Happy Holidays, Have Some News and New Fanfic · 3:53am Dec 31st, 2020
Howdy folks, it’s been a while! Sorry about that, it’s been … a rough year, but I don’t need to tell anyone here that. I’ve been largely shielded from the worst of it personally, as my day job’s one that can be done remotely, so I’ve been working from home since mid-March, with no plans to be back in the office ‘til June of next year at the earliest. It’s left me cooped up and a bit down most of the time since, but overall stable and well-off compared to a lot of folks. One thing that being trapped in 2020 did was severely damage my time and energy for writing, though, as while a lot of folks found themselves with a new abundance of free time, my job picked up in volume a lot, and I’ve spent a lot of the year very busy and very tired, and it’s only been in the last few months that things have evened out enough to where I could really think about writing again.
As that last sentence implies, though, I’m writing again! However, it is … not pony. One of the things that dragged me kicking and screaming back to productivity (and I have been very productive over the past month or so) was that I watched The Owl House at the start of November, and I have fallen off the deep end into that fandom, as the update to my avatar here probably hints at. So while I return with the gift of fanfic, it comes with the problem of not being something that can really be posted to this site. A quandary for lots of pony writers I’m sure, so I’m stuck just linking to where it’s hosted elsewhere. So here it is, the most recent bit of writing from me, as available to read on Offprint.net:
Now, Offprint itself may need some introduction, as it’s not exactly a well-known site at this point, but that’s because it’s still in its infancy. The design goal it’s striving for is to have a solid user experience and robust community tools. I don’t know about y’all, but one of the reasons I gravitated to and stuck around with MLP fanfiction has been a direct outgrowth of Fimfiction itself providing a user experience that is vastly superior to, say, AO3 or god forbid Fanfiction.net, and one of the reasons I haven’t really expanded outside of this fandom is because I go to try and read fanfics for other fandoms, spend ten minutes on AO3 and I just … can’t, y’know? Offprint, however, feels like it’s shaping up to be something that can serve as a gathering place for various fandoms with a similarly positive reading and writing experience to Fimfiction. As it’s coming along, I think it’s promising enough that I’m hitching my wagon to it.
That said, while the plans are there, it’s still in closed alpha and is a bit bare bones on the features. As of now, it doesn’t have a lot of the planned tools, and those it does have are still in development and/or only available to members, and membership is something you have to sign up for. Like, you can leave comments on stories or follow authors there if you have an account, but as of right now the notifications don’t work, so … shrug emoji? Despite early growing pains, I still think it’s very promising and would like to see it succeed.
In addition to Keeping Control, I have migrated a shortlist of my pony fics over to Offprint as well, which in the process of migration I wrote some new post-commentary author’s notes to include, so if you wanted to poke around my profile, there is a smidge of bonus material in the form of modern thoughts and wistful nostalgia for the handful of pony I frontloaded my profile with. And if you like Offprint and see the same promise in it that I do, you could consider joining the alpha or potentially contributing to the Patreon alongside me. No pressure on that and there’s nothing in it for me if you were to do so, as I said before, I’d just like to see it succeed.
As an additional note on Offprint before I move to a different topic, SigmasonicX is running an outreach event for the site, pledging to donate $20.00 to charity for every newly written story that is not in the author’s main fandom that gets posted to Offprint between now and the end of the alpha. Y’all know me, I’m a pony writer, so moving into The Owl House is brand new ground for me, and I chose to have my donation go toward the Transgender Law Center. I also matched SigmasonicX’s donation there with one of my own. This outreach is open to everyone who wants to join in and stretch their writing muscles into heretofore unknown fanfic territory between now and when the site goes into beta early next year, and you get to feel good about giving at the same time.
In other news, considering the general topic, some of you may be wondering what all this has in store for me in regards to future pony words, whether I’m “out” of the fandom or if I’m planning on writing new pone stories, and … the answer to that is I’m still thinking about it?
I know that’s not a very satisfying answer and I’d like to have a more definitive one, but I’m gonna be honest with you about it. I did not like the finale for MLP: FiM, I am not interested in Pony Life, and I’m neutral on the bits of previews for G5 I’ve seen, which I know are just designs and notes at this point, but, like, I’m just not hype for it. I’ve had a rocky relationship with the show itself for the majority of its runtime, and really ended up sticking around out of a devotion to the craft and characters, and I still like those, but the show itself has left a sour taste in my mouth. There are plenty of story ideas I still have ready to tell in various stages of outlines and notes, but actually telling those feels low priority to me. At least in comparison to other stories I want to tell, about The Owl House and maybe a bit of She-Ra, too, which is a show I have thought about writing fanfic for, but ran into the obstacles of really hating AO3 and not being so into it I was driven to figure out other solutions. I have that new solution now, so reconsidering working on a She-Ra story or two feels a lot more appealing to me.
None of this is to say that I’m done with pony, and I want to stress that. I’m feeling ways about the show right now, but there are some stories left in Equestria that I do still want to tell, and there is definitely a sore thumb of an ‘unfinished’ story sticking out on my Fimfic profile that I’d like to eventually correct, so saying ‘goodbye’ doesn’t feel appropriate to me. I’m just branching out.
I dunno how interested any of y’all are in stories told in The Owl House, She-Ra, or other universes, but if any of you would like to continue reading the stuff I put up, I’ll continue to be extremely grateful that you took the time to do so. Up until the point Offprint is out of alpha and is robust enough to stand on its own legs, I’ll continue to ‘crosspost’ here through blogs for non-pone stories, and if you want to leave any feedback or comments on the story itself but don’t really feel like signing up for a closed alpha, please feel free to comment on this and future crosspost blogs, that sort of stuff is always welcome. I’m also planning on crossposting to AO3, as much as I dislike it, though there’s going to be a lag between something going up on Offprint and it getting crossposted there, give Offprint a bit of exclusivity. I’ll update this post and future blogs on new stories with links to the AO3 version after the fact, so if you’re a dye-in-the-wool AO3 user (for some ungodly reason) check back here later, or go do the equivalent of following me on AO3, here’s my profile there.
I hope to not make myself so much of a stranger around here (and likely won’t, I’m already over 26k words into the next story I have planned … The Owl House has made me very productive), even if things end up shifting in a non-pony-related direction. I hope y’all are staying happy and healthy throughout this ordeal of a year. Thank god it’s ending. TTFN.
EDIT: as promised, after the week exclusivity I have crossposted Keeping Control to AO3, if that site's your jam for non-pony stories, you can find it here.
Let's see if you moving over there will light a fire under people's asses, like you moving to Discord did :P
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I don't have that sort of pull, and you know it.
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You say that, but the TwiDash Skype group moved almost en masse the day you and I went to Discord.
And I sure-fuck know it wasn't me.
Thanks for the shoutout! And good blog post.
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Thank you for running the outreach event!
They said that someday we would get generic fanfic functionality onto Fimfic. It's yet to happen which is sad because Fanfic.net is just awful and AO3 is fine, but it lacks a lot of the stuff that Fimfic can do! Anyway, glad to see you're still writing!
Hopefully some actual competition on the UI front will move Genfic from "eventually" to "the foreseeable future." No pressure on returning to horsewords; that's your decision. Glad to hear you're finding inspiration in general.
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Regarding Genfic, I would be happy to see that be a reality, too, because as I said in the main post, I think this site is one of the key, driving factors in the fanfic part of the fandom getting as big and lasting as long as it has, and having something like it but not fandom-dependent would just be great. I'm just ... not really confident that Genfic is something that will see the light of day. I remember the announcement for Genfic, and that was years ago, and we basically haven't heard anything since. Maybe there's been further news about it in, like, the fimfic patreon or something, but at this point it feels less like a thing to expect/hope for, and more a 'wouldn't it be nice' musing from the site about something they'd like to do, but have no real plan or road map to make it a reality. Maybe I'm wrong and it will see the light of day, I have no problem having my non-pony stuff on Offprint and Genfic some day, but ... kinda feels like a girl could grow old and die waiting for it to actually come out.
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Pfftahahahaha Knighty's never doing it. He hasn't said a word about it in like five years :D
It's your choice to write anything you want. The fanfics you left us are impressing enough. But if you decide to write more pony words someday we'll still be here for you. Anyway, thanks for the Twidash (°∀°)ﾉ.