Work Text:
This is the place where my challenge fic is going to go, but I can't put it here until it's back from beta, so until it is, here's a little story for all you electrons of the Archive who are paying so close attention to my typing and tags.
Once upon a time in an archive far away, there lived a little fic that could. That fic is this fic. One time when this fic was very young and was merely a draft in this anon author's profile, it was alone and naked, for it had no tags. And then the shimmering fairy of tag-ishness said, "behold, there shall be tags". And then I visited upon it many tags, so that this fic may be found by interested readers.
And behold, it was good.
And then I looked and beheld and, lo, there was a very terrible title and summary, and I thought and I thought, and I thought very hard, and then I blew the house down around the title and the summary, and from the ashes arose a brand new title and a kick-ass summary that shall live on in infamy, or, at least, stick in people's minds like peanut butter and glue and glitter and song lyrics and sticky things and also super glue.
I think that got away from me a little there.
And then I looked and beheld and the word count was too low. "Oh noes!" said I, "whatever shall I do? Shall I write a very long sentence that is very long for no good reason that is a very bad reason and is much too run on and needs a comma or maybe a semi-colon or some dashes and hyphens and a partridge in a pear tree? Perhaps I should write something nonsensical, something about butterflies, yes, butterflies, no, wait, how about cell phones (she thought, looking around her desk for things to write about that aren't butterflies), or hand cream or monitors or speakers or clock radios or lamps or walls! Yes, let's discuss walls!"
And then the author sat and stared at the wall, waiting for it to provide inspiration. Alas, it did not. The author stared for a long time. The author is well used to staring at walls, waiting for inspiration or a certain word or maybe a page to finish loading, so this was not an unusual act for the author at all. And then the author stared some more.
And then the author reread the fic and thought "this is terrible garbage", but as this is only a placeholder for my FIC OF AWESOME AWESOMENESS, meh, who cares.
I apologize, dear electrons of the AO3, for insinuating that you are not a valuable audience. The truth is, you are not.
But, oh, you are! For this is Mystery Work and you are the only ones who will ever be able to read it. Once the works are revealed, it shall not be Mystery Work, it shall be Redacted! What ephemeral an existence, to vanish upon viewing! Oh, electrons, you are blessed indeed to be able to read this work, this stunning work of place-holding genius.
Shall I continue the story of how Mystery Work came into creation? How I crafted it from the draft before posting it, how I cherished the time we spent together, just the two of us, before the world could peek in and all would change?
Electrons, you are reading the dream that vanishes upon waking. Cherish this experience,
As I write these words, I contemplate the nature of existence. Are we all not truly Mystery Works, our true natures yet to be revealed by the challenge maintainers? Do we all slumber, our numbers adding to Fandom and Work counts? As we slumber, are we shaken by recipients? Do they try to glimpse our inner selves, before we are truly shared with each other?
Am I merely asking questions to fill word count?
These are all worthy of contemplation. Let us contemplate them together.
Let us consider: could this work have existed before the Archive?
We shall not have to consider this for very long, because the answer is No.
Well, that was short.
Let us progress from this. Let us take up the question: for what purpose was the Mystery Work created? For two purposes. The first, as does not state the FAQ but perhaps should, "no peeking". The second purpose is to teach patience to the world, to require that author and audience alike be mindful of due dates and reveal dates and always pay respects to pinch hitters.
Go out and learn: for what purpose were pinch hitters created? To be there when others can not be. For we are all given assignments in life and some of us, for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture, may discover that the burden is not in a good time. Pinch hitters take the assignment in, feed it, clothe it, and swaddle it in love and effort, and raise it into a fill.
And what of bears?
These are the characteristics of bears: they maul you to pieces, digging their claws into your mind, until you have no words and no drafts. They stand on you, crushing you beneath their malevolence, and nothing you do is ever good enough. They fight you constantly and must be defeated for the work to be finished. And they shed all over the furniture.
The opposite of this are bunnies.
And this is the life you will lead as a fic author: you will sleep with a notebook close at hand, you will walk into things because of your daydreaming, and the word count shall be with you all your days. Only you must remember to spell check your works before posting, and you shall not stumble from this path all your life.
And now the fic's back from beta, so I'll be deleting all this and replacing it with my awesomeness. GOOD BYE!