my fic < advertising fic < Tumblr < my ignorance let me show you it

So I was going to cross-post my Star Trek fic to st_reboot and maybe singularity, but then I realized it might not be polite to post it to reboot-verse comms, since the fic is about the problems I had with the new movie. Although it is totally possible to like the movie and like the fic, I think. And it might be possible to have those problems and still love STID, but I feel sort of guilty, like I might harsh someone's squee. But those were the main Star Trek comms I was involved in, because of the 2009 movie. Does anyone know a comm that takes all Star Trek fandoms, that is still active, that might be an appropriate place for a fic that sort of calls STID on its fail? I just want people to be able to enjoy the fic, maybe get something out of it, but I don't want other people to feel like it's in their face.

Anyway, this leads me to another question, which is really less of a question than an observation: I really no longer know how to "advertise" fic anymore. It used to be you could cross-post to certain comms and people would be sure to at least see your fic, but it doesn't feel like that's the case anymore. Is that because everyone's going to AO3 for fic? I love AO3, but I do feel like because it is so searchable, you're going to see, say, all the Kirk/Spock or all the Spock/Uhura or all the John Harrison fics, instead of, say, the fic with the OCs that's gen and mostly meta. Or maybe it's just that people use Tumblr and Twitter to find fics, which is even more confusing to me.

Anyway, this leads me to another question, which is really less of a question than an observation: I don't get Tumblr. When other people say they don't get Tumblr, I feel like what they're saying is, that they don't get why people use it, or why they use it for purpose X, or why they like it. What I mean is, I don't get it. I literally don't understand how I can search for a tag I know to exist, but Tumblr tells me it doesn't. I literally do not understand how sometimes it seems like you can leave a comment on stuff, and sometimes you can't. I do not understand how to reblog a conversation.

comment fic fest/memes/fic-a-thons

So, a while ago now, I hosted the Same Name Comment Fic Meme. The concept was this: prompt two characters from any two canons that have at least one name in common. I still find my banner hilarious; it included Wesley Crusher/Wesley Wyndham-Price; Scorpius Malfoy/Scorpius from Farscape; Dean Winchester/Dean from Gilmore Girls; Buffy Summers/Cyclops from X-Men, and the tag line was about Wolverine/Logan Echolls from Veronica Mars.

The meme was sorta kinda a success--it got a lot of prompts. And a total of two fills. I think it was way more fun to come up with prompts than to actually fill them.

I have ideas for two other fic-a-thons and/or memes that also seem like they would be more fun to prompt for than write for: a same actor meme and a doubles meme, for canons with two versions of the same character. (Well, I have other, less similar ideas. Same family meme! Genderswap meme! Missing mother meme!)

Anyways, the point is, in some comment fic memes, I just leave a prompt because I'd love to see some the fic that may result. But in others, I leave prompts because it's fun to think of prompts on a certain theme. The problem with this is that it can be kind of annoying to the people who want prompts to be filled and fills to be read and commented upon, which is completely understandable.

Then rthstewart hosted the Three Sentence Fic-A-Thon (which is apparently a yearly thing? idk), which is awesome and lovely. The great thing about this meme was that you could leave prompts for esoteric things, tiny fandoms, rare pairs, and still get fills. I'm probably never going to sit down and write a fic about James Bond, but I'll definitely write three sentences! So I felt very free to have fun with coming up with prompts, without feeling like I was being annoying by having just as fun prompting as I was reading fills and leaving fills. It was easy to do all three, without taking a huge chunk of time.

So anyway, now I'm think about the feasibility of hosting some of these memes/fic-a-thons, but adding suggested length-limits for fills: 100 words, three sentences, or similar. Like the Three Sentence Fic-A-Thon, people could post longer fills, but the idea is you're not really obligated to write a "complete" story. It might be fun to have a comm that's just dedicated to flash fic comment fests on certain themes--like every month or two there's a new fic-a-thon on a different theme, maybe with different suggestions for types of fills (haiku! Limmericks! Drabbles! Three sentences! etc) I don't know whether anyone would be interested in this . . .