#!fanfic

[ichihime]

IH WEEK 2023 ➞ DAY 02. We Do Knot Always Love You

They walked side by side together to her apartment, a heavy silence and a measured distance hanging between them. Ichigo and Orihime parted ways with the others upon arriving back in Karakura Town, Chad and Uryu both having read the mood and politely excusing themselves to give them some much appreciated privacy. From his periphery, Ichigo noticed Orihime tense, holding back a shiver against the chilly night air. He shrugged out of his suit jacket (Yuzu had insisted on pressing it for the wedding) and wordlessly draped it around her shoulders. The corner of his lips turned upwards when he saw her relax into its warmth, just before her wide honey eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. “It’s cold out tonight.” he explained, answering her question before she had a chance to voice it. His throat felt dry, and he had to concentrate on his words to ensure his voice wouldn’t catch. Inwardly, he cursed himself for being so nervous. “Yes, it is.” she agreed, her voice barely above a whisper as she nodded once. She smiled warmly as she looked at him, a light pink dusting her cheekbones. “Thank you.” “O-Of course.” he said without thinking, the words coming to him more easily than he’d have thought. Ichigo tried not to focus too much on how naturally it came to him; caring for her, that is. Instead he forced himself to breathe in and out, to count each step he took (each one far too many), to ignore how his fingers just barely brushed against hers for the third time as they drifted too close together as they make their way to her home — only for them to pull away sharply, as if burned by drifting too close to one another. Like planets, drawn into one another’s orbit. He remembered their exchange before stepping into Senkaimon, how he steeled himself to ask her for something he wasn’t quite certain she wanted to give; how he swallowed the thick lump of fear in his throat, and how her quiet, breathless utterance of “There’s no time better than the present, Kurosaki-kun.” sent his heart fluttering, untwisted all the knots in his stomach, and made his face burn with blush. Ichigo had never anticipated her bold reply (and it was bold of her; even as she clasped her hands tightly in front of her heart and stuttered over her words), but it made his heartbeat race in his ears. How had he quieted his feelings for so long? And if he were to truly believe Renji’s words, how had she?

[rudamaruda520]

me as a writer

[i-used-to-be-a-spy]

"you should be at the club" I should be working on my fanfic

[trekscribbles]

This week, I read a fic that was around 20 years old, which had originally been posted on the author's personal website and which she added to AO3 a few years ago. She listed her email address with the fic, so after I finished reading, I sent her an email saying how much I enjoyed the story, how much I appreciated the work and effort she obviously put into it, and thanked her for uploading it to AO3. She responded the next day and thanked me for my message, then said she had a few more stories in the same series that she hadn't gotten around to uploading. I checked this morning--she added a 35,000 word novella and thanked me in the summary.

👏 comment 👏 on 👏 old 👏 fics 👏

[kyri45]

I didn’t realize you were the person who did the fanfiction tag drinks.

ahah yeah that's meeee!!

They are all available as stickers on my RedBubble shop!

[knebellindemann]

[put-a-keep-are-you-foo-dell]

[mostly-funnytwittertweets]

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[fangsandthangs]

When you’re in the middle of a fic and realise you’ve missed a very critical tag

[heartiella]

[bebx]

[hana-loves-bumblebees]

“Is it okay if I draw fanart of your fanfic?👉🏼👈🏼”

My brother in Christ we shall have a spring wedding

[snowstories]

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

[mr-something-0r-another]