User blog:FossilsDaDaDa/The Plan

Fair warning: This is going to be VERY long. But please, bear with me, and read it. All the way through. If it starts looking the same as another blog you've read, just keep reading. I promise, this blog is different.

I have figured out why Fanon has brought itself to what it is now. And it's not the reasons you think.

It's not because of writer's block. It's not because of this user leaving or that user leaving. It's not because of lack of administrative help. And it's not because of trolls and anons.

It's because of this site's label as a fanon Wikia.

Let me explain:

Let’s take a time, not long ago, when the site was more active. People were writing and drawing at a good pace, and, as a result, the inevitable side effect of collective creativity: Socialization, and, in turn, friendship. People started forming bonds, sharing messages, posting blogs solely for the purpose of communicating, chatting, and overall, forming itself into a wonderful community of people. However, despite this not being in any way the Fanon's primary purpose, nobody complained. Why? Because stories and art were still being produced at a pace that kept up with it, so the socialization could just be technically looked on as, again, just a side effect.

I'll interrupt my explanation to place a disclaimer: Yes, this is looking like one of those "We need to stop socializing" things. It's not, I promise. Just hear me out.

So, moving on...

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">What happened? Well, without going into unnecessary detail I’m sure you are all aware of, Fanon began to slow to a near halt.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">And why? Well, the reasons themselves are probably many and complex, but it can all be summarized in two words: Real life.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Be it distraction, time consuming, sucking out inspiration, or throwing as many crappy situations it possibly can at you to ensure you will not be writing any time soon, real life is not friendly to a fanfiction writer. And because we all worked off of each other as a team, once a few of us got it, the majority of us did.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">But this, all my friends who are serious and ambitious writers, should not grieve you. Even professional and sometimes paid writers and artists can get stuck in ruts for YEARS before getting their creative spark back. In fact, if I was completely honest with myself, Middle/High school is one of the worst possible times you could try to be a regular author, because Real Life is rearing its ugly head like nobody’s business. This is why I am convinced that all of the “we need to stop socializing” claims were, pray I offend nobody when I say this, baloney. Because unless all of you SERIOUSLY have no lives, which I know none of you do, there is no possible way that socializing on this Wikia could be the ONLY thing distracting you from reading and writing.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">To further back up my point, take a large, prospering website such as FanFiction.net. Not only are there a LOT more users on there, so one or two people getting writers block barely puts a damper on anything, but many of them are older, and lead far less busy lives. We, as a fanon, have a relatively tiny community, which consists almost entirely of teenagers. In the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t really come as this big of a surprise that everything has fallen to the point that it has.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Now, let’s leave those discouraging points behind us for the time being, and face a third obvious question: So why haven’t we all left yet? Why does the flame still burn, if very faintly? Why do any of us have hope? Why haven’t I, with not access to any means of getting art onto the computer and officially stuck in my will-be-going-for-a-while rut of writing, gone and done something more productive with my life?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Because, to put it bluntly and informally, we came for the fanfiction, stayed for the friends.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">And it’s easy to see why. In the midst of our writing and drawing way back when, we were helping each other, laughing with each other, encouraging each other, comforting each other, sharing with each other, being there when we needed each other, and altogether being one of the best communities of fans I have ever encountered. It’s no secret that we made a pretty great team. But once creative activity began to die down, that in turn did as well. But Real Life wasn’t to blame for this. By doing more socializing than writing and drawing, we weren’t achieving this website’s primary function. We were happy with what we had, at least I was, but we still felt wrong and uncomfortable doing it, because this place is a fanon Wikia, not a fan community. We were now being pressured, against blocks, into writing and drawing. And if we absolutely couldn’t write, we all felt guilty for not being able to do so.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">That is why the site’s label as a fanon Wikia is to blame for this.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Now, my nearest and dearest friends, I have a proposal to share with all of you that I believe will combat our community’s dying state. It’s a far, far more drastic undertaking than anything else we have attempted and will require a lot of active participation on everybody’s part, but if we get cooperation and help on behalf of you all, then I can all but guarantee that the outcome will be more desirable than the state we are in now.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I trust you all to trust me and read this in its entirety before passing any response.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">As you may or may not be aware, in spite of this place’s lack of activity, me, Tiberius, and Nan are all still talking with one another on a nearly daily basis. We had moved our conversation to another website initially for the sake of simplicity and privacy, but it quickly became clear that it was a VERY good website for a small community of people to communicate and socialize. This fact kept us glued there, and it wasn’t long before we were not only going there very regularly, but we got closer to one another as friends.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">So, with no further beating around the bush…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I wish to remove the Wikia label that is holding back this once-thriving community of fans in the only way I know possible: Transferring to a different website, one without any must-be-followed function and without any creative expectations. Just a group of people enjoying one another’s company and writing and drawing at their own, personal pace.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">As the website in question, Chatonic.com, is a chat room website and not a place in which you can post stories, blogs, or journals, the community is going to have to span across multiple websites. The most opportune one that comes to mind now is DeviantArt, in which all three can be posted, but that’s not set in stone. Other options available could be FF.net, Tumblr, or any other sort of personal blog website. Heck, you can even continue posting things on HERE if you want, and that’s perfectly fine. We can keep tabs with one another on all of these through the chatroom, just as long as it’s possible to be provided a link to, it works.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">This undertaking will require close to unrelenting activity early on to ensure that it will be a success, to prevent it from going stagnant, so I need you, each and every one of you who wishes to keep ties with each other, to agree to do everything they can to ensure this.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Now, I know what you’re thinking. We’d be abandoning Fanon if we were doing this, right? The exact thing we’ve been struggling NOT to do the last few months?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Well...no, I’m going to have to disagree with you there.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Us transferring to another website would be as damaging to our unity as a fanon group as a move to another place in the country would to a family. Yes, in both cases, there would be new things to adjust to, habits to be broken and habits to be built, a new environment to get used to, and so forth, but the family is still a family. And we would still be the fanon community. I mean, what makes a fanbase a fanbase? No, what is the prefix of the word “fanbase”? The ''fans. ''And a community of fans is a very special one, because no matter how crazy, different, quirky, nerdy, or downright weird you may be, being a part of it means you can always go to sleep with the assurance that you have something in common with somebody else. And it doesn’t matter in the least what site we choose to be on. We’re still a team. We’re still a community. We’re still a bunch of crazy people who obsess over a cartoon show intended for people much younger than we are. And we are still awesome.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">We’re still Phineas and Ferb Fanon, no matter what that URL says.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Now I know, in my two years of being here, I’ve told you time and time again what a great group of people you are. So, this may be a little redundant on my part, but if it helps, I mean absolutely every word I’ve said, and am going to say now.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">You guys, each and every one of you, have completely changed my life.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I am a very, very different person than I was when I was thirteen, and I can thank a good portion of that for you guys. You’re not only essentially my only social life I can manage to have, but you’re also the best one I could ever imagine happening. I grew up saying to myself “Who needs friends, anyway?”, thinking my inexcusable lack of social skills would doom anything even remotely resembling a close friendship. But no, there was a different plan for me.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Beyond just accepting me for my differences, you’ve given me so much in the relatively short time I’ve been here. I’ve grown exponentially more in creative ability, I’ve finally got a hard and set vision for what I want to achieve when I’ve grown older, I’ve matured, gotten a bigger view of this planet, I’ve shared experiences, good and bad, I’ve given and received comfort and encouragement and sympathy when nobody else would, and I’ve been lucky enough to catch the eye of somebody who couldn’t possibly be a more ideal boyfriend for me.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">I truly do mean it when I say that I love you guys. All of you. You’re the best group of friends I could ever envision having in my entire lifetime.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">And I don’t want to lose all of that over a website label. You're all far more important than that.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">That, everyone, is the plan.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Hopefully, I’ll see you on Chatonic.com shortly for more precise decision   making. For now, this is all that can be said.

<span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">Fossy is out. Peace.