Welcome to Insert Witty Title Here, a blog on fanfiction and fandom. The title comes from a presentation I gave at Anime Los Angeles back in 2014. I noticed a trend of anime cons having all kinds of panels about various aspects of fandom, including panels about the craft of cosplay, or artists’ alleys full of fanart. But there were few, if any, mentions of fanfiction.
My entry into fandom
Fanfiction was my entry into fandom as a whole; I didn’t even recognize it as fan-written when I read my first-ever Sailor Moon story, taking place in that interminable gap between DiC airing the epic fight between Sailor Moon and Rubeus in Sailor Moon R and the remainder of that season getting dubbed. It introduced a “Sailor Milky Way” and used an illustration that looked so much like the official Sailor Moon manga art I was familiar with that I had no idea that it was actually official art, and a fan just identified the then-known Sailor Saturn as someone entirely new. To my 11-year-old eyes, the story was so well-written that I thought it was legitimately a novelization of upcoming episodes I had yet to see.
When I later discovered that lots of other people enjoyed speculating about what was to come in Sailor Moon R, and who some of the mysterious characters we found on imported Sailor Moon merchandise were, I officially entered “fandom.” At first, it was in the form of usenet groups and mailing lists, but eventually I joined forums, visited websites, and later, as the web became more dynamic, I commented, followed, and joined groups or networks devoted to my favorite shows, movies, and books.
What Insert Witty Title Here is
Insert Witty Title Here is meant to be more than just a static website recalling a presentation I gave at a single anime con years ago. Instead, it’s supposed to be a way to openly talk about fanfiction with others –not particular stories or authors, but the process of writing fanfiction, of reading and commenting/reviewing (or not), and every other layer in-between.
I post to the blog sporadically, whenever I have something to say about fanfiction in general (not anything fandom-specific), The thoughts are purely my own, and are not meant to be construed as generalizations of any particular fan community or subset thereof. I welcome comments, thoughts, and friendly discussion. This is not to say I’ll moderate or delete flames, but more like I would prefer constructive criticism and honest feedback over name-calling and sarcasm.
Many of the articles I write are long reads: that is, they’re a couple thousand words long, and might take a few minutes to read. If you have the chance to read through a whole article and have something to say, please comment and let me know! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
What Insert Witty Title Here is not
Insert Witty Title Here is not a fanfiction archive. I don’t host any fanfiction here, nor do I plan to review any, parody any, summarize any, etc. While there are other sites on the Seventh Star Network that do host fanfiction, IWTH is not one of them.
I’m also not going to have things like prompt lists, challenges, one-liners, fanart, or other similar things hosted here. If you’re looking for inspiration, I can think of loads of other resources for you, but they’re not hosted here.