silentauror's Blog, page 60

My HP ficsHey hey! From about 2003-2006, I was very involved in the Harry Potter fandom, with a...

My HP fics

Hey hey! 

From about 2003-2006, I was very involved in the Harry Potter fandom, with a trickling out of activity in the three years following that. I believe the last fic I wrote in that fandom was in 2010, and it definitely felt like an extra, very much last burst of will to make that one happen. The fandom was dwindling, JKR was JKR-ing, and people were already starting to move off the main fora: LJ for the social side, and a veritable flurry of archive choices. My main one had always been skyehawke.com. 

I got busy with my masters degree and life in a different city, and thought I’d moved on. Then, in the spring of 2013, I moved cities again, discovered the massive talents of Benedict Cumberbatch and thereby, Sherlock, and suddenly discovered that I wanted to start writing again. It was bewildering, because in that time, I’d lost contact with everyone I’d ever known in the fanworld in general, and a huge migration had happened - from LJ to tumblr, and from every archive to ao3. I didn’t know if anyone would even read something I wrote, especially as a newbie in a brand new fandom. I was startled to find that some people remembered me, and had also come over to the Sherlock fandom. As I started reconnecting with people, some of them started asking me if I was going to bring all of my HP material over to ao3. I always said no, immediately. I had lots of reasons: 

the fics were old, and the oldest of those were frankly not very goodI had no interest in either promoting them, or engaging with readers about them anymoreJKR is JKR, and she rather spoiled the fandom backwards for me. Between her unapologetic and highly public transphobia, her active queerbaiting in making characters gay after the fact without any overt inclusion of that in her canon, including in films she was involved in writing/making after said statements, and her active loathing for the fandom, especially the slash side of it, which was obviously what fuelled the epilogue that made writing Harry/literally anyone so much harder than it needed to be, I just decided I was outit would have been a lot of work to reformat the stories, and there are a lot of them. I had written 1.7 words of fiction in that fandom, spread out over 105 individual stories, so yeah: a lot of work. Plus, I was painfully aware that many of them had many typos, and I wouldn’t have wanted to bring them to a new archive and thereby potentially a new audience in that state, so: even more work

However, not actively wanting to promote that work is a very different thing from not wanting to HAVE that work, or allow anyone else to have access to it ever again, so I had always said that I would let the entire collection stand, as is, on skyehawke.com. 

Skyehawke finally crashed for apparently the final time about two weeks ago. There was no warning from the archive owner, no chance for anyone to pull any of their unsaved stuff. Some of my stuff is so old that it was literally saved on floppy disks. The rest was saved on the hard drives of laptops now long gone. I was devastated. Rather than posting about it on here, I made my first post on LJ in literal years, asking without much hope if anyone happened to have saved a copy of any of my stuff, just wanting to see if I could regain any of it. 

What I received was yet another outpouring of the kind of fandom generosity that always just floors me. People linked me to reddit searches of my stuff, pointed me to the Wayback Machine (which I had never heard of, lol), sent me entire google drives, emailed me one or twelve or sixty files of my stories. Some emailed or commented on the post only to express their sympathies and best hopes for document recovery. It’s 48 hours later now, and I got every single word back. It took me hours and hours of downloading or copy/pasting from Wayback, but I have it all back now. 

So, I made a decision: I’m changing my mind. Some of these stories still make me cringe, and it will be HEAPS of work, but in gratitude for all of this, I AM going to upload my HP material to ao3, after all. It’s going to take me a lot of time, because if I’m going to do it, then I might as well make it typo-free, or as typo-free as I can. I need to reformat it anyway, so why not? That said, I’m going to hold off on starting this project until I’ve finished my current Sherlock story.

This community, of fandom in general, is beyond amazing. It’s a stronger network of humanity and good will than I’ve ever found anywhere else and I’m so grateful to have this in my life. I once thought that I had “moved on” from fandom or outgrown it in some way, but that was an immature thought: fandom is for anyone, at any age, and even if I were to lose interest in whatever my current fandom is, I would stay for the community. Thank you for existing. Thank you for all your friendship, support, readership, and all of the fanwork you folks put out into this world, too. I love you all. <333333333333333333333333

watertightvines:lyingfigure:briery:The Black Heron, “Umbrella...

watertightvines:

lyingfigure:

briery:

The Black Heron, “Umbrella Bird" using its wings as a shade canopy to fool and trap fish.

big gay yellow feet

Malvolio stepping out cross-gartered

I know fish aren’t known for their intelligence and all, but you’re telling me that fish ARE cooked by the shade of those wings, yet not at all put off by the giant yellow feet coming at them

I adore this ❤️❤️❤️

I adore this ❤️❤️❤️

elennemigo:Kim Holcomb had 6 questions for him to answer in 4...

elennemigo:

Kim Holcomb had 6 questions for him to answer in 4 minutes. Benedict spent the 4 minutes answering the first one! (and talking about her tattoo.)

Yeah, he´s always like that. 😂

He definitely didn’t answer the question, haha! Omg I’ve missed him and his long, waffling answers, and his endless charm! I loved him asking about her birds! ❤️😊

ewebie:triple-r-porn:Baskerville!Lestrade is just special and...

ewebie:

triple-r-porn:

Baskerville!Lestrade is just special and sexy and wonderful

Can we take a moment to talk about Greg hanging out in the pub with his ray bans on, waiting to just dramatically take them off and drink his beer?

I mean, he’s gotta do something to compete with those two drama queens. One’s off posing in dramatic cliff silhouettes with his extra dramatic coat flapping dramatically in the wind and the other is off starting his own side detective hustle, trying to make a case out of literally nothing and then having himself a dramatic little hissy fit, and then they both culminate all the drama with one drugging the other and then both of them leading everyone else into a literally hallucinogenic, dramatically creepy hollow with a dramatic, robot eyes killer dog and an actual killer man, dramatic mist just everywhere. Poor Greg. All he’s got is his dramatic Ray Bans move and it barely even registers here.

duskybatfishgirl:edit anthology 272 (sexy!batch) for the anon

duskybatfishgirl:

edit anthology 272 (sexy!batch) for the anon 

bisexualdisasterx:John H. Watson? Sherlock really obsessing over discovering John’s middle name with...

bisexualdisasterx:

John H. Watson?

Sherlock really obsessing over discovering John’s middle name with THIS many phallus-shaped objects in his mouth 👌👌👌

finalproblem:(x)Never forget this

arwelwjones: Messin about #sherlock

finalproblem:

(x)

Never forget this

interior-design-home:Magical

interior-design-home:

Magical

Get the vaccine.

madlori:

If you have the opportunity, get it. If you’re eligible, get it. If you’re NOT eligible and you have a chance, get it.

If it’s due to a condition. If it’s due to your job. If it’s through a “hey our doses will expire, anybody available come quick” situation. And yes, even if it’s through a “my sister can get me in” situation.

This isn’t a selfish act, no matter how you get it. Every single person who is vaccinated helps everyone. This is a group project. There is no ethical issue with getting vaccinated “ahead of someone else.” That is not a thing. This isn’t a single-file queue and it is impossible to vaccinate everyone in an exact order of priority, all we can do is emphasize higher-risk people, which is being done whenever possible. 

If you can get it, get it. You are only helping.

All of this. You’re not just helping yourself; you’re making the entire world a little safer for everyone else.