Ok that is a lot of work they need to do to fix things.

yeah...what a mess...

Yikes again! However is there anywhere to find fic right now? I am desperate because that is what I do for three hours a day on the bus! I think I might still have a binder with some Spike/Buffy and Pacey/Joey…

Sophia, AO3 is up for me right now -- maybe you might be able to log in and download some fic to read on the bus?

Yay! I snagged the one I was in the middle of reading when AO3 went down. It seems a little dangerous to me know that the community as a whole has all of its eggs in this one basket. It is a great basket, but between the problems with the board response and this attack it seems like we could potentially lose a whole bunch of fic!

Here’s one of the Anonymous Sudan/AO3 fics that someone wrote in response to the DDOS attack (please note the warning tags, nsfw among other things). [link]

one of the Anonymous Sudan/AO3 fics that someone wrote in response to the DDOS attack

Dear god I love fandom.

I still struggle to explain fanfiction to my IRL male friend cousin. He just does not understand the impulse to create work that isn’t for publishing. He is a DEEP fan of things, and knows so much about really obscure things like the Blondie comic strip,as well as the general Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.

Like, he understands the impulse to transform something (like, say additional Sherlock Holmes or Wide Sargasso Sea). He understands the impulse to write original fiction for your own pleasure never to be published. He has utter bafflement at the idea of good fanfic, or really funny weird fanfic, or what anyone could possibly get out of writing or reading it.

I showed him this and he is just baffled that someone who is a good writer would spend time on something like this…

If I had to summarize, I'd say mine is like doing impressions, except in writing. Imitations are very much a part of what writers do starting out anyway.

I showed him this and he is just baffled that someone who is a good writer would spend time on something like this…

You could show him the legendary Anthony Bourdain goes to Narnia story?

I think of fic as where I get to go a different way than the canon did (or at least that canon showed). Not necessarily to fix it, but to explore: how did they get rid of the body? What if so-and-so had an abortion? What if SG-1 didn't close the Stargate in time and the alien invasion succeeded? How would the characters react and the plot consequences change? It also gives me the chance to really investigate some of the characters, to try to understand them better.

It's pretty rare that genre media will show the most catastrophic outcomes, right? But you can do that in fic, and get really into the emotional stakes for the characters and the readers. Or you can go the other way and give absolutely everyone a happy ending, which is also generally not the outcome from a tv show or other media. (Witness Star Wars, in which the heroes of the first trilogy end up having everything fall apart in the sequel trilogy!)

My engagement with fandom isn't purely affirmational: I get to dig into the logical inconsistencies and examine them and explain them or fix them. Why did Aslan wait 100 years to help overthrow the White Witch, and how did the Beavers get a sewing machine? Where did Tumnus get tea and toast during 100 years of winter?

I don't write much anymore, but that's some of what drives me to do so. But also: engaging with the fannish community is SUCH a big part of it for many of us.