It’s no secret that I’ve been the absolute worst when it comes to reading fics. #excuses #excuses *hides in box of shame* I tried downloading them to my kindle but that didn’t work and there were three reasons for that. 1) was #excuse but
2) it was an extra device to remember to charge, put in my bag etc.
3) it was a multi-step process to side-load them onto the paperwhite
Now neither of these should have had an impact but it’s the little things right? It doesn’t take much to roadblock us – or, well, me anyway *rolls eyes at self*
BUT BUT HERE’S THE TIP
It’s called Pocket – a free app, that SAVES FICS OFFLINE with ONE BUTTON
ONE BUTTON SAVING
Just click share and boom it’s there.
It works with Tumblr and AO3 straight out the box. Far more importantly though is the REFRESH command. With multi-chaptered fics on AO3 simply add the “entire work” link to Pocket and then when they update, you update – no mess, no fuss, chapter is ready to go.
Honestly having to redownload, then side-load, new chapters was the biggest stumbling block to me putting fics on my kindle.
Now you all might be reading this going “wow! She’s late to the party!” Because you all know about this already but I didn’t so I’m sharing in case anyone else is in that boat.
Especially with all the bounty of fics that RCIJ just brought!
1. Character in my fandoms that I think I’m most like. Tricky. People on TV are a lot more put together than I am. They are good looking, cool and they have endearing quirks rather than annoying tendencies. Possibly the closest is Parker from Leverage.
I have her inability to understand people and situations. I too take things very literally and just plain don’t get it and often say things others consider odd. Unfortunately I don’t have her confidence – or at least her outward confidence. On the surface it seems like she doesn’t know, or care, how different she is. I’m not sure that’s true but it definitely isn’t true for me, I know how odd I am.
8. Dream crossover? Now you are talking my language! I love mashing stuff up 🙂
I once wrote a four-show multi-crossover fic in two days. It was like 15k and I had so much fun. This was *cough* at least a decade ago. It was supposed to be a part one and I ended it on a cliffhanger but when I went to write part two I realised I’d written myself into a corner. Multi-show crossovers are hard! It’s really difficult to make it reasonable that these characters interact and try as I might, I couldn’t think of a way to keep all four shows involved moving forward.
That fic was for Alias/CSI:NY, Numb3rs and Without a Trace. So it wasn’t too ‘out there’ because that was two FBI shows, a police and then the spy game. I did pretend Numb3rs was set in New York rather than Los Angeles because the location didn’t have any bearing in the show, and putting everything in the same city made it easier. I started another crossover fic for Alias/NCIS once, which again same sort of playground with federal agents and spies.
Anyway you asked me about my dream crossover! Not about some stupid fic I wrote a decade ago. I’m just prefacing my answer with this background to try and explain that it’s important to me that the crossover makes sense.
Well I think all roads lead to Agents of Shield these days.
Can you imagine a crossover with Black Lightning? Where the greenlight was triggering potential Inhumans but their transition was unstable. So Jemma and Fitz have to stabilise all the meta-humans and they are fascinated by Jefferson and his family because they are stable and Jennifer and Anissa didn’t have to go through the mist to gain their powers.
Come on Thunder and Quake team-up, am I right?
How about Agents of Shield and Stargate? I know, I know, impossible because Shield = Marvel and so we’ve been to space and there are no stargates, or hyperdrives for that matter. They had those waygates that ships bounced through in Guardians of the Galaxy 2. Also the Asgard are waaaaay different.
So alternate reality, one where history played out very differently. Imagine fifty million years ago when the Alterans (Ancients) left their home galaxy to avoid a civil war with their brethren (who became known as the Ori) and rather than inventing Stargates on that trip, they invented the waygates. Rather than the re-origination machine on Dakaara, they became the titans that forged the six infinity stones that basically did the same thing.
Stargate crossed over with alternate realities many many times. They were always fairly close to the reality we recognised but they had hints of very different ones through the reality mirror. Not going to lie I kinda just want to see Jemma and Carter work together
I could do this all day but I think you kinda get the picture 🙂
17. A show you used to love but eventually hated or vice-versa.
Hated is such a strong word. Sure I fell out of love with Without a Trace. I felt after the first couple of seasons something happened, the characters weren’t quite themselves and after season 4 I stopped watching. The same happened with New Tricks. It started off so strong but then the writers forgot continuity and turned the characters almost into caricatures of themselves.
I think the award might have to go to Star Trek though. I’ll do Enterprise first.
^^ confession had it right. Although I would have been fine if they’d just stayed friends. T’Pol and Trip I think were my first absolute NoTP and forcing that relationship basically ruined the characterisation of Archer and T’Pol. I enjoyed the first season of Enterprise very much, and the second was ok but the third and fourth were like a trainwreck.
Then we come to Star Trek: Discovery. Oh boy. I was disappointed from the outset because in the two-part premiere they killed off the female Captain (Philippa Georgiou) so then it was yet another male Captain in the form of Lorca. However, I stuck with it because I utterly fell in love with Culmets (Paul Stamets and Hugh Culber).
I also thought they were doing something interesting with Ash Tyler and PTSD, and with Lorca and the slippery line in times of war. What did we get? Culber killed off for shock value, an uncomfortable romance shoved down our throats with Ash Tyler and Burnham, with then the reveal that Tyler was really Voq (a klingon infiltrator) and Lorca was from the evil mirror universe.
Like really? A subtle, understated story exploring the realities of mental health and the shades of grey of war would have been amazing. Instead everything was made simple, flashy and shallow.
There, there, no shame intended! Just wanted you to know I was thinking of your fic. If it speaks to you, that’d be wonderful, but if not, I’ll remember it fondly anyway.
Oh merlin I hope it won’t remain just a fond memory! I’ve had an eventful year to put it mildly. I know intentions are meaningless but both back then and now – it’s always on my mind to write.
I avoided stating it earlier but you know what I’m going to risk it. Cast iron guarantee right here, etched in stone etc. there WILL be an update before the end of the month.
I hope I’ve invited everyone who has already asked. I’ve manually checked stuff but tumblr had that funny ten five minutes with the notifications. So please if you want to join us and hopefully have lots of fun writing/revising/anything writing related really next month then please don’t delay! 🙂
Rumbellers! The possibility of running an art/fic bang for the fandom was brought up last night. If you’re not sure what a Big Bang is, keep reading the info that I copied and pasted from last night’s post:
A Big Bang pairs up fanfic authors and fanartists to work on a joint project. The goal is that by the end, each fic has fanart of some kind to go with it, and each piece of artwork has a fic to go with it.
In a ‘regular’ Big Bang, the writers go first, by submitting a brief summary of the fic they plan to write. (This part is done anonymously, so it’s not just a name-recognition popularity contest.) The artists name their top choices of which fic they want to create art for, and the mod(s) match everyone up as fairly as they can. Some people won’t get their first choice, or even their second, but I’ve been in the situation of not getting my first choice, and still had a great time with the Bang.
After the writers and artists are matched, the mod puts them in touch with each other, and they collaborate to create fic and art that complement each other. Usually the matches are kept secret until the works are posted.
A Reverse Big Bang works in much the same way, except that the artwork is created first. The artists submit their artworks (anonymously), which don’t have to be finished at that point but need to at least have enough done so viewers can see where they’re going with it. The writers state their top choices, the mod matches them up, they collaborate.
Word count requirements can be whatever the mod sets for that particular Bang, but 5,000 words of betaed, finished fic seems to be a common number.
For purposes of a Bang, fanart isn’t defined as just drawn/painted/etc art. It can also mean gif sets, aesthetics, photo manips, or a playlist with cover art. Basically, anything visual that can be reblogged on Tumblr. I know that the Bangs I took part in at the height of Glee’s popularity sometimes had trouble finding enough artists to pair up with the writers. But every fandom is different and maybe it wouldn’t even be an issue for Rumbellers. It would depend on how many writers and artists sign up for it.
On an assigned day, the artist and writer both post their works and the fandom gets to roll around like excited puppies in all the pretty new fanworks. If it’s a big event with lots of participants, typically the posting schedule will be spread out, with one team per day posting.
This type of event usually stretches over months, to allow time for the multi-step process. Whoever’s going first has to produce a fic summary or rough WIP art, then everyone needs time to look over the choices and submit their picks, time for matching, and then the second half of the team needs time to do their work after discussing it with their partner. So yeah, it all takes a while.
If what you’ve read here intrigues you, please click the link above to take the survey. It’s only six questions and should take a minute at most. I want to find out how many people are really interested in something like this, and if the writer/artist ratio is equal.
I plan to run the survey through next weekend. It will close at midnight EST on Sunday, June 24th.
Please signal boost, so as many people as possible have a chance to see this!
Ahhhhhhh! I’ve talked about this kind of thing with .. I don’t know if they would like me to name them, but yeah anyway (my friend! heh) and the trouble we always had was thinking of a place in the Rumbelle calendar to put it. Between all the events we have now, it was like how?
I’ve sworn off events, waaaay too much stress and pressure BUT BUT yeah I can’t resist if this becomes a thing. I have to do it! Consider me 110% signed up, and ignore me if I moan later. It’s just too cool not to participate 🙂
Should have read the questionnaire first…. I’m a little confused by the whole Big Bang/Reverse Big Bang thing. Maybe it’s just the ones I’ve seen advertised recently on tumblr but I thought both were a thing? Like two rounds I guess. First round artist and author, second round swap. So art and fic start off, and follow-on. Am I even making sense with that?Also I have no clue who else but you is behind this but if you need anything, feel free to hit me up 🙂
Interesting… I’ve personally never heard of a two-round Big Bang. So do the pairings remain the same for both rounds, in your experience?
This is probably a good moment to insert the disclaimer that all my knowledge of Big Bangs and how they work, is based on participating in them in the Glee fandom. So that’s my template, and I’ve never actually run one. But no one else was offering to run an event like this, so I figured I’d step up. Thanks for offering to help! I may take you up on that!
In my experience a ‘regular’ Big Bang (story comes first) and a Reverse Big Bang (art comes first) are run as two separate events. Nothing’s stopping us from having another event after the first one, if the first one is a success. I think I’d rather take it one step at a time, though.
I’ve never taken part in a Big Bang of any kind. It was just on my dash very recently, I think it was for Philinda? spelling out how it was going to work, and they ran both the Big Bang and the Reverse Big Bang concurrently, so artists got their work turned into fic, and fic got turned into art.
I don’t know whether it was a straight swap. I’m guessing probably not because otherwise it would lose the anonymity factor.
I didn’t really know they were two separate events tbh. I thought it was so everyone got a fair shake at having their work transformed. I totally see the sense in what you are saying about not biting off more than one can chew, so now I understand the questionnaire a bit better heh. Seeing what way round people want to do it – makes sense!
Yes it is that time again! I apologise for April as I was a little bit absent but you guys were very chatty without me so I think it worked out 🙂
For anyone that doesn’t know Camp NaNo is different from regular November NaNo in a couple of crucial ways:
You can set your own word count goal (I don’t think there’s a minimum value so set it as high or as low as you like)
They allow you to track time and pages, in addition to words. So you could write a screenplay, edit a story, plan a story, write poetry, whatever you want really.
They have these things called cabins
It is because of these cabins that I am making this post. This will be the fourth Rumbelle cabin and it always goes well. The cabins are for 20 writers and they have like a messageboard thing allowing communication on the NaNo site. I’ve always found it’s easier to write knowing I’m among friends, rather than sitting alone banging my head against the keyboard. I’ve been doing Camp NaNo for years and it always sucks if the cabin is a ghost town so in my cabin:
I post daily facts everyday for inspiration purposes
I post a daily word count challenge
Time zones permitting I run word sprints
Generally I’ve found that so long as somebody’s talking, then the cabin picks up in activity anyway. So got a fanfic you want to finish? Doing RCIJ? Just wanting a boost in the writing stakes?
Camp NaNo is a lot more relaxed than regular NaNo, as I said above you can work on different kinds of writing, or different parts of the writing process, or even on lots of projects at once. Camp is really about just making progress on things, and getting stuff done in a supportive and friendly environment. So there’s no real barrier to joining in the fun 🙂
If you would like to join then sign up and/or create a project on the Camp NaNo site. Then reply/reblog/message me with your NaNo username and I will send you a cabin invite. You must create your project first or the invite won’t work. Any questions or anything let me know 🙂
I haven’t read much fic since last summer and I really want to go comment/kudos and otherwise spread the love but I don’t know where to start. You guys are so prolific and so awesome I’m just overwhelmed.
So if you are a writer let me know what you have written in the last year.
If you are a reader rec what you’ve loved in the past year.
Rules: choose any three fandoms (in random order) and answer the questions, then tag some friends.
I seem to always choose the same fandoms so I’m going to go for different ones this time. Consider that a challenge hehe.
I choose:
Dark Matter
Castle
Farscape
God, it took me a long time only to choose the fandoms. That does not bode well. LOL
The First Character You Loved:
Two! (aka Portia Lin, aka Rebecca)
Hmm, it’s hard to remember that far back. Probably Beckett even though I’m tempted to say Alexis.
Aeryn Sun
The Character You Never Expected To Love So Much:
Three (aka Marcus Boone)
Captain Montgomery, I’m still a little bitter about what happened with him. What was so bad about being the supportive boss?
Rygel probably.
The Character You Relate To The Most:
Hmm probably the Android. I wish I could get an upgrade installed so I could better pass as human haha 🙂
Oh man. I want to say Alexis but she’s way smarter than I am. Still Alexis is probably the closest.
John Crichton. I too make millions of references to TV/movies in my everyday life 🙂
The Character You’d Slap:
One – back when he was in it obviously.
I really didn’t like Gates but I’d be too scared to slap her to be honest.
Hmm definitely Sikozu, way too full of herself.
Three Favourite Characters (In Order Of Preference):
Two, Three, Nyx.
My opinion on this changed over the seasons. If the show had ended a couple of seasons ago Castle and Beckett would have been up there but now … Hayley, Alexis, Kevin Ryan.
Aeryn, John, D’argo
A Character You Liked At First But Don’t Anymore:
Hmm, I can’t think of one to be honest. I haven’t watched all of season 4 and so if Four crosses too far over the line then maybe him. Otherwise, like with One, I didn’t like them to begin with very much /shrug.
Castle and to a lesser extent Beckett but that wasn’t really the characters fault (I could rant but I won’t).
I don’t know. Farscape is such a weird show that even the characters I don’t really like still sort of ‘fit’.
A Character You Did Not Like At First But Now Do:
Three grew on me. I liked Six more initially but nope Three is where it’s at now heh.
Can’t think of one sorry.
Can I say the whole cast? I know that’s random but the first time I tried watching this show my eyes bugged out (it was just too weird) but then tumblr kept putting gifs on my dash and I just had to watch and I’m so glad I did. Yes the characters are weird, yes things don’t make sense sometimes but there was a lot to love. Who would have thought a puppet could become such a beloved character imbued with so much personality?
Three OTPs:
I don’t ship anyone romantically but Brotp Two and Three, or Two and Five, or Five and the android 🙂
Alexis and Hayley!
Aeryn and John of course
I always seem to tag the same people so I’m going to try not to this time. If you don’t like the tag then please ignore – oh! and please feel free to do these questions even if I don’t tag you, just consider yourself tagged 🙂
How can you say no to that face? Belle wants you to participate! Hehe 🙂
For anyone that doesn’t know Camp NaNo is different from regular November NaNo in a couple of crucial ways:
You can set your own word count goal (I don’t think there’s a minimum value so set it as high or as low as you like)
They allow you to track time and pages, in addition to words. So you could write a screenplay, edit a story, plan a story, write poetry, whatever you want really.
They have these things called cabins
It is because of these cabins that I am making this post. We currently have getting on for a dozen Rumbelle writers and we can have up to 20 – so still plenty of room! The cabins have like a messageboard thing allowing communication on the NaNo site. I’ve always found it’s easier to write knowing I’m among friends, rather than sitting alone banging my head against the keyboard. I’ve been doing Camp NaNo for years and it always sucks if the cabin is a ghost town so in my cabin:
I post daily facts everyday for inspiration purposes
I post a daily word count challenge
Time zones permitting I run word sprints
Generally I’ve found that so long as somebody’s talking, then the cabin picks up in activity anyway. So got a fanfic you want to finish? Doing Mayday Menagerie? Just wanting a boost in the writing stakes?
Camp NaNo is a lot more relaxed than regular NaNo, as I said above you can work on different kinds of writing, or different parts of the writing process, or even on lots of projects at once. Camp is really about just making progress on things, and getting stuff done in a supportive and friendly environment. So there’s no real barrier to joining in the fun 🙂
If you would like to join then sign up and/or create a project on the Camp NaNo site. Then reply/reblog/message me with your NaNo username and I will send you a cabin invite. You must create your project first or the invite won’t work. Any questions or anything let me know 🙂
Yes it is that time again and just like last year I will be running a cabin!
For anyone that doesn’t know Camp NaNo is different from regular November NaNo in a couple of crucial ways:
You can set your own word count goal (I don’t think there’s a minimum value so set it as high or as low as you like)
They allow you to track time and pages, in addition to words. So you could write a screenplay, edit a story, plan a story, write poetry, whatever you want really.
They have these things called cabins
It is because of these cabins that I am making this post. We had a dozen Rumbelle writers last year and I think it went well so let’s go again. The cabins are for 20 writers and they have like a messageboard thing allowing communication on the NaNo site. I’ve always found it’s easier to write knowing I’m among friends, rather than sitting alone banging my head against the keyboard. I’ve been doing Camp NaNo for years and it always sucks if the cabin is a ghost town so in my cabin:
I post daily facts everyday for inspiration purposes
I post a daily word count challenge
Time zones permitting I run word sprints
Generally I’ve found that so long as somebody’s talking, then the cabin picks up in activity anyway. So got a fanfic you want to finish? Doing Mayday Menagerie? Just wanting a boost in the writing stakes?
Camp NaNo is a lot more relaxed than regular NaNo, as I said above you can work on different kinds of writing, or different parts of the writing process, or even on lots of projects at once. Camp is really about just making progress on things, and getting stuff done in a supportive and friendly environment. So there’s no real barrier to joining in the fun 🙂
If you would like to join then sign up and/or create a project on the Camp NaNo site. Then reply/reblog/message me with your NaNo username and I will send you a cabin invite. You must create your project first or the invite won’t work. Any questions or anything let me know 🙂
