fun with searching my author name on the internet

[dbskyler]

I've figured out that if I go to www.delicious.com -- which is a fairly widely used bookmarking site -- and type in my fanfiction author name, I get a list of my stories that have been bookmarked by other people. My results?

-- 5 for "Fallacy Somewhere"
-- 3 for "Upgrade" (my Yuletide Red Dwarf story)
-- 2 for "Miles from Aberdeen"
-- 2 for "Rosemary" (that was a surprise; I'm fond of it, but it's not one of my more favorited stories on Teaspoon)
-- 1 for "Turn Again" (and yeah, I need to FINISH that)
-- 1 for "Nameless"
-- 1 for "Break of Day"

You guys should all try it for your own author names -- it's fun!

And speaking of my fic "Break of Day," you will never guess what I came across while doing random Google searches on my author name:

Someone has actually translated my fic into Russian! No, really!

I'm just completely blown away that someone went to the trouble to translate one of my fics. It is quite possibly the most awesome thing I have ever come across on the internet. The translation even requires a footnote since I put in a silly aunt/ant joke that doesn't work in Russian. (Truthfully, it probably doesn't even work that well in a British accent, but I put it in anyway.)



I've back-translated the story using Yahoo Babel Fish, which was oddly surreal but also quite amusing, as Babel Fish has its issues with translation. As an example, here's the first sentence of my fic:

It was a pounding on her door, and it was 5 a.m., two things that Sarah firmly believed should never go together.

And here's the first sentence of the back-translation:

Were five mornings, and into the door it loudly, and Sarah it solidly believed that these two things never must occur simultaneously.

And it goes on from there . . . Here's my favorite sentence:

"Sarah!" - it sufficiently exclaimed, as if recently took out it of the hat as rabbit.

Anyway, I'm just thrilled that someone went to all the trouble to translate the story, and I'm sure it was a marvelous job. _Наблюдатель, if you're out there reading this, you've made my week. :D

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Whoa! The Russian thing just boggles my brain.

Hardly anyone has used delicious to tag my LJ stuff - only five bookmarks in total! Although my recent Big Finish Meme of Lurve Fic Rec post has been tagged - it's good to know someone found that post useful since hardly anyone commented on it!

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

You think your brain is boggled by the Russian thing . . .

You have tons more bookmarks than 5 on delicious. I just checked and lost count at around 20 . . . and there were more pages to go. Try searching on "persiflage" -- yes, you'll get irrelevant hits, but it will bring up all the relevant hits, too.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Ah. I searched on my actual proper LJ name, silly me!

[tempestas-inu.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Especially the translation into Russian thing, it just goes to show that people really loved your fic and wanted to share it with more people in the world.

Just so you know, if it weren't for my habit of memorizing the site addresses of the things I like instead of "wasting time bookmarking" I would've probably bookmarked "Miles from Aberdeen", "Rosemary" (but you knew that already), and "Break of Day".

and whaddya know? All of them involve Sarah XD.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling that "Rosemary" is the type of story that appeals to only a select group of readers, but that select group tends to really like it. Which is just fine with me. :D

And aw, thanks for saying you like those stories enough to bookmark them! And strangely enough, I tend to write quite a few stories that involve Sarah. Wonder why that is? ; )

[eponymous-rose.livejournal.com]

That translation thing is amazing! What a cool discovery. :D I love the Babel Fish snippets, too!

I keep forgetting about delicious - one of these days I'm going to make an account and start setting up bookmarks of my own. (...whoa, one of my Star Trek fics has over 80 bookmarks there. It must have been linked somewhere, yikes.)

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

whoa, one of my Star Trek fics has over 80 bookmarks there

80 bookmarks, wow! That's awesome! Have you checked out the various tags people gave it? Because that's fun, too.

I love the Babel Fish snippets, too!

I think I'm going to have to copy-and-paste the entire back-translation and save it to my computer, because I keep going back to marvel at it. Taken together, all those weirdly translated sentences take on a very surreal quality that manages to almost make sense in the end, in a Lewis Carroll kind of way.

[primsong.livejournal.com]

What an amazing compliment that they like it well enough to want it in another language - very cool. And thanks for the fun, I have several that have been bookmarked plus someone has my Butter Mochi in their recipes as well. ^_^ No Russian fans though.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you enjoyed the bookmark fun! It's nice to come across people who've read and want to remember one's fics (and recipes), isn't it?

[thisbluespirit]

Russian - wow! That is truly amazing. I was pretty impressed to find, via Google, my fic 'Home' being recced on a German fan forum (and had similar fun to you using babel-fish to find out what they said about it), and I thought people reading fics in a foreign language was pretty impressive - but translation! Wow. *is amazed*

I knew about del.ici.ous but would never have bothered looking through it & found that several of my fics had been bookmarked, but also clicking on my author tag revealed that one of them had written summaries for each that were in actual facts cute little recs, and I'd happily pay him/her for it!

(e.g.for 'Fallen': What it says on the tin. Hilarity and Delgado being sort of adorable in his thwartedness. and for Mistaken Rose, searching desperately for the Doctor, finds the wrong one. Both Rose and Six are awesome and hilarious in this one. :-D) However, searching for lost_spook reveals my most popular fic - my Yuletide version of Sleeping Beauty. It's now officially my most popular fic on any count I can find. Which is nice, as it's really sort of original fic, because Sleeping Beauty isn't big on characterisation...

So that was fun.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Russian - wow! That is truly amazing.

It really is amazingly amazing. The person who did the translation has translated some other fics, too, in various fandoms. I have no idea what could have drawn them to translate mine -- perhaps they were looking for an Eleven!fic to do, and just happened across it -- but I'm pretty excited by it.

It's all your fault in a way, too, since you were the one who first suggested to me the idea of Googling on one's author name . . . :D

Glad to help spread the bookmark joy on delicious!

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, come on - they must have liked it to spend their free time translating it! :-)

And... what? Who, me? :Lol:

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

It's just weird because even I don't consider it anything close to The Best Fic Ever, or even The Best Eleven!Fic Ever, and I wrote the thing! But okay, yes, they obviously liked it, and wanted to share it in Russian. Happy now? ;P

And... what? Who, me?

Yes, you! And come to think of it, "Break of Day" is a 50ficlets fic, so it's also your fault that I wrote it in the first place!

[thisbluespirit]

Well, you know, I'm just evil like that. ;-) But happy now, yes.

[clocketpatch]

I just googled myself and discovered two things:

1. someone is stealing picture of my pets off of my photobucket account and putting them up as stock. Not cool. Also, I've lost the password for said account so I'm not sure what I can do about it. *is thoroughly creeped out*

2. Awhile ago joking made an awesome podfic of my fic Lux lucis quod sanus. Someone is now trying to sell this podfic as a beginners Latin audiobook on a scammy looking DVD site. This is also creepy. But kind of hilarious at the same time. The only thing Latin about that fic is the title.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

Eep, neither of those sound good at all! Maybe there's a way to get photobucket to reset your password. Sites often have a "forgot your password?" system in place, although I don't know about photobucket. And someone is trying to make money by misrepresenting a podfic of your writing? That's, um . . . yeah. Wow. Kind of disturbing that there are people like that out there.

Sorry it was such a creep-inducing exercise for you! Did you at least get any pleasant surprises, too? Any popular fics or posts, or previously unknown reviews / recs / translations of your fic?

[clocketpatch]

Nothing as cool as your Russian fic translation (honestly, I don't think it does get much cooler than that; cause that's pretty damn awesome!) but I did find myself on a few random rec lists i wasn't aware of, so that was nice.

[aqwt101.livejournal.com]

Hey! It was me who translated you fic! I'm so flattered that you like it! Anyway, your fic is great and it was a pleasure to translate. Thank you! :)

[dbskyler]

Hello! Wow, I can't believe you found this post over here on Dreamwidth, when I literally just opened this account and imported content over. Anyway, I hope you can tell that I was absolutely thrilled to find a translation of my fic, and I am so flattered that you thought it was good enough to translate.