Fanfic Is A Free Hobby.

Art Critic: the skull in the corner is artfully placed on the periphery of vision to symbolise the omnipresence of death, important thematically to the artist’s conception of life and mortality.

Actual Artist: aw shit, I got all this negative space, guess I’ll stick a skull there that looks pretty rad.

I want to read...

But I don't want to read...

i feel like the sims audience will split into paralives and inzoi based on their maxis match vs alpha cc preferences lol

I just finished Sherlock S4/1

What the actual fuck was that

Huh????

It's like... Sherlock and Mary, featuring John as a side character who is stupid every now and then but otherwise unimportant

And the finale?????? It felt so... staged and John didn't even help? Just call her an ambulance for fuck's sake

Bbh mods I love you

Sherlock meta time: 1895 counter on John's blog = gay

So I was scrolling on Pinterest - as one does - and I came across a post stating that the number John's blog is stuck on in I believe ASiB was the same as the year Sherlock Holmes fell into the Reichenbach falls in the ACD canon, 1895.

Now, this in itself is wild, but then my mind brought up another thing I saw a few days ago, a meme on Tumblr (if someone wants the link I can send it)

So

The reason they left London in 1895 (I assume in the same story with the Reichenbach Falls but I can't know for certain) was described as 'circumstances in which I need not enter' or something and people in this thread connected it to Oscar Wilde's trial for 'gross indecency' (aka being gay) which took place in the same year.

N o w, as a reminder, John's count on his website froze on 1895. In this year, Oscar Wilde was sentenced for gross indecency, Holmes and Watson went out of town presumably for that reason AND the Reichenbach Fall of the original stories.

While the number could stand for the original Reichenbach Fall, I don't really see where that would go BUT what if it stands for Oscar Wilde's trial? And for ACD Holmes and Watson being out of town because of it?

In my opinion, if we combine this with the 'Irene ships Johnlock' theory I read on @inevitably-johnlocked 's blog (it's a lot more complicated than that but that she basically knows something is going on), this could be her doing, trying to make fun of them or give them a hint in the right direction. Who knows? Not me, I'm just here to collect the puzzle pieces.

I feel like there are so many people in writing spaces who seem to believe storytelling is metaphysical somehow instead of a very mundane and practicable skill and craft.

like that poll about whether a story needs meaning. I think it's so odd to be talking about whether a story "needs" meaning because it implies this image of writers pulling an already extant story from the sea and, like a lobsterman checking for eggs, deciding whether to throw it back to the waves based on whether or not it has "meaning."

the very simple reality of it is that stories are a form of communication. it is a use of language. whenever you are communicating something to someone using language, that person will be processing your words to understand your meaning. that is how language works.

if you're telling someone about your day, for example, you choose what events to include and exclude from your retelling. say you want to emphasize the bad parts of your day because you're feeling upset and you're talking about your day so someone will understand why you're upset. so you mention how your boss spoke to you and how you missed the bus and how you stained your one good shirt you wear to interviews when trying to find a better job. you might mention the person who offered you cover under their umbrella at the bus stop as a moment of compassion and relief contrasted with the rest of your day. but you probably leave out the details about scrolling through instagram on your lunch break or your conversation with a coworker about filling out a maintenance request because even though these were part of your day, neither are really important to the point you're making, and it would only obfuscate what you're trying to communicate. we communicate with storytelling all the time.

you can choose to just write and never interrogate why you're saying the things you're saying to other people. but I don't know why anyone would recommend it as a practice. especially in contexts in which you're tying your writing to your identity in any way, because then you're not remotely prepared for people's response to what you say to them. it's like getting blackout drunk or very high before giving a speech to a bunch of strangers. sure, it's theoretically possible that completely absent any inhibition or planning or self-aware intention or desire to communicate something you might say good things that you would be proud of later, but it's not likely. and even if it's possible, why would you want to surrender control over what random ideas and values and life experiences you share with all these people? terrifying! why gamble with that instead of being intentional?

the alternative is simply being intentional about what you actually want to say and what emotions you want your audience to be left with. intentional with what narratives you share and why it starts where it starts and ends where it ends. what images you want to repeat and why you want to connect the emotional scenes you connect. which characters you introduce and why their perspectives or actions are needed to convey what you're trying to convey. think about who and what is important to get what you're trying to say across.

all the intention and planning in the world is not going to necessarily ensure that people will understand what you are trying to communicate from reading your story. they might still interpret it completely different than how you meant it, bring their own meaning to it, assume things about you and your values from their own interpretation of it. that happens all the time, and it usually doesn't feel good, but that's art.

a lot of the craft of writing is learning how to best minimize that happening. how do you convey your meaning accurately to the most readers possible? how can you learn to evoke the emotions you're meaning to evoke from other writers who are successful at making you feel emotions they want you to feel? those things are at the core of what you are learning when you are honing your writing skills.

to refuse to engage with that at all is completely alien to me--what is the point if there is no point? why listen to someone tell you about their day if they don't even care why they're telling you what they're telling you?

all communication is imperfect--we can never understand exactly what someone else intended to convey. but good communication is trying our best to make the gap between what one person wants to communicate and what the other person interprets as small as possible. storytelling, and learning to do it well, is just another form this takes. it's language.

in 2025 let’s bring back being enthusiastic on ao3. leave a comment on every chapter. leave kudos and, if necessary, leave “double kudos” in the comments. tags and notes on bookmarks. the whole nine yards. let’s show fanfic authors how much we love them.

put your clothes back on were going to talk about how musicals are the best media to adapt books in cause its the only one that allows the characters to express their feelings and internal monologue as they do on page