finished or published) is a little embarrassing but I've noticed that the romance in them felt more genuine and was pretty adorable. Now, I feel like my work is more technical -- like I've planned it all out. It's still good but it doesn't have that innocent spark any more. Rereading my stuff makes me want to finish the stories and helps me remember the spark a bit.

Overall, though, I'm actually pleased with a lot of my older fics. There's some tweaking I could do but it's not worse than a lot of stuff that people are putting out there now. I'm still not too embarrassed to have my name attached to it.

all right, so. Back in the day, literally 15 years ago, I had an extremely popular story in the Star Wars TPM fandom. The worst part? It was self-insert. Seriously. I don't know why it had such a huge following, and I apparently still have fans who re-read the entire multi-chapter unfinished-WIP annually as some kind of fandom ritual. They still email me once in a while to gush.

The writing in general wasn't bad, just the concept. I am so embarrassed by this fic, but it has such devoted followers that I'm going to have to put it up somewhere when the current archive goes down. I hate myself for that.

that aside, I only re-read fanfic for fandoms I'm still in. I haven't touched the fic from fandoms I left years ago, even though some of it I'm sure holds up. I'm really proud of one or two nuggets, naturally the ones I put the most hard work and inspiration into and the ones that get read/reviewed the least. In other words, the ones with the least amount of porn. I do write good porn, though, so there's that.

I do reread it, and tend to like it less with time. Even stuff I was really proud of when I wrote it first. I only edit for spelling or author's notes, because I feel a story should remain as it is once "published".

I wouldn't "burn" anything, though sadly that alread for of happened, as I've lost fic in computer crashes before, most notably a multi-chaptered Phantom of the Opera one.

I have one story called "Rebirth" which I think is pretty bad, but fortunately it's for a really tiny fandom so almost no-one read it.

My big thing is my WIPS which are looming over me. I made a decision to do more one-shots now.

I wrote some sickeningly sweet Stucky some time back. 'm a bit of a cliché about the tropes I like, too.

Not really reccing stuff, but my humble writings can be found here:http://archiveofourown.org/users/Kallanda_Lee/works

Also someone once made a comic out of one of m fics, which is so much awesome. So I'm going to pimp blithefool'"s work here: http://t0ynbeeee.tumblr.com/post/61519346186/blithefool-kallanda-lee-okay-so-im-super

Their tumblr is here: http://blithefool.tumblr.com/

My fic doesn't make me cringe so much as the packaging. I used to have a website back on GeoCities (which I miss so much!) and I did this thing where one of my characters did my author notes (like I wrote them in his voice).

It's so silly and cringe-worthy. I'd forgotten about it and found it not too long ago and just wondered how I thought that would be a good idea. (Especially since the character was pretty OOC and such.)

I also included my own art, and an artist I am not.

I'm picky and really, incredibly harsh on myself so it's always difficult to go back and read my old stuff. I sometimes won't look at it for a long time, although I will almost never delete things once they're out there. I think I deleted exactly one fic, and that's because I hated looking at it.

I have been surprised with how happy I still am with some of my old LOST fic - I did one called 'Requiem' featuring Ben Linus that's still linked from TVTropes' rec page, although I think the FF formatting is screwy now. When I decided to 'main' AO3 about a year ago, that was one of the fics I carried over first. It holds up, although I still think it gets a bit thin around the third act.

And last summer I did a fic for a fandom literally almost no one gives a rip about - the Pendergast books. I went in knowing it would have maybe five readers. Never regretted it. It's a good story and one of a few I think I'll be proud of even a couple years from now.

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-23 05:05 (UTC) - Expand

The thing I reread the most is a thing I have never published but still intend to. It took me three years to write and ended up being over 900,000 words (in three large parts). I'm still tweaking it but it's been done for four years now.

The amount of growth I did as a write on this fic is amazing. Literally, reading the beginning and the end is like reading two different authors.

I've tried polishing the beginning a bit because I'd like people to give it a try to get to the better parts but it just loses something and I've really moved on from the fic.

I feel like there's an audience for it since some of the tropes I used have really taken off (though I also feel like I missed my golden window). And, it seems like 900,000 words (or 205,000 for the first part) is way too long for most people and they'd just scroll on by, which makes me wonder why I should bother publishing at all.

Still intend to publish it though...

Really really old stuff I look back at and laugh, but honestly even those stories held some gems at least in terms of remembering what my past self had envisioned for them. Like, when I was ten I wrote this Pokemon story when my self-insert orchestrated this whole kidnapping of Ash and battled him into merciless submission.

I mean, yeah, it was a total suefest, but I remember this one part where Pikachu tried to use this electric type on my ground pokemon and he was like "what's going on!? why is it ineffective? i totally beat pryce's piloswine with this move!" and I was like "ELECTRIC MOVES DON'T WORK AGAINST GROUND TYPES NIMROD. YOU ONLY BEAT PRYCE BECAUSE HE TOOK PITY ON YOU! YOU ONLY GOT HALF THE BADGES YOU DID BECAUSE THE GYM LEADERS TOOK PITY ON YOU!" Aka the entire story and self-insert so I could rage at the TV writers for show/game inconsistency.

But anything I've written in... oh, the past four years still holds up really well. And I like going back and reading it from time to time, catching two year old typos, making tweaks to words and narration.

The story I'm proudest of is probably my A Two-Companion Gap series (http://archiveofourown.org/series/130563). I still go back and read it and am like "HOW THE FUCK DID I WRITE THIS DIALOGUE," especially the ending of the second part.

Wrote the first part as a one-shot after the Season 5 Doctor Who finale. I loved it and was happy that Doctor Who had finally ended a season finale on a positive note, but I was also sad that NO ONE from RTD's era of Who had gotten brought up. After seasons and seasons of each companion affecting and/or overlapping the one who came next, it was jarring.

Wrote the second part as a follow up about 4 months later. My take on the whole current doctor and companion run briefly into past doctor and companion, but with an emphasis on ontological paradoxes, fixed events, and everything has its time and everything ends.

One of my original comments described it in the following way:
"That was just...painful. But the good kind of pain. The RTD kind we love so much."

It's my most favorite comment I've ever gotten on any of my works. So much so that I tagged my fic with "the RTD kind of pain" when I eventually posted it to Ao3.

Yeah, every once in a while I'll pull up old fics I mean to finish and reread them and work on them some more. I also reread finished fics for reference of my writing style at the time I wrote them, and to avoid using the same turns of phrase, sentence structure, etc. And, because some of my old fics crack me up, so I reread them just for fun.

I like most of my old stuff and there's some stuff I'm really proud of.
I can only think in three stories I honestly hate. I will never repost them anywhere, even if I keep them where I posted them years ago.

Every time I reread something I find a typo that makes me edit it, but I rarely rewrite anything.

I post most of my old stuff on new platforms, since I'm not embarrassed of it and I like having backup copies online, in part because I like to see how my writing has changed.

I nuked about every old fan fic I had from F-Zero to Mass Effect fandom (incl. the one or two short stories I wrote for Green Lantern) from practically every place I ever posted fan fic at, and I have zero regrets. They were all trash and I don't even know why I even wrote them in the first place.

One of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" things, I suppose. Guess I realized I'm not cut out to be a writer, even of fan fiction, lmao.

I lost most of my early fic in the Great FF.net NC17 Purge of... whenever it was. 2002? 2003? I was mad at the time but I can't help think they did me a huge favor in the long run.

RL meant I dropped out of fandom for a long time in the intervening years, and when I tentatively picked fic-writing back up a few years ago I only posted to a couple of places anyway, one of which being my DW. I won't actively delete my work from its secondary location unless there were extenuating circumstances (e.g. issues with the site or its owners/admin that meant I wouldn't in all good conscience want to associate even fanwork with them), but I wouldn't care that much if their host site did it for me. I've dropped out of fandom again and don't really have much of a connection to my old work. I certainly don't post/repost old fic, only whatever I'm actively writing at the time.

I used to re-read ongoing fic just to refresh myself on the plot and the tone, but I don't re-read otherwise. I guess I just feel that once it's out there it's served its purpose as far as I'm concerned, and when I was still writing I'd just move on to the next idea.

Reread but never edit. I received the best advice about writing when I was but a teen: once a piece of writing is done, you toss it into the wind and divorce it from your soul completely. Not only does doing so allow you to grow as an author as you criticize and analyze your own work, but it stops you from being too affected by experimental pieces where you might be writing about viewpoints or mindsets that differ from your own (e.g. trying to get into the mind of a child killer).

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-22 02:42 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

lb_lee - 2015-01-22 03:09 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

herpymcderp - 2015-01-22 03:15 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

lb_lee - 2015-01-22 03:40 (UTC) - Expand

I'm currently editing my older fics and posting them at AO3.

I want to start writing in that particular fandom again and, because my fics all tell one long, continuous story, I need to post the older stuff before I can post anything new, and I need to edit it before I can bear to repost it. I'm not changing the plots at all, just doing some basic beta work and, especially, simplifying the punctuation, which can get a bit exuberant. It's been useful in terms of reacquainting myself with my own AU, but -- oh my god! -- were my first two stories disappointing!

It's hard to say exactly why, because, technically, there's nothing particularly bad about them; they just have no flair whatsoever. It's like watching somebody dance when they can do all the steps but they're not dancing with the music. I haven't tried to rewrite them.

From my third story onwards, though, things do get better!

I like my old stuff. It's fairly self-indulgent at times, and there are a lot of paragraphs that I look at and go, "really could have said that better," but it's still decent. No editing, though. The only thing I've edited more than a day or two after posting was when I realized I'd flipped a couple pronouns and completely altered the intended meaning of one sentence.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I've found quite a few of my old 2001-2003 fanfics.

I want to go back and MST them so bad, but one of them is a crossover between one fandom that's still going strong while the other has spinoffs that are in no way as good as the original, so it's kind of in a middle ground as far as active goes.

Maybe I'll MST them anyway. It's mostly just for shits and giggles and poking fun at my younger self.

Mostly, I move on and don't reread my work, except for research for future installments. There are a couple exceptions, but they're my most beloved personal projects.

However. My most beloved pet project started as a massive fanfiction crossover of everything Tiny Me thought was cool. And. I. I haven't actually dared reread more than the slightest chunks out of sheer shame. My husband desperately wants to read it, but I shriek and flail and can't take it. It's just so MORTIFYING.

That said, I REALLY want to lovingly MST that old draft someday, possibly with booze. Until then, I've made a comic about it.

I want to burn it all. In lieu of that, I deleted my handful of fics from my FF.net account. They just made me cringe too hard to leave them up.

Actually, there is one story that I still like and reread occasionally, but I'd never repost it anywhere.

The ones that got posted, I just pretend I never wrote them, which is pretty easy since I only talk to two of the people who knew me back then and only one of them knows I still bother with fanfiction. I did recently find the plans for some old fics I plotted out and never wrote, might tweak them a bit and write them now.

Might feel good to be weeb trash again.

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-22 08:08 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your Old Fanfiction

solticisekf - 2015-01-22 10:38 (UTC) - Expand

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