hopingforbrain

[hopingforbrain]

oh man kid fics are my weakness but i HATE how so many times characters are like "i didnt think i wanted a kid... but i couldnt possibly get rid of it..." come oooonnnn get that abortion bitch. stop acting like it's an unconscionable choice!!!! i'd prefer it SO MUCH if characters adopted rather than act as if abortion wasnt even on the table. let me enjoy my favorite characters becoming caretakers without feeling like theyre pro-life. sorry for sending this whole ass paragraph but your post reminded me of my Biggest Pet Peeve

NO YOURE RIGHT and that's why wangxian is so fucking based. They have a breeding kink but also an adoptive son. Iconic

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Honghong-er has only known Xie Lian for a day and a half, but if anything happened to him, he would kill everyone in the room and then himself

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Finally finished the MDZS artwork to match my previous SVSSS and TGCF artworks 😆

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Doodle dump with expression memes from here

[hopingforbrain]

“Be warned —if I catch you so much as looking at my disciple again, I will gouge your eyes out,” Shen Qingqiu hissed, and heard nothing but the trembling breath Luo Binghe exhaled at that. “Get lost, now, while you can still walk.”

Illustration for my Jin Lan City Fix-it Fic: To beg forgiveness (rather than ask permission)

[hopingforbrain]

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

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Luo be like: don’t talk to me unless you’re Shizun

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Types of AO3 Summary

Option 1 - The Excerpt:

The quickest, the easiest! Find a section of your fic that contains the main premise of said fic and also showcases your writing. Copy paste that into the summary box. BOOM! Done.

Best used for any fic, unless it's so short the excerpt would be the whole fic.

Option 2 - The No Frills:

Just a description of the fic. No need for drama. No need to complicate matters. Keep it simple, keep it safe.

Example: "A short character exploration of Blorbo's thoughts after Daisy leaves."

Best used for short fics, poems and fics where the style/format is more important than the plot. Or fics that tie directly into a scene/episode from canon or another fanfic.

Option 3 - The Hook:

Draw the reader's interest by giving them a set up with no conclusion. Introduce the main character(s), introduce the status quo, describe an inciting incident, leave a question in the reader's mind.

Example: "Blorbo is a barista at a coffee shop, struggling to pay their bills, but after handsome rockstar Obrolb walks into their coffee shop they find that they have to decide whether a chance at love is worth the cost of fame."

Best used for mid to long fic where there's a strong premise and follow through. Especially good for AUs. Can be expanded for more complex plots or used multiple times in one summary for multiple characters or subplots.

Option 4 - The Sitcom One-Liner:

"The one in which [over simplified description of one of the main plotlines]" This is essentially 'boil your plot down to the very simplest statement you can, oversimplify if possible. The more bizarre or unhelpful the better.

Example: "The one in which Blorbo learns to like cake".

Best used for fics with at least a little humour in them.

Option 5 - The Rule of Three:

Three is a magic number. Find three key moments in your fic and just list them. That's it. Often ends with 'not necessarily in that order' if used for comic effect. If it's an AU, establish that quickly (i.e. 'Star NHL player Blorbo…').

Example: "Blorbo makes a friend, falls in love, and almost burns to death, not necessarily in that order."

Best used for anything, really. Three is a magic number. The human brain loves things that come in threes.

Option 6 - The Trope Lure:

Why bother describing the plot? We all know AO3 readers are here for the tropes. Similar to The Sitcom One-Liner just using tropes instead of plot. Often followed by the phrase 'that nobody asked for'.

Example: "The Space western / A/B/O / Mail Order Bride fic that nobody asked for."

Often tacked on to the end of The Hook or The Excerpt as a tl;dr.

Best used for fic that plays its tropes straight with no shame or second guessing.

Option 7 - The Pre-emptive Strike:

(Not recommended) You just wrote this fic, the self doubt is consuming you. You feel the need to apologise profusely for your existence for no apparently reason. You feel cringe, you think the fic is cringe, you want everyone to know that you think the fic is cringe in case they don't like it and judge you for it.

Example: "So I fell in love with this pairing and had to write this. It's weird and terrible. Lol! I suck at summaries! Sorry!"

Best used for no fics ever. I cannot stress this enough.

(Seriously, I am begging you, don't do this. If you're planning to use this option, rethink it and do one of the others. I guarantee you more people will want to read your fic.)

Sometimes added on to any other summary as a strange disclaimer. (srsly. don't.)

Option 8 - The Unapology:

Embrace the mayhem, embrace the deep dark depths of your soul. The opposite of The Pre-emptive Strike. A combination of The No Frills and The Trope Lure that truly gives no fucks.

You have committed crimes and you are proud of them. You know what your USP is and you're going to make sure your target market finds you. Look upon my works, ye readers, and despair!

Example: "There aren't enough tentacle fics in this pairing, so I had to write one myself!"

Best used for fics with controversial/polarising tropes with all relevant details already clearly stated in the tags.

Option 9 - The Interrogation:

What if you wrote a summary entirely in questions? What if your readers had to read the fic to discover the answers? Who knows what will happen if you do this?

Example: "What happens when Blorbo McBlorbo gets his wish and Daisy doesn't make it to the plane on time? What happens when Obrolb finds out? How will this change Daisy and Blorbo's friendship?"

Best used for... I honestly don't know. This style of summary does not vibe with me. Mystery fic maybe? Sorry guys.

Option 10 - The Multipack:

Got a bunch of shorter fics in one work? No way of summarising them all without a wall of text larger than the Great Wall of China? This one is similar to The No Frills in that you're not describing the plots themselves and similar to The Trope Lure in that often broader genres and tropes are mentioned. What links those fics? Are they all in the same fandom? The same pairing? The same challenge? Just slap that right in the summary. A chapter list with 1-2 word trope/pairing summaries can be included or not.

Example: "A collection of Blorbo/Daisy/Obrolb fics based on Tumblr prompts. Chapter 1: Regency AU Chapter 2: Werewolves vs vampires Chapter 3: Ghost!Daisy Chapter 4: Space pirates!"

Best used for (obviously) works that are compilations of fic.

Option ? - The Void:

I said The Excerpt was the quickest and easiest summary to do. I lied, well... I didn't exactly lie. What is quicker and easier than not having a summary at all? After all, that's what the tags are for.

Example:

Best used for... nothing? Write a summary, guys. Please?

[hopingforbrain]

I don't know if people know this, but this illustration has an alt version in the Spanish translation! Jajsjsj

[hopingforbrain]

Shishu you cheater >:'(

bingliu(shen) be upon ye

[hopingforbrain]

I love the difference between “Shen Jiu intentionally had child Shen Yuan” vs “Oops! He’s here now!” AUs because the difference between how Shen Jiu treats Shen Yuan is so night and day.

“This is my beautiful precious son who is better than everyone else here and if you even look at him I’ll kill you”

Vs.

“I hope that fuckass child who is NOT related to me in ANY WAY falls of the mountain and fucking dies. No you still can’t look at him. No reason.”

[hopingforbrain]

I desperately want to read SVSSS fic where Shen Yuan wakes up in hospital, maybe after some kind of point loss or system outage.

Turns out he was only very briefly dead, and he was found by a neighbour (or something) before he could choke all the way to death.

His family are bemused - their hikikomori son/brother nearly died, and he's woken up a straight spined scholar of the arts with a strangely commanding presence.

Shen Yuan is aching for everyone he's lost, for his martial brothers, for Luo Binghe... He can't understand what's happened. A vivid dream? A dying hallucination? A vision of some kind of afterlife?

At first, he can't bear to look on the forums, or reread any part of PIDW, it all just feels too close. He asks to go recover at a countryside estate, and his family indulge him.

He comes back a month later, and logs on, to find out that the forums are absolutely on fire over a deeply intense, highly cringe LBH rper who is Very OOC and looking for "Shizun", and an inbox 562 direct messages from Airplane.

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Follow up for this idea, once LBH is out of the Abyss and he and SQQ have worked out the important stuff- like how much they missed each other and how they should totally kiss and hold hands and all- LBH asks about the System, which has gone back to hiding.

LBH is super frustrated because SQQ is clearly deliberately misinterpreting or avoiding his questions but when he turns to storm off SQQ grabs his arm and really deliberately puts his other hand over his mouth while avoiding eye contact.

LBH: ...you can't tell me can you? You said something about that at the time...

SQQ: ...

LBH: *thinks up the silliest possible thing to say* Clearly this is all Liu Qingge's fault.

SQQ: Pfff... No!

LBH: So you can only tell me when I'm wrong.

SQQ: ...

LBH: Ok I got it.

Once he's got the rules down LBH is gonna find out so much stuff about the System. It's days are numbered.

RIP Airplane when LBH asks about him though.

LBH: Clearly this is all SQH's fault.

SQQ: ... ...

LBH: Wait really??

SQQ: ...That's not... A fair assessment.

LBH: ?????????

SQQ: Don't kill him.

Miles away, minding his own business SQH shudders.

SQH: ... something bad just happened.

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Ximena being great at all types of cooking.

And we thank her for that

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Underneath the bridge, drifting through the river’s end;

Two lovers met.

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Su Xiyan, in heaven, watching her son get turbo BPD from a diseased sword then going bonkers for some old geezer: I did not abort myself for this

[hopingforbrain]

Where on earth did the "Lans only love once" thing come from?

Good day, anon!

It's simply pure conjecture and... how do I put this, western fandom trying to make the clans into Harry Potter houses by making them seem like you are to have certain personality traits to be in them. And a very easy way to box concepts into.

Wei Wuxian is the only one to observe that for the asceticism's of the Lan Clan, it's founder had been a romantic by marrying his beloved first and foremost, and does so again when it comes to Qinghen-jun and Madam Lan's circumstances. We are not supposed to exactly know Lan Wangji's feelings either regarding Wei Wuxian much like Wei Wuxian had been unsure of his dedication being platonic or just as romantic/sexual as his own was until the end of plot where the pieces of his love finally come together.

But there is nothing that lends itself that their situation is overarching thing for ALL of the clan. I am not even going to act like Lan Xichen is included here because he is very much critical of this very concept and he was never in love at any point in his life yet. Lan Jingyi jokes that Wei Wuxian needed to be more dramatic about seperating from Lan Wangji in Yi City because he's a teenager that finds drama amusing and was disappointed he didn't get a show of some sort.

If anything Qinghen-jun and Lan Wangji are the clan's dirty secret as their "romance" wasn't standard Confucian practice proper. And if you look at what standard Confucian courting rites and practice is, it's not exactly very romantic either, and the Lan clan is very much by the book Confucian/Doaist practitioners in all manners of their lives.