fictional_fans | Maximum number of self-created fanworks for an unpopular fandom/ship

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g_uava posting in

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What's the upper limit of fanworks you've created as a self-sustaining fan? That means relying on yourself primarily to sustain your own interest to complete your creative projects since your fandom/ship/favourite is so obscure that feedback and other fanworks to inspire you are hard to come by.

Also, would you have wished to have created more for the same unpopular fandom/ship, even if there remains few others who are just as invested?

The most I've created is around 30,000 words of fics and fewer than 10 non-writing fanworks (icons, gifsets, fanvideos) for a rare pair from an old fandom. It's so rare that there were (and still are) no other English language fanworks for the ship aside from what I've created.

I'm satisfied with what I've created and am glad to move on to another canon that involved tackling a new challenge in my fanworks. But if I were to write for the ship again, I'd more deliberately include a larger variety of fun fanfic tropes in my fics.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

flo_nelja

I have a habit to write obsessively a fic for a pairing I'm the only one in, can't find anyone about it, and when I come back years later, there are other fics, and I'm like "where were you when I was obsessed?" Sometimes it's just 5-10 fics but I would have killed to read them at the time, sometimes it's become a huge ship and I nervously laugh.

I've written 4 one-shots for Scar/Lust in FMA 2003, 3 for Raul/Daedalus in Ergo Proxy, and one seven-chaptered fic for Amber/Bai in Darker than Black.
It's less than you, but it sure felt both exciting and lonely at the time.

From:

sideways

Sliding past with a quick highfive for Ergo Proxy AND DtB! Some of my favourite animes still :)

From:

flo_nelja

Yay! Me too! <3

From:

g_uava

I know what you mean about coming back years later and finding a handful of new fics. If only the authors were active when I was, we could have cheered each other on and fed each other's obsession ;_;

Go you for writing a multi-chaptered fic for an anime rarepair! I understand about it feeling exciting and lonely to create on your own, and it's very joyful when the excitement from having a new obsession can sustain creative energies at the start.

From:

flo_nelja

I used to ship Morgoth/Sauron end of the 20th centuries and the Russian ficcers were the only ones to write about it. Now it has 4 digits fanworks on AO3 ^^
Where were you at the time, people? (maybe not born)

Most of the time after the first watching I just wait, if there's nothing, but at the second one I'm like, no, it's no longer possible, I need to write about it!

From:

g_uava

Wow that's the first ship I've heard of that's relatively more popular in Russian fandom. Did you look into why the Russians have caught on to the ship's appeal earlier than the rest of the world?

Also I know that LOTR is well-known all over the world, but still it's kind of amazing to hear that there's Russian shipfic for it!

From:

flo_nelja

I mean, now the English-speaking people have caught up.
So there was this very popular fic from the time of Soviet Union called "Black book of Arda" (except in Russian of course), about the Silmarillion from the PoV of the villains, and... I never read it, automatic translations were not that good at the time, and I'm bad at Russian, but it has the reputation to 1) use the change of PoV to explore themes like "history is written by the victors" and propaganda, in a way that talked to the Russian readers, and have cold war references too, and also being quite good? And it led to a fashion of fic presenting them as sympathetic, which led to shipping? I don't know, most of this happened, obviously, in Russian :D