The State of the Fandom Address

Posted by admin in State of the Fandom with Sarahbella | 0 comments

Welcome, my disciples, to the world of Twilight fanfic.  Beyond this portal (cut) you’ll find an entire world, previously unknown to you.  This world is filled with the wonders of sarcasm and wit (I hope).  Each article will take you deeper and deeper into my mind.  It’s a dangerous place to be.

Glossary of words and phrases you must understand before partaking in the reading of this blog.

The Big 5 – These girls are the absolute elite in the world of Twilight fanfic, the cream of the crop (this has been voted on and approved by the owners of mvf.com).  They are, in no particular order:

1) AngryBadgerGirl

2) AngstGoddess003

3) TaraSueMe

4) Jandco & WTVOC (You guys are just a pair, sorry.  Trying to separate you would be like Bert with no Ernie or Bonnie with no Clyde.  It’s just wrong.)

5) tby789

snark⋅y /ˈsnɑrki/ [snahr-kee]

–adjective, snark⋅i⋅er, snark⋅i⋅est. Chiefly British Slang.

Origin:

1910–15; dial. snark to nag, find fault with

sar⋅casm [sɑrkæzəm] [sahr-kaz-uh m]

noun

The world of Twilight fan fiction is a precarious place- full of pitfalls like ‘the Mary Sue’ and ‘Fanon’.  It’s difficult enough to write a good fic without other factors complicating things. Alas, it just couldn’t be that simple, could it?  The entire spectrum of Twilight fan fiction is so completely dominated by a few select authors (AngstGoddess003, anyone?) that it is nearly impossible to break in.  There are a few fics that are so epic in nature (The Office :)) that you are shunned if you haven’t read them.  SHUN!! Shun the non-believers!

The definition of sarcasm, as you should have read above, is: harsh or bitter derision or irony.  All right, so I’m not deriding anyone – really, I promise I’m not – but damn right, I’m bitter!!  I am not, and never will be, Gustariana, but I’m a damn good writer.  I am!  Check out my fics.  There are thousands of other good authors out there that are entirely underappreciated just because they’re not friends with The Big 5.

Take Stella Luna Sky for example.  Her fic ‘Bare’, won two Indies (Click Here to read).  It is far and away, the best piece of fan fiction I’ve ever read.  And she’s averaging something like twenty-five reviews per chapter.  What?!?  Yeah, you heard me right.  Twenty-five reviews per chapter.  The saddest part is this is happening every day.  And, because you know I’m going to pimp my girls, check out Supernova, (click here to read) or Finding Forever, (click here to read) by SusanAshlea (SuzyBear) .  When you’re finished  reading (and reviewing!) those, go read Lost and Found, (click here to read) by Saluki.  All of those are also excellent, well-written fics and entirely underappreciated.

It’s not a world you can easily break into.  The easiest way to get your fic read is to get it pimped by one of The Big 5.  Thousands of people read and review each of their chapters.  In turn, thousands of people see their recs.  Unfortunately, these girls only pimp their friends. (Okay, fine, I guess I can understand that (see above **waves at Susan and Heather**).  But, you can’t just PM The Big 5 and say ‘Hey, wanna be my friend?’  It doesn’t work that way.  They’re so bombarded with PM’s and reviews and comments and friend requests that we have to decide if we’d rather they respond to our reviews, or write more of that fic we love so much.  Yeah, tough decision, right?  Wrong.

I’ve got ninety-two fics on my favorite list at Twilighted and another twenty-seven at ff.net.  I had forty something at SimplyTwilight before that walked off into the sunset, which no one could see because it’s damn cloudy in Forks.  I am a picky reader; I won’t read just any garbage that crosses my desk.  I choose interesting, well-written pieces, with plot lines unlike everything I’ve heard before.  Some of those stories are by The Big 5, but most of them are not.

So, tell me, why do we idolize these five girls?  Who decided they were the best of the best?  Oh, that’s right, we did.  Because they are among the best.  The Big 5 started as a list of about fifteen names which we (read – me) narrowed down to our top five.  The list is obviously negotiable and by no means set in stone (send me your list and the reason you think it’s better than mine!).  Why do we idolize them?  Because we want to be them. They write some of the most read, rated, reviewed and favorited fics around.  They are just that good.  Just that funny.  Just that smutty.

So, according to these unspoken rules that are floating around out there like so much vampire folklore, I can’t be an accomplished author unless I receive a certain number of reviews, or a certain number of stars, or get pimped by, you guessed it, The Big 5.  Seriously?  No.  I have nineteen fics, people.  Nineteen.  I’ve written somewhere in the neighborhood of 300,000 words of Twilight fanfic.  Someday, I’m going to rule the world!!  Mwah ah ah ah ah!

Ahem.

There are so many amazing, wonderful, creative, imaginative, beautifully written fics out there that are just being ignored.  Oh, the humanity!!  For the love of all that is ficking good, people, read something else!  Read, rate, review and favorite the little guys!  Go read ‘The Dark Side of Twilight’, ‘Jared and the Sociopath He Imprinted On’, (here) by yay4shanghai or ‘Canon’, (here) by sidekick.  It’s good fic y’all.  If you haven’t read those stories, and all the others I talked about, YOU ARE MISSING OUT!

So, to all of you who are not already friends with The Big 5, or friends of friends of The Big 5, or even friends with them on facebook, take heart.  Most of the rest of us aren’t friends with them either.  And we never will be.  And we’re okay with that.  We’re just going to support the little guy.

To The Big 5:  Should my tiny, little, insignificant blog find its way to your attention, know that it is truly all in jest.  You are the goddesses of our tiny little ficking world ;)

Do you agree with Sarahbella? Disagree? Talk back in The Lair.