For those of us interested in ponyfic, Fimfiction is generally where it's at. It's by far the largest archive of MLP fanfiction, it has a mostly pleasant and easy to use interface, it's vastly nicer to look at than the ugly Archive of Our Own and the "it's still 1999, right?" fanfiction.net – and, bluntly, Fimf has eBay Syndrome in that it's where everyone goes, so it's where everything gets published, so it's where everyone goes, so...
But it's not the only place. I recently discovered Offprint. This site's front page will look strangely familiar to everyone familiar with Fimfiction – which is probably all of you. Indeed, although it's currently a relatively tiny site, MLP:FiM is by some distance the most-used fanwork tag. I say "fanwork" because Offprint hosts not only multiple fandoms' fics but original fiction as well, something unusual for a fic archive.
Navigation is clunky compared with Fimfiction – for example, while clicking a title card's MLP:FiM button filters the display to only ponyfic, clicking a genre tag makes the button move but does precisely nothing. I can't filter to just original fics, either. There doesn't seem to be any way to download fics as EPUB (a near-dealbreaker for me). What's been implemented works, but Offprint is officially still in alpha (after two years...) and it feels like it, too.
Looking at the Pony section, there are a few names I immediately recognise: Admiral Biscuit, iisaw, bats, Mockingbirb. Not enough really to appeal, though: for all its ugliness, I'd rather use AO3 to access the Alicorn Adventures now they've (mostly) left Fimfic, since AO3 does allow you to download as EPUB. [Does that mean you'll get around to On the Rocks this side of the heat death of the universe, then? —Ed.]
And now I get to one thing I thoroughly approve of. As regular readers of this blog will know, I despise foalcon. Fimfiction's continued refusal to provide even a filter for that stuff, despite having a bunch of filters for narcotics, profanity and so on, is pathetic. Offprint bans foalcon outright, together with its equivalents in other fandoms and original fiction. Ten billion points for that, Offprint.
That point notwithstanding, I don't expect to spend any significant time reading on Offprint, certainly not until and unless it advances considerably from its current state. However, it's probably worth reminding everyone at this point that, although Ponyfic Roundup overwhelmingly features stories from Fimfiction, that is not a requirement. If you see something great on Offprint that isn't available on Fimf, by all means recommend it!
I've been keeping an eye on Offprint, and I admire what they tried to do, but it's probably fair to say it hasn't quite taken off. Still being in Alpha two years on is a clear sign of that, but a bigger sign is that, of the 83 MLP-tagged fics (70 of those being FiM), the output slowed considerably after the first wave of authors uploading fics back in August 2020 to pledge their support. Now, some authors haven't tagged their stories with the FiM label or an equivalent (hello, iisaw!), but that's still a small portion of the whole. At 424 stories on the whole after nearly two years (and, for example, only 15 in the last four months), it's petered out, and then some.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, many authors are just cross-posting their Fimfiction stories: 26 of those 83 MLP stories are from SigmasonicX alone! Some authors, like bats, give Offprint an initial window of exclusivity before posting to Fimfiction (for Pony) or A03 (for anything else). But yeah, don't think that Patreon tactic has really paid off dividends, for the authors or Offprint itself. And of course, since authors are doing this for free, hardly anyone's going to post a fic exclusively there, restricting the number of people who are seeing it that much.
It really does come to eBay syndrome, doesn't it? Even people who've vacated their fics from Fimfiction altogether for personal reasons (and no, I don't just mean iisaw) still generally put them on A03 too. Me, I have never once felt the slightest desire to cross-post any of my four-MLP stories to either fanfiction.net (where I once was) or A03 (where I've never had an account), and despite my sympathy for Offprint, the desire isn't that much higher there either.
But yes, infinite kudos for banning foalcon and its equivalents. Seeing that the output of fanfic on Fimfiction continues to gradually trickle downwards, but M-rated fics remain at the same level, the worst of them continues to get a little harder to avoid these days without filtering out M-rated stories altogether.
although Ponyfic Roundup overwhelmingly features stories from Fimfiction, that is not a requirement.
Reminds me of how I'll occasionally come across a reading of an interesting-looking fanfic (usually by Scribbler), but then I'll see the fic in question has been taken down. So, no review. Not nearly the same thing, of course, more akin to when a fic you're about to review is taken down. But it got me thinking.
As a side note, the odd author goes somewhere else. Monochromatic moved off Fimfiction (while leaving everything up) and actually has her own site now, and while she's no doubt getting a lot less traffic there than she would on Fimfiction for new content (no public traffic statistics, so can't be exact), she seems to be doing fine. Plus, it's got ePUB downloads enabled, and frankly is a (little) easier to navigate than Offprint.
That point about Monochromatic brings up one of the big problems: how many people do you know who've successfully moved away from Fimfiction who weren't already very well known? Even Mono and iisaw, who are very well known and well regarded, haven't actually nuked their Fimfiction accounts. If you're a new or lesser-known writer and actually want to be read, even in today's diminished ponyfic fandom you still can't really afford not to be on Fimfiction.
DeleteI have a very minor insight into this thanks to being I think the only significant ponyfic reviewer now who uses an off-site blog. I reckon it took two or three years of doing Ponyfic Roundup weekly before I started getting more than the very occasional comment. That's a long time to go without feedback for any author, since writers are vain even if we pretend otherwise. I was getting plenty of feedback for my own fics, and that kept me going -- but that of course was on Fimfiction.
I've kind of been hanging around their discord server, so I have hope the site will continue to improve given time. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm there but under a completely different name, posting non-pony fanfiction, wahaha! :V
"Given time" is the problem, though. Given it's been in alpha for two years already, and further given what Mike points out above regarding how slow new submissions have become (15 in four months!) I tend to feel they've missed the boat. At least as far as ponyfic specifically is concerned, which is what I'm concerned with on this blog. "It'll be ready when it's ready" gave us the joys of Duke Nukem Forever, after all.
DeleteYeah, Offprint... *sigh*
ReplyDeleteI really, really want them to succeed and I'm even supporting them on the top tier of their Patreon. But you are dead right with the Ebay Syndrome comment. The clunky interface and glacial improvement rate doesn't help, either. I have put some exclusive content up there, but it pretty much landed without a plop.
As for AO3, that's sort of like being lost in a snowstorm. Oddly enough, I seem to have gotten a lot more attention for my Night Vale crossover there than I ever did on FiMFic, but that's undeniably because of people looking for Night Vale fic.
(BTW, On the Rocks is light, fun, and a quick read. *nudge. nudge*)
@Mike: My stories aren't MLP tagged on Offprint? I think I probably put them up before the tag system worked. I need to go fix that.
Don't join the Offprint discord, you'll be sorry.
ReplyDeleteThis comment is made amusingly chilling by the combination of its vagueness and its anonymity. :D
DeleteWhat happened to the website? It looks...off.
ReplyDeleteNVM, ignore this.
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