#(Someday I Will Rewrite the Old Fic Concepts)

[hikari-m]

M E: (*TAKES DEEP BREATH*) Someone: Hey, why do you ship something so unusual, you know it'll never be canon righ--- m E: YES, I love TAKEMIYA aka MIYAKERU, I GET IT OK, I love TAKEMIYA, TAKEMIYA is a Brightest F*cking Starshine CRACK-SHIP aka RARE PAIR in My Life since my childhood days in this fan base, I f*cking ADORE THEM (+UNTIL THE END OF TIME AND WHEN THIS SERIES IS TRULY 'OVER'), YES okay y E S, I love TAKEMIYA, I DO also love Takeru and Miyako SEPARATELY, but I also love them TOGETHER, HOW many times are We Gonna Go Through This, I F*CKING LOVE TAKEMIYA BECAUSE WHEN I WAS YOUNG ME I WROTE THEM INTO AN 02 O.C.s based fic once AND I NEVER GOT OVER THEM AND THIS WAS BEFORE I EVEN GOT TO SEE THE 02 FINALE, yes I KNOW what happens in it, I do NOT dismiss that ship, in fact, if anything, I think it makes Take+Miya even more hilarious when you involve poly-ship dynamics and Shenanigans involving that character AND others, anyway all you need to know about the Take+Miya I once wrote is they initially act like the "Love-Love {Rabu-Rabu} couple" trainer class in that other Monster battling franchise after temporarily getting together during in-between years or just like any of the generally mushy battle duos and it confuses the f*ck out of EVERYONE else how they even came to form that dynamic and its HILARIOUS, meanwhile once amicably broken up with Takeru on good terms Miyako is making eyes at a certain Someone Else from afar in between and that person is just like only partly Oblivious all the way up until "The Beginning" era and possibly a little beyond, meanwhile Takeru is realizing Takeru's Very Not Over Miyako but then Takeru's also having OTHER Realizations about Self-

[arithmonym]

20 questions for 20 writers!

thanks to @accidentallyadorable for tagging me! this was fun. :3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

30! only 20 are visible from my profile, though. my older fics and drabbles are quarantined to a separate account, and a few things are posted anonymously.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

113,190 words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

it’s mostly the locked tomb these days. i also have a few old works for the penumbra podcast, the magnus archives, and the adventure zone—and a few even older works for harry potter and percy jackson, but those are on ff.net so i can pretend they don’t exist.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

it’s familiar (but not too familiar) - fluffy griddlehark time travel fic. this was my first attempt at writing them and i could definitely do a better job now, but the prose still holds up.

alive, barely breathing - post-canon griddlehark first time fic that’s fucked-up and sad. sometimes i look at the comments when i want to feel good about my writing. :3

bring your hunger - post-canon griddlehark grief/relationship study. also a WIP. (honestly, this one might go on anon for a bit—it’s vulnerable in ways i don’t want to explain, and i’m shying away from writing the next chapter because the Fear of Being Known got to me a little.)

it’s not unusual - fluffy modern AU where team 69 go to a bar and play catan. palamedes has an oral fixation, because of course he does. this one is campal with background griddlehark getting-together, but i might write a sequel from harrow’s POV someday.

bad idea right? - modern AU chatfic inspired by this post by eskildit. it’s about camilla dealing with the paldulcie situationship™️ & enduring so much dyke drama thanks to the nature of her friend group. it received a podfic recently, which is fun!

(… i also want to write a camdulcie sequel for this one. i’ve been rotating the idea frequently.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

almost always. there are a few scattered comments i haven’t replied to yet, but i like responding! it’s an excuse to drop more lore about the fic and the writing process, IMO.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angiest ending?

the ace cam fic i haven’t finished yet, which will probably be posted on anon. (i feel like people are going to attack me for poor representation or something, but it’s inspired by my own experiences, so. can’t win them all. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

something sweet is pure, uncomplicated fluff, so i guess i’ll go with that!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

not really. i’ve blocked a few people for being rude, but i haven’t gotten hate in years.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

occasionally. i’ve only posted 4 explicit fics, but so far it’s a pretty even mix of f/f, f/m, and other.

10. Do you write crossovers?

i have a tlt/w359 fusion AU i want to pick up again! i need to untangle some threads of the metaplot, though.

(also, the first fic i published on ff.net was a harry potter/rise of the guardians crossover. yes. it was cringe. yes, it’s probably still posted on the internet if you want to find it.)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes, actually! a few of my old hp fics were translated into spanish or chinese.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

i wrote a round-robin fic with the campal server once. i also started co-writing a fic with quinn a while ago (before we both got busy with school) that i’d like to return to at some point, because the concept still makes me vibrate with glee.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

i’m not sure that i have one, actually? i’m a multishipper to my core.

15. What's one WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i have so many WIPs in my google docs that i’ll probably never finish.

i’d like to revisit my fic about necromancers & dysautonomia some day, but my writing style has changed so much since then. i might have to rewrite what i’ve posted.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i’m frequently complimented on my worldbuilding. i’m good at examining the implications of things that other people might not think about, so my plots are original even when i’m writing a fandom trope. (i can’t wait to post my harrow nova AU for this exact reason.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

sigh. pacing. i write from very close POVs, but sometimes i get too far into the character’s head, and it drags the story down. i’m trying to write sharper prose, but i’m going through an awkward growth phase as a writer—i know the structure i want, but it’s a struggle to get there concisely.

also, i over-edit instead of writing new words, which does me no favors.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i guess it depends on context? i have a pretty good grasp on code-switching from being bilingual but not quite fluent, but the memory of that one klance fic haunts me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

i mentioned my first published fic earlier, but the first fic i wrote was a percy jackson self-insert fic when i was twelve.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

indelible! cam and pal figure out that dulcinea isn’t who she says she is at the fifth’s anniversary party, but it doesn’t change anything. <3

///

tagging @harrowharkwife @friendamedes @cindthia @logicbutton @thewinterstale @sluggydrabbles & anyone else who wants to participate!

[hillbilly---man]

A list of my works on AO3

(they're all Saiki K fics at the moment but I'll add fandom categories to this post if I ever get a new interest lol)

It doesn't fit my plans; it's something I don't understand

Published July 11, 2021

Summary: Saiki is fascinated by Satou Hiroshi, and the people around him start to see that this might be more than just a platonic curiosity.

What is this feeling called love?

[Notes: Bittersweet ending. Nobody gets together. My insistence on theming these early fics after songs is pretty embarrassing now. I'm not proud of my writing here but the story is ok. I might rewrite it someday. Not bad for my first fic since like 2003 though]

Something Changed

Published August 11, 2021

Summary: Aiura wrote a letter to her soulmate the night before they were supposed to meet.

She's predicted a lot of things... how could she have gotten this one wrong?

[Notes: Another sad ending. The format of this is almost entirely an excited letter about the future Aiura imagined that would never come to pass. Not really much of a story happening here tbh]

Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown?

Published August 28, 2021 (INCOMPLETE)

Summary: With graduation quickly approaching, the psychics of PK Academy (and Akechi) worry that they'll drift apart. Luckily, they come up with an idea.

"Let's all meet up in the year 2030!"

A lot can change in a decade.

[Notes: Kind of like a psychicker class reunion where they're all adults with jobs and everything catching up. Future chapters were going to have almost a Scooby Doo vibe (with a twist reveal at the end about Aiura's husband!) I abandoned it because I posted some art and someone called my art creepy and it made the whole fic feel bad to think about. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. It's cool to see how quickly my writing improved. I was also super proud of how well I wrote Akechi's dialogue here]

Hotel Valentine

Published September 24, 2021

Summary: Toritsuka Reita is a pretty lucky guy. He somehow managed to not get expelled from PK Academy, he graduated, and he's avoided creeping on any living girls for a few months. To celebrate, the PK Psychics paid for a one-night stay in the fanciest hotel in Tokyo so Reita can creep on the ghost girl of his dreams. Pretty lucky, right?

Too bad things aren't going his way. He's being ignored by the staff, he's bored out of his mind, and he can't find the ghost girl anywhere. Some vacation, huh?

[Notes: Spoiler: Toritsuka's a ghost stuck in a nice hotel. This is based on a concept album that most of you have never heard but hear me out! It really has nothing to do with the Cibo Matto album of the same title except that the chapters are named after the songs and there are fun Easter eggs for fans of the album. Another slightly sad ending but not too bad]

Coffee & TV

Published August 27th, 2022

Summary: The new silence in her house felt heavy on Kumi's shoulders. Everything reminded her of Kumagoro... especially her grandson Kusuo, who has been coming to visit more often than ever before.

[Notes: this is my least popular finished fic and I understand why. It's about grief and the loss of a grandparent. It's about the unique pain that a psychic would have after failing to prevent that death. There's a sad twist that TBH I think I was a little too subtle with. One of my favorites]

Friendly Fire

Published January 8, 2023

Summary: Being an adult is great until the Problems start. Good grief.

30-year-old Kusuo's psychic powers have been pretty well controlled for over a decade. Why are things starting to go haywire all of a sudden?

[Notes: Friendly Fire my fucking beloved!! In this fic, Saiki gets essentially psychic multiple sclerosis and has to deal with some complicated emotions. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it was cathartic to write and I'm in love with the versions of these characters that I wrote here. So much so that I'm writing a sequel just so I can write more of them. Also, FINALLY a happy ending!!]

Ramen Ikouze?

Published April 28, 2023

Summary: After being dragged to get ramen with Nendou every week, Kusuo starts to realize that it's not so bad after all.

[Notes: I love Nendou, he's so good. This fic is very cute and about their friendship. A couple of fun twists]

Saiki has Plans?

Published May 2, 2023

Summary: Saiki mentions having plans after school, and the overactive imaginations at PK Academy work themselves into a fuss trying to imagine what he could be doing.

[Notes: This fic follows around a bunch of Saiki's classmates as they gossip and snoop to find out what he's up to. It's my most popular fic for some reason]

A Bright Flash

Published May 13, 2023

Summary: Saiki develops an annoying new ability, and through some comedy series logic is forced to tell Teruhashi about it. She tries to be a good ally to her "newly psychic" crush.

[Notes: Teruhashi accidentally finds out about Saiki's new power and he's like "fine. I'm a psychic. But it's just this one power and nothing else."]

Heat Wave

Published June 6, 2023

Summary: There's a historic heat wave in Hidariwakibara, and some of our favorite PK Academy students end up running into each other while taking refuge from the hot weather.

A series of four standalone (but connected) stories taking place at the same time:

Aiura has a vision of disaster, and she and Nendou try to stop it

Yumehara gives Toritsuka some advice to improve his game

Akechi meets Teruhashi's brother

Saiki really wants some shaved ice from the kakigori stand where Mera is working

[Notes: The summary explains it well but also I weaved so many connections between the chapters (that are all happening at roughly the same time). It was also a lot of fun writing interactions between characters that didn't get much in canon. Also you can tell it was hot as hell when I wrote it because I definitely gave Saiki some kind of psychic heat intolerance lol]

Immunity

Published July 6, 2023

Summary: She didn't know why, but Kokomi was finally able to see the truth.

Why Saiki seemed to appear and disappear without explanation. Why it seemed like he always knew what she was planning. Why he wore those weird hairpins.

It was all so obvious now.

Saiki had psychic powers.

[Notes: The veil is lifted suddenly and all the truths that Saiki kept locked behind his mind control were revealed to Teruhashi. He and Aiura have a chat with her about it. Also this was the first fic of mine that an IRL friend read (to my knowledge) and his comment was something like "I don't know anything about your boy but he sounds autistic and gnc" and I took that as a fucking compliment! You know you've written Saiki right when people can see that shit from space]

The Disastrous Financial Situation of Saiki K

Published August 9, 2023 (IN PROGRESS)

Summary: Adjusting to his new limitations has been annoying, and now Kusuo (age 31) needs a car to get around.

Unfortunately, taking time off work has drained his savings.

How is he going to get the money for a car now?

[Notes: This is my sequel to Friendly Fire but it's a lot lighter in nature. 100-Yen-Man goes around doing stuff for Saiki's friends. There are mentions of his disability from Friendly Fire and it's plot relevant but I think you can catch on even if you didn't read the original. I haven't updated in a while but I am actively working on it!! A Yumehara and Makino chapter next and then a Toritsuka chapter after that. TBH this isn't my best work and it's pretty unpopular but I'm having fun and that's all that counts)

[baronetcoins]

fic writer asks

tagged by @chiropteracupola - I so do love attention, and these were interesting questions for sure

ao3 name: BaronetCoins (I have Consistent Branding, goddammit)

fandoms: Somewhat actively? Henry V (1989), various MCYT subgroups, and Destiny. In the past, I've done some magnus archives and some rusty quill gaming. Temeraire is hanging around on the periphery though, threatening to add itself to the list without my wish.

number of works: 92. I do write many short things.

work I spent the most time on: cough. polite cough. Oberth Maneuver. I started work on the concept in December of 2021. It's the only thing to have gotten full revisions as I'm writing

work I spent the least time on: Not Interested. Jesus christ I don't want to think about this one for quality reasons, but I used to churn out this quick destiny stuff in like... less than 30 minutes at a time.

longest fic: oberth maneuver again

shortest fic: You ordered well / They brought you medium rare. Shoutout to the 48 hour mcyt exchange for being one of the most batshit things I agreed to do ever.

most hits: May Your Days Be Merry and Bright. I don't even like this fic. God. Why does the magnus archives fandom find a three year old christmas fic in the middle of june and read it. I once had someone on a discord server read it before they knew me, and then tell me it was one of their comfort favorites. I should orphan it /hj

most kudos: above

total word count: 165,329

favorite work of my own: Man, I'm gonna have to pick two here. One is short, and doesn't hit unless you've familiar with both the source material and hamlet, but I am so I like it. the formatting fought me, but it was worth it. [I'm still here (but all is lost)]

the other is a fan favorite (Hi, Remmy, if you read this) and I think my favorite as a work that tried to contain a Plot instead of Vibes. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain. I don't know, It's rather too late for me to be very coherent but considering how much writing I do for myself alone, it's gratifying to write something that other people also want to read on occasion.

fic you want to rewrite / expand on: eugh. okay. I get bored of a concept very easily, so I can't say there's anything I'd rewrite, but I have so many aus or ideas I've promised myself I'm not quite done yet and will circle back around too. Some of them haven't seen the light of day at all yet, but hopefully will someday?

To name a few, not collecting links because there are many, I'd like to circle back around to: both of my baseball aus, per audacia, ahamkara au golden age flavor (that's COMING. I'm WORKING ON IT RIGHT NOW), and ITAV the cooking blog which is one Hell of a thing I'd like to do someday.

share a bit of a WIP: ah FUCK i forgot six sentence sunday. that means 12 sentences next week and I offer you a bit of WIP. as penance.

“Vous semblez dangereux.” He said as much.  Henry processed for a moment, chewing on the words. When he spoke again, it was clumsy. “Quoi voulez-vous dire?”  “Que.” He corrected mindlessly.  “Que voulez-vous dire?” “Vous êtes une distraction.”

Henry V college AU. Because I need Something to hold on to to get through my spanish homework. allow me my self indulgence.

tagging; the court, of course: @kangoo and @kingstealer if you wish. Further, @bidoofenergy, and @arcaneglitch

[things-i-cannot-do-in-amitypark]

14. how do you feel about your older work?

14. How do you feel about your older work?

Ah the dreaded question.

One of the primary reasons I've had to abandon old fics is that I lost all my plans due to fanfic .net deleting my document. The other is that I was 14-ish when I started writing and it shows.

---

I'll consider everything on fanfic .net older work so here it goes:

Amity Park: The Last City Standing ...... I still love this fic because at the time I hadn't seen any similar ones. I think it has potential still and hope to rework it someday.

Amity Park LIVE ...... One day I'll finish this fic. It's easy to write and I have a lot of fun brainstorming ideas for it.

Ectoplasmic Angel ...... Ooof. Cool in theory I guess but the writing is pretty stale and I've got no desire to update it.

Evanescent Signs ...... Easy to write and I'll get back to it someday. It's re-posted and edited on ao3 with an additional chapter. (i remember people commented about being excited for the Fentons broadcast and my brain went oh fuck I have no plans ok time to abandon and never think about again so i cant fall short of expectations)

Guardians ...... I remember really liking the premise. I'll rewrite the first chapter and post on ao3 as a oneshot anyone is welcome to continue, but I'll probably never update it. Might use the concept a bit in other fics.

Humans and Ghosts ...... My one finished fic assjdkdfkf. The old version on fanfic .net is pretty stale but the updated AND FINISHED work on ao3 is my favorite.

Someone Was Watching ...... I still like this one (re-posted and edited on ao3) and have plans for it. Very character-driven.

Stranded with my Class ...... Def abandoned due to lost document :( kind of sad because as trope-y as my writing used to be, my first fanfic holds a special place in my heart. I plan to post what little I managed to salvage about my plans for later chapters but thats all

Things I Can(not) Do in Amity Park ...... My first humor fic lol. Very easy to write and tons of fun to play with prompts. I plan to edit it when I have time and repost on ao3 (hopefully with more updates)

[astoryinred]

WIP challenge!

So @hihiyas tagged me in the WIP challenge.

There's really only one WIP that I can share (the rest are for challenges/contests, or actual work that I intend to have under my own name someday). It's this fic rewrite of a concept that got out of hand some time last year

"The Ithacans and the Aeneads" has been on hiatus since early this year due to real life stuff, but now I have more headspace and heartspace to write this installment of the "successful revolution" AU I've had going on for nine or ten years now. This particular story has seven interlocking arcs revolving around our characters in different problems/scenarios ranging from solving spy intrigues, marital issues, feminism and what it means for French womanhood, growing up and finding first love, moving on after grief, and coming to terms with parental issues.

So if you ever wanted to see how the Thenardier siblings would be as quirky yet slightly troubled adults, how the Amis would be if they got some of their dreams fulfilled, and how Marius and Cosette could live after Valjean's death...this story has it. Trigger warning though for old Monsieur Thenardier's existence.

To be updated this month.

[phantomsilva]

Thoughts on Rott

I’m not very active because of time, but I really need to put this out. So now that everyone has had their rants on rott… It’s my turn.

A reminder that all I’m going to talk about, is simply my opinion on the matter. Oh, and this will be a pretty long text.

ROTT SPOILERS(I guess)

I’m not even gonna talk about how OOC the characters were in the movie, I think other profiles already did a pretty good explanation of that, and I actually expect it from a movie.

I’d like to talk about resettings and about how as a writer myself (at least in my native tongue) I swear I’ll never use a timeline resetting as an ending in any canon fiction of mine.

To begin with, resetting being used as a resolution, an ending, is by concept disrespectful.

First, it disrespects all characters’ arcs.

Everything every character went through, their growth, their pain, their victories, is completely thrown at the garbage. It means nothing anymore because all of them went back to the start, none of it ever happened and there is no way in canon to know if it will happen the same way again.

I don’t know about you who is reading this but a big part of the reason I follow a series is for character development. That was the one thing in toa I was always proud to affirm it was chef’s kiss. Well, none of this exists anymore, jokes on me.

So, my second point: Ending with a resetting disrespects the viewer.

I think it is bad enough when you waste two hours of your life watching a movie, for the resetting to happen at the end. But then it was only two hours. Rott was a movie, but it was a part of a 5 years franchise. 5 years that we spent waiting for new stories to come, to see our favourite characters grow, come back or even die. All the engagement, happiness, and other emotions we felt while following these same characters were completely meaningless when the franchise ends with “And so we are back to the beginning”. I think it is even worse when they complete it with “and now everything is different and you don’t know what is going to happen… But we won’t tell you how”.

The disrespect doesn’t even end there for me lol . Besides the “So, and it was all for… nothing” feeling, I think the specific way it was done in toa affects it on another level.

Trollhunters was a comfort tv show for me, I found it in a very difficult time of my life and have been rewatching it for fun in stressful weeks.

I saw someone commenting “how can I enjoy the rewatching if I know in the end none of this ever matters?”. That is my problem with the specific way they used it. It affects my rewatches. Maybe it is still too early, but everytime I think about rewatching season 1, I realize there is no reason to do it. And not because I already watched it several times (thanks anxiety), but because all of this was undone and maybe never even happened.

I never expected an ending would ruin a whole franchise for me and I followed Steven Universe weekly. Worst case scenario, I thought we would have had a weak ending that could easily be forgotten, or continued in our fics. We would lose some characters, like we’ve lost Draal, but when we revisited them in past seasons they would still be there.

Revisiting past seasons now just tastes bitter.

I see Jim riding his bike on episode 1, I see Strickler with his character arc, Steve that has grown so much as a person.. And then I remember it was all for nothing. All of it was erased and, canonically, they will always be on square one.

I saw someone today saying “It is worse than ‘it was all a dream’ ”, and that is it. “It was all a dream” is already a disrespectful trope, this was worse.

If you are still here, I'm sorry, there is more to this rant. I won’t be repeating the disrespect thing though, I think I’ve made my point.

There is another aspect of the resetting that I really want to talk about.

Have you ever watched Dragon Ball? Yes, guys, I’m that old.

Dragon Ball was known for the trope of reviving characters. We always used it as an example to criticize this trope.

Reviving characters out of nowhere or with frequency takes the weight out of a character’s death. The spectator doesn’t care anymore when they see someone die, because they will come back in the end, and you feel that the writers take killing people very lightly because of that.

Difference between Reviving Characters and Resetting Timeline as an ending is that Reviving Characters can be good if used with caution. Resetting Timeline can’t, and that affected writing in Rott.

I found it strange how so many deaths felt light there, and to me the explanation is: they knew in the end it wouldn’t matter, so they didn’t need to put that much weight into it. “If none of this ever happened, I can kill whoever I want however I want.”

Which takes me to my last point of “Ending with Reset Timeline is bad by concept”.

When you know you will reset a whole world to the start, you can do any crazy thing to the plot or the characters because you don’t have consequences from that. Which, to me, explains the “wtf” feeling a lot of the fandom got while watching so many OOC scenes and silly situations during the movie. From a fandom who was waiting for an ending for more than a year, it is really disappointing.

Now, of course I’m not saying any of this was done on purpose, or with malicious intent. I think the writers had very good intentions, we know there were crew there who worked on other seasons of TOA. I even get the concept of “the adventure will continue forever”. I just think they forgot to read the fandom room.

Anyway, I really wanted to share my feelings about the “Resetting Timeline as an ending” trope (?) because I don’t think the issues here are limited to TOA. All points T made are pretty general and I got it from all the works I’ve seen using this “solution”. I’ll advocate any day that this is a lazy and disrespectful solution, no matter who uses it or where it is used. Unless, of course, you do give me the whole franchise rewritten after the resetting, but that ain’t ever gonna happen.

I’ll take from TOA the amazing artists and storyboarders I found out here. The stricklake discord that gave me so much joy over the last two years and let me meet great people. Even the screenshots and beautiful scenes from the movie because the art was Amazing! That part I'm taking with me. Oh, Good Aaron, of course, cause now I’ll be following his work wherever he goes because this man is amazing. Actually, only him to make a good situation out of this. As he himself said, all headcanon is now canon.

So I’ll be disregarding the existence of rott, as I disregard the existence of the last airbender, take the rest of the franchise with me and any post-Wizards/rott rewriting fics I’ll find. And if I don’t find one I’ll write one. Nothing can be worse than resetting timeline ending.

I hope someday I can revisit the old seasons without this bitter taste, though.

That being said, I’m open to fic suggestions. Rott AU's, Rott erasement, post-wizards AUs, you name it. Do you need a reader? Send it to me.

And I’ll be doing stricklake month, once I recover from this.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[jennycalendar]

A while back you made a post about an Au where buffy only comes back after season 6 and theres a whole season without her, and I want you to know this idea has been living in the back of my brain for WEEKS.

I wanna read/write this fic so bad....season 6 fix it/rewrite while dealing with their grief...honestly huge brain for this concept. Also if it followed the season 6 episode format...can you imagine how the musical ep could go in this au? There are some FUN directions you could take that for sure

(Also a main conflict being Making sure the nerds don't find out their huge rival is a literal robot that one of them built, while trying to foil their plans all the while)

AUGH thanks so much for this ask! i think about this concept very often! i came up with it probably half a decade ago but those first two episodes minus buffy hit so fascinating and different and i'd have loved to see the scooby dynamic evolve beyond this heartbroken stasis they're forced into by the buffybot. i don't think anybody really...fully came to terms with buffy's death, tbh? i mean, that's why the episode is called "bargaining" -- they still haven't accepted the fact that she's gone and there's nothing they can do about that. so it would be such a compelling and potentially much more positive story to have buffy come back to a world that doesn't Need Her in the same desperate way that it did before.

like, when buffy comes back in season six, there's this expectation that she's going to be just as okay as always, fitting seamlessly into her old life and handling everything with grace and determination. a lot of buffy's depression is worsened by the fact that she knows she's not the buffy that her friends want and need, and she feels like a horrible person for not being that buffy -- especially when her father's awareness of the change in her inspires him to LEAVE THE COUNTRY when she is in the middle of a serious depressive episode. that's so traumatizing and nightmarish -- that her depression is seen by someone she loves, someone who has supported her nearly unconditionally since their meeting, as something so profoundly bad and wrong that he can no longer support her in the same capacity.

so in a world where the scoobies now have the ability to function without buffy, i think she would come back to friends who love her but don't Need her to be immediately okay. friends who are more accepting of the fact that she'll be struggling. i feel like willow might be the only one who could have some trouble adjusting; i think it would be a really interesting season arc if willow -- who has always had trouble with change and a lack of control -- is the only scooby who clings to this idea of buffy's return, while the rest of the scoobies are able to slowly heal in their own ways.

but of course this all has nothing to do with the dynamic of the scoobies minus buffy for a whole season, which in and of itself could be so interesting and sad! i do think giles would just Leave and not come back, particularly because it was buffy's resurrection that motivated him to come back anyway -- and i think there could be a lot to unpack there wrt the rift between giles and the scoobies. i wonder how the xander/anya wedding thing would play out, and if it would go differently -- like, would they end up calling off the engagement because of xander's refusal to marry her? is it possible that they would actually get married, with things so scrambled and lonely due to buffy's absence? how would willow's arc change without the success of raising buffy from the dead to make her more confident in her magical prowess? there's just So Much that could be done there and someday i'm so tempted to write that fic.

[blehblarghblah]

So as a multi-fandom blog, what was your first fandom? Or at least the first one you remember being apart of? I did a deep dive of your stuff, was it Zootopia or Red vs Blue? 👀👀?

Don't worry! It's not like, some traumatic thing or anything! 😅 I guess it's just embarrassing? But honestly, we're on Tumblr, what can ya expect in terms of past teen fic writing. I doubt you wanted a massive deep dive into this but I'll share nonetheless! Plus, I kinda wanna make this a lesson about fic writing and its struggles so if you wanna bear through go ahead! I also have a feeling this'll be a bit long so I'll spare people's feeds with a "keep reading".

So Red vs Blue and the Halo crossover was my first ever fic I wrote. I won't go into the details of any of my fic's plot because they were lame, but also because I don't really have time for that. But yeah, its concept is/was like most abandoned fic concepts you see: had good potential but was written by an amateur writer who was way out of their depth. It was essentially a multi canon divergence fic and was supposed to mesh together both stories during critical moments in both their franchises but I obviously half-assed it.

But I wasn't apart of the Red vs Blue fandom as much as I consider being apart of a fandom. Zootopia? Now that was the first time I was ever into a fandom. I was following all the big fic writers and their fics like @demonwriterx or @upplet, soaking up nearly every fic artist and their fanarts, and talking with other fans! Try Everything was my writing song! (Still listen to it, it's a pretty good motivation song). I knew Zootopia fun facts, watched the movie countless times, and as you no doubt know, I wrote a fic for it.

Zootopia: Partners in Crime or ZPIC, was a fun adventure I don't regret being apart of. It's one my biggest fics on FFN and also has my most words ever written as of late, going over 430K. The fan response was amazing as well as the community interaction. My old beta @legoaustin11 was truly a great collaborator and definitely had a bigger hand in its development in the later chapters. He wrote a chapter, helped me write some scenes and greatly helped my creative processes.

When I told him about going on hiatus, part of me knew I wouldn't be returning. And as time grew on I kind of weighed the options of letting him take over. Austin didn't exactly know the entire plot of ZPIC and wouldn't exactly have access to the fic to upload newer chapters. He and I kept in touch well after its hiatus here and there and last I heard from him he was doing okay during the first lockdown! It's not something I thought much about, but ZPIC being continued is something I'd run by him first before all else. Regardless, ZPIC was also a learning experience in that I wasn't prepared.

Legends of Avatar: the Untold Story or LoA, sorta fell in the same boat but I genuinely do believe I'll return to that one someday. Just not any time soon. But it was also my second dive in doing a canonical rewrite but more properly and more thought out. I still have proper notes and layouts of what's to come! And I do return to writing it here and there.

MTBMS, my oneshot fics, and L&L taught me about being prepared and having layouts for my stories. ZPIC had an ending, but it wasn't written out---not in concept or in a scene. MBTMS? College AU, Superhero AU, Childhood AUs, they have endings. L&L has chapters written out in advance and scenes and plot structures laid out. I was just an amateur when I wrote ZPIC and it clearly shows.

That's not to say every fic I have written/will post has been fully planned. My Arcane and RatLD oneshots weren't entirely planned, but my Taang oneshots were! MTBMS wasn't at first going to 100 chapters but I decided to make it that way when I was approaching 50 chapters (chapter 49 was where I announced trying to make it to 100). Then when I made that decision, I decided to pace out and ease up on its update schedules.

To make a long winded story worthwhile:

The thing I learned about fic writing is that it isn't as lax as you convince yourself it to be sometimes. Not to say every fic or fic writers must go through sheer amount of planning and plotting. But I noticed that the ones who dream big? Fall short like how I did and it's kind of ourselves to blame for that. A good lesson to consider is if you are going to aim big and shoot far, then take the time to adjust your crosshairs and practice your breathing. It's harder and more ambitious than you might realize! Taking a step back to think ahead has some great benefits.

All in all, the journey was great and though I'm not apart of the Zootopia fandom as much as I was before, it still holds a massive place in my heart for what it started for me. Sure the movie was basically copaganda and a sorta poor take on racism, but its BIG theme of implicit biases and just overall overcoming of status quo for modern society was something I found endearing and heartfelt. I imagine I lost quite a few Zootopia followers along the way, but if you're still sticking around from then? Thanks! ( ^‿^) Not sure why ya are, but thanks!

Shameless plug: If you wanna see all the fics mentioned you can go to my blog and click on "Here's all my fanfics!" or any of my profiles for Ao3 and FFN. Though some of my fic are NOT on Ao3 because I couldn't be bothered to cross-post. But I will get around to it for LoA. Also, this is barely the surface of all the WIPs i've scrapped/am working on...

Until next ask,

- Bleh

[essektheylyss]

Fanfic ask game for procrastinating on writing, that's what I'm understanding here, got it.

(tagged by @mllekurtz, thank you! these are super fun questions)

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

55! Jeeeeeez that's a lot.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

295k. (Maybe it's because I come from the writing month world but that's the only stat I genuinely pay attention to lol.)

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

In current times, only Critical Role—back in the day I wrote on ff.net for Heroes and Castle and a few YA books.

4) What are your top five fics by kudos?

before it buries me

This was... actually my first shadowgast fic! One-shot set right after 91.

now I will ask you to be brave

Okay, so, this fic. I will not describe it, as I don't want to get anyone's hopes up. I started it right after hiatus with lofty ambitions and promptly realized my hubris, and now it is definitely never going to be finished. I did not get far. My deepest apologies to anyone who has read it and wanted more.

seeing eye to eye

One-shot of the nein running into Essek's family, and Beau understanding him a little better, rich kid with shitty parents to rich kid with shitty parents. A very specific characterization of Deirta in here, mostly filtered through Beau's mentality, which was so fun to write.

not from the absence of violence

OLD GUARD AU MY BELOVED. I desperately want to write in this au more but have not had the time or ideas, but holy shit I love this au so much.

cruel tricks the gods play

Another pre-97 shadowgast one-shot—the peace talks go very wrong and Caleb and Essek end up pulling a Titanic on a plank of wood after the ship sinks. Very fun, very no longer canon-compliant.

5) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

So, okay, I do not, but this is a Thing for me, because I have, inexplicably, deep panic about responding to ao3 comments. I do not know why. I can feel physical panic thinking about it now. I aggressively hate it because I do really want to respond to comments because commenters are so lovely! I think it is a combination of my brain not knowing the culture of ao3 interaction well enough that it seems alarming (thanks, neurodivergence) and college screenwriting workshops in which I was taught not to respond during critique.

In any case, I do not have the same weird panic about tumblr interactions, so I'm always down to chat here.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

You know, for all of the angst that I write, I don't really write angsty endings. I think my two main Verin-centric fics (laid out one by one and this guilt-ridden heart) end kind of angstily, because that relationship isn't gonna be fixed in a conversation. But in general I think the worst I've got is bittersweet.

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I don't—I'd have to have a really, really good concept to write a crossover.

8) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not that I can remember, though who knows if I got any in high school. I'm a little impervious to flames anyway—again, workshop classes helped with the reminders that critique is what's useful, while hate is just, 'you can't please everyone'.

9) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do not!

10) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I mean, not that I'm aware of lol.

11) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

12) Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

13) What’s your all time favourite ship?

I mean, currently? Shadowgast. I don't have an all-time.

14) What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

sweet child. "Someday!" she says, shaking her fist at an unforgiving god.

15) What are your writing strengths?

I've suddenly forgotten every comment I've ever gotten. I am pretty good at grounded settings when I put in the effort. I think I am good at matching character voices—far better than inventing new ones.

And in terms of writing process... I managed to decide somewhere along the way that I like my own writing? Which is very hard, but also once you do that, it's a lot easier to just write instead of being hung up on quality, and it's then easier to notice when you're falling out of your own voice or when you actually need to rewrite a scene. I think I forced myself into this practice because I am soooo bad at sitting down and editing, so I have to do it as I write, and I had to get over the "this writing sounds like me therefore it is bad" feeling to manage that. (This has been my "love yourself as a writer" high horse.)

16) What are your writing weaknesses?

I think I overexplain. And on the other side, I lean so heavily into showing emotion via physical sensation that I forget to actually write the emotion.

And on a similar process high horse, I am so bad about feeling constantly like I need to write everything right now. This is primarily a problem because if I get too in my head about it, I end up writing none of it. I have not found a way to combat this, except to put one sentence in front of the other. (This is not helped by my ever-increasing pile of wips and ideas lol.)

17) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I patently refuse to do it, because I hate the idea of butchering a language I don't know, and because I tend to try to draw as little attention to the fact that a thing is written as possible, and if a language has to be translated via a glossary or something, it's drawing more attention to that, and even if it's something I'm leaving untranslated, someone who speaks that language will know that I have butchered it. That being said, I don't dislike it when I'm reading!

18) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Percy Jackson! I wrote so much PJO fic in middle school.

19) What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

what luminous worlds await, if only for the sheer enormity of that project and my delight that it actually came together. Though I cannot mention that without mentioning Icarus to your certainty, without which I probably would not have even written the former.

Tagging (and please feel free to ignore if you so choose) @the-littlest-goblin @mithrilwren @sky-scribbles!

[lesbian-in-leather]

you don’t have to answer all of these ofc, but here’s a couple: 20, 25, 40, 51, 58, 79, 93

20. Do you want a grand adventure?

Y e s. I would genuinely love having some big quest to go on, and I feel like it'd give me a purpose. Realistically, though, I know it won't happen because I am NOT the kind of person to take that kind of risk, especially not alone. But maybe if I had the right person to go with me?

25. How fluid is your concept of gender and sexuality?

I'm pretty secure in my gender, I questioned it for a bit when I was about 15/16 and now I'm like yeah... I'm cis. My sexuality is. Uh. Not fluid exactly?? I'm just still working on it. I think I know the full thing but I have a lot of internalised stuff to work through before I can say it out loud. Tbh, having my blog name contain "lesbian" is rlly important to me because I've been raised with a lot of shame around that word in particular, even more so than "gay". I'm still unpacking that, and I can't really say it to self identify irl, but I try to use it whenever I can online. As for the other part of my sexuality, I'm just not sure if it fits me quite right so I've never really said it anywhere. Maybe someday lmao. But yeah, not really fluid, more like closeted

((Ngl I was... a little confused about what this question was asking so if I answered it wrong let me knowww and I'll do it again lmao))

40. What makes a person ‘good’? Are you a ‘good person’?

Okay this is obviously a really complex question, but I think what makes someone good is a genuine desire to help others without personal gain. Those others could be your friends, strangers, animals, anyone. I also don't think it stops you from being a good person if you don't want to help certain people because of bad things they've done to you or someone else, but that's also a complex issue because like... it depends on your concept of bad

Personally, I don't know if I'm a good person or not. Like... I do have a genuine desire to help animals and people that haven't hurt me/my friends, and even some that have, so by my own definition I guess I am? But at the same time, it feels wrong, but that could just be a whole other load of things... I feel like no one can really say if they're good or not, because we judge other people by their actions and ourselves by our thoughts, which inherrently makes us seem worse by comparison

51. What question could you ask to find out the most about a person?

If you were guaranteed a complete and honest answer, then I'd go with "can you describe your personal utopia?" Because I feel like it'll tell you what that person values and despises. They'll take out all the parts of our world that they hate, and add in anything they think would improve society. It'll show you where they stand on social issues and where their personal loyalties lie

58. Are we eventually going to ‘run out’ of new combinations for music, art, language, etc.? Is there a limit to human creativity?

Okay I am genuinely so glad I got asked this because I love it. The answer to the second half is no, and the first is that, in a lot of ways, we already have

Because if you pick any great work of art, music, literature, anything - you'll find so many works that, on paper, look exactly the same. It's like that old meme when people would describe a film or book or show in such a way that it applied to multiple pieces of media. But the media themselves were different. I think in a lot of ways, humanity ran out of new storylines a long time ago. But at the same time, we'll never run out at all. How many times have you read the same fic trope, over and over but written by different authors? This links back to what I said in the last ask about how to define art - because every creator puts a little bit of themselves into their work. And since no two artists have lived the same life, how could they ever produce identical work? We can keep rewriting the same stories over and over and they'll always be different because as humanity changes, our art changes with us. It's why we keep retelling Shakespeare or putting classic characters into modern settings - the human desire to create will keep art alive for as long as we live. I think we'll always re-tell the same stories, and they'll always be slightly different. Our art changes with us

79. When you are sad, do you listen to music that conveys your emotions or music that makes you happy?

To be honest, when I'm sad I usually don't listen to music at all - I find that it muddles my thoughts too much and it gets really overwhelming. However, when I'm scared I sing/listen to comforting songs, and when I'm angry (or on the verge of a panic attack) I listen to loud, angry songs so there's that

93. Do you draw meaning from your dreams, or do you disregard them?

Well... my dreams are rarely coherrent, so I kind of go over them and see if there's anything to it, but usually they're complete nonsense. Sometimes they send very clear messages though, like a few months ago I was having a lot of anxiety dreams about my mother (suprise suprise, we have a horrible relationship). I kind of just take each one as it comes - your subconsious creates your dreams so there's probably some merit to looking into them, but I don't think every little detail holds some great insight into your life

[sagemoderocklee]

2020 has been a weird fucking year, to put it mildly. There have been a lot of ups and downs, and with New Year’s Eve and the start of 2021 upon us, focusing on the ~positive~ seemed like a better way to end the year, and hopefully start 2021 feeling inspired and proud for overcoming this horrendous year.

For many people, it was difficult--even impossible--to get anything done this year (myself included), and that’s okay! But if you were able to make progress on writing projects, even if it was just one or even if it was just part of one, you should celebrate that! I wish I’d thought of this sooner and organized it better, but regardless I wanted to celebrate my own accomplishments with regards to my writing, and encourage others to do the same! I was going to tag people, but I’m not sure with it being 2 hours til midnight for me if that would feel like putting too much pressure on others, so if you want to do this too please do!

This wrap up is honestly just a self-indulgent look back on the works I’ve made and what I learned/gained from each, maybe what I don’t like about them, some totaling on what I did, and some resolutions for the next year. It’s silly, but I think it’s kinda fun and if you missed any of the things I have posted this year, you’ll find them here!

2020 Fic Wrap Up:

Kado: Parts II+III (COMPLETED)

Kado was started in September of 2019 for the @puregaalee​ summer event. This was a last minute thing that I started the day the prompt was due and managed to write the first part in about 6 hours while sitting in a cafe--remember that? Sitting in cafes? Man, I miss that. I hadn’t anticipated working on Kado, but I decided that I was going to finish it this year, and I’m honestly amazed that I did. This fic is sweet and fun, and surprisingly popular, though it isn’t my favorite of my works. However, it is a light, fluffy little romcom modern AU, and I learned a lot with it because despite my struggles with modern AUs and their horrible lack of political intrigue, this fic forced me to work within set parameters. I was only writing a 3 part story, and each part could only be 9 scenes long. For those unfamiliar, kado is another term for Ikebana, and in Ikebana there are specific elements to follow. Certain styles will only use three branches, some will use nine. So my goal was for the structural elements of the fic to mimic Ikebana. In doing this, I was able to do something I don’t usually do, which is keep this story more concise.

I’m still not sure how I personally feel about the ending, but I think endings are always a struggle, especially with something like this.

Gate of Dreaming (COMPLETED) 

This is a fic that I started last year, then left to sit untouched with only 2k words. Getting back into it was a bit difficult because I was writing something very different from my usual: stream of consciousness. This fic was very experimental for me not only because of the stream of consciousness, but also because of the changing tenses. This was another exercise--unexpected though it was--in brevity. With this particular story, it couldn’t be dragged on and on, because--despite the 100 year time span--the events take place within the Infinite Tsukuyomi. This was also the first time I’d worked from Lee’s PoV in quite some time, so that was fun because I do enjoy writing him, but usually write from Gaara’s PoV. This is definitely one of my favorites from this year, and since it had been sitting on the back burner for so long, I’m so excited that I could finally get it done.

Another one where the ending really wasn’t easy to achieve, but I did end up liking it more than I expected, and I think the best thing is that it’s open-ended which leaves room for others to guess at what the future holds.

It Eats Your Heart (WIP)

This was an unexpected fic for me in every way imaginable. Starting another fic? Making another modern AU? Tackling the horror genre? None of those were things I’d planned to do this year, but lo and behold, that’s just what I did. I really enjoy a good bit of horror, but it is NOT an easy genre to work within, and this fic has definitely been a push for me. But with it being such a push, the payoff is far more. Stepping out of my comfort zone is something I like doing, but I think this is the biggest step outside of that and I am so incredibly proud of how that first chapter turned out because of it. I was really able to surprise myself with this fic, and I am hoping to update the next chapter early on in the year.

Absolution (WIP)

This fic is probably the second oldest idea/longest unpublished fic I currently have up. Formerly a much longer title, the idea for this fic came to me in May of 2017 when a friend, @brianadoesotherjunk / @brianadoesart, posted a piece of GaaLee fanart that sparked inspiration. The fic took off, morphed into something much bigger than the one scene depicted by the art, and now 3 years later, the first part is up. Initially, this was meant to be a long shot, but after sitting with this for so long, I realized that I needed to split it up into 9 parts, which allowed me to use this for GaaLee bingo and finally publish it. Much of the first part was already written before this year, but I’d been quite stuck on it until now. This is actually probably one of my favorite GaaLee concepts to date. I remember back in the day, there weren’t a lot of different takes on getting Lee to Suna so he and Gaara could fall in love, so (at the risk of sounding cocky) I think that Lee as a nanny is rather inspired. I think with this fic, I pushed myself the hardest to get past the hurdle of writer’s block and accepted that publishing is probably the best way to motivate myself to keep going. The feedback for this fic has been really motivating, so I think I’m probably right about that.

I do think there are some parts in the middle or towards the end that could maybe use some tightening up, but I’m just happy to finally have this fic out in the world.

The Art of Love: Chapter 11 (WIP)

TAoL is such a ridiculous labor of love. The chapters for this fic are novellas in and of themselves, so each time I update it takes a lot of work to get them out. This fic is one of those like magnum opus type fics. I have put so much into it, and I’m honestly amazed that it’s only been up for 3 years because I’m approaching the halfway mark on it, and I don’t think I expected to be there by now. Despite being able to churn out 30k chapters, I have a hard time focusing on one thing and I often struggle with mental health related writer’s block, so big works are always sort of sporadic in their updates. 

This particular update of TAoL was definitely one of my favorites though. Initially, I didn’t plan to go the sort of dark fantasy rout that I did with Shikamaru, but I actually really love what I’ve done with him, though I worry others won’t be as into it or that the execution isn’t quite there. One thing I would like to work on with future chapters of TAoL, however, is maybe pairing things down a bit--though I’m not sure that’ll always be possible. The next chapter is a Naruto PoV chapter, though, so I expect that one to be a MUCH shorter chapter than the last three and should be able to get it out sometime next year.

Before I could publish this chapter, however, I did go through and make some big changes, which is something I often struggle with because of such long breaks in between working on certain projects. I will say, though, that TAoL continues to push me to greater heights as a writer, and I look forward to actually finishing this fic someday.

Thirteen Strokes: 1 + 2 (WIP)

Another unexpected fic this year, however, this one was actually an idea for about a year, unlike IEYH. This fic has really given me a lot of perspective on my own writing and world building, and has inspired me to sit down and really start committing the things I’ve developed to paper to create a cohesive view of Suna, Wind, and the shinobi world. This fic is meant to be a Romance. Like just full on Romance. I write a lot of tragedy and focus on a lot of darker themes in my writing, so while I don’t think of this as stepping outside of my comfort zone, it is very different from my usual, and a really nice change of pace. I think, in all honesty, it is one of my best works, and I do hope I can continue to deliver on the remaining 11 parts of this story.

if this were the last i felt you breathing (COMPLETED)

Ugh. This fic has been my enemy for 2 long years. I signed up for a Secret Santa exchange, and of course, I regretted doing it when I found that I was not motivated and, after the month of October where I was churning out fic after fic for GaaLee Bingo, that I was massively burned out. I wasn’t able to think past writer’s block, and so I ended up settling on dusting off an old, unfinished piece for my giftee, and I hope they can forgive me for not coming up with something brand new for them.

This fic was a struggle. Working so closely with the canon--following the Rescue Kazekage Arc as closely as I did for this fic--made this a much bigger challenge and this fic sat and sat and sat for two years, untouched and incomplete. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I know it’s not my best work, but I am glad that this fic isn’t hanging over my head and that I was able to deliver something to my secret santa giftee.

My goal with this fic was to rewrite this particular arc from Lee’s PoV to give more depth to the arc and shift the emotional core of it away from Naruto. Naruto as a character has a lot of flaws that never get addressed, and one of the things that is consistently frustrating for me is the way the emotional core of the series rests on him in unrealistic and often superficial ways. Naruto hasn’t spoken to Gaara in three years, but I’m supposed to believe he’s this affected by Gaara’s kidnapping? Temari and Kankuro are right there! Lee is right there! I wanted to see that, so that’s what I set out to do, and ultimately I don’t think I fully succeeded, but I tried. I guess not everything can be a resounding success

---

This year I managed to do a lot more than I realized. New works, updates, and COMPLETED pieces?! I never would have thought, but staying home gave me more free time, and when I was too broke to work on costumes, writing fanfiction was something free I could do.

Total new works: 5 Total updates: 9 Total completed works: 3 Total words this year: 143,587

---

I have a lot of goals for the coming year, and I know I won’t make all of them, but that won’t stop me from trying.

2021 Writing Resolutions:

Reach 1million words (+238,073 words)

Finish IEYH

Finish Pearl-Filled Lungs

Update TAoL (Chapter 12 and 13)

Update Absolution

Update 13S

Update Find Me (Chapter 6)

Start the Ballad of the Dragon and the Phoenix

Start editing Alliance

Return to working on Honor Bound

Return to working on We Need Not Be Yellow Tulips

[amnesiaguy]

"A blade with no handle" is one of your fics that I have read before, probably more than one. It is 100% as good as I remember it. It's a little sad but also sweet at the same time, and the scene when bucky looks at the dog tags always gets to me.

!!! this is an old fave of mine! i’ve been idly wanting to rewrite this concept, i might play around with it again someday :)

[obscure-sentimentalist]

As the 15th marks five years since I dropped my first fic onto AO3 to begin my second personal era of fic-writing (after a multi-year hiatus), and I’ve had an interesting sort of writing productivity this 2020, I decided to celebrate by taking a look back at some of my favorite work over the years, in chronological order.

Dark enough to find myself (2015) was actually a final project for a lecture I was taking on fandom, but the concept was something I’d wanted to pursue (dabbling in an old favorite trope of mine--the “two characters, one person” crossover--this time in new fandoms). The time constraints meant I couldn’t broaden the idea as much as I wanted to at the time, and five years later there are a lot of things I would do differently were I to do a rewrite, but I do still love this one and hold a special place in my heart for it. 

False Faces Chapters 9 and 10 (2017) are, obviously, fairly deep in the narrative and mark a critical turning point, but they are the two modern chapters I’d put out of this piece, launched back in 2011. I’d originally intended to just clean up Chapter 9 (which had been mostly complete on my hard drive for over five years) and release it to give myself some closure, but after I spent an evening doing some heavy reworking, I found that I still had some heart left in the project, even with how the writing and my interests had evolved. I’m still proud of these two chapters, having executed a key plot point in a way I didn’t feel I could years earlier.

Things Will Turn Out Fine (2018) is for a fandom I no longer particularly dabble in, was inspired by the ending of another show that still drives me up the wall, and was mostly written in the middle of the night after a long week of work, but I still feel this is one of my most understated pieces. It resonated with an audience on here at the time, which led my love for it to grow, and I still think it’s one of my most emotional shippier pieces.

Old enough to know (we’re never letting go) (2019) is... frankly, it’s either my masterpiece, or it’s the first in a line of masterpieces that sparked in some way from this work. Still working in my familiar crossover playing field, I decided to give a different trope a shot and build a story of brotherhood (both in blood and found family--it makes sense in context) from scratch, and eventually spin into a cathartic journey of grief and acceptance (but still with a hopeful ending). The final sequence of Part III, “February 2019,” is one of my absolute favorite things I’ve ever written for the emotional charge of it, and is the piece over which I’ve had many people yell at me, to my delight.

Colors appear (and bleed into one) (2020) is a compilation of Tumblr ficlets, but as someone who largely writes Gen fic, I’ve had some fun dabbling in soft, fluffy shippiness with a pairing I’ve long adored. If I had to call out any favorites, I love pretty much all of the one-off ficlets I’ve written for this collection, and I do have a soft spot for the partnered pieces of “Shirt and Sweet” and “Roped Into.”

A very honorable mention has to go to my beloved work in progress (however it comes to fruition), Distortion. Somewhere around half of the words I’ve written this year have been for this project, which evolved far beyond the inkling of an idea I’d brewed up a year ago and has acquired its own blown-out timeline and playlist and so much more. I would love to share this work someday in some form. 

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6 & 23, s'il vous plait!

If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day?

I have done over ten thousand before (oh, RomCommmmmm!) a few times, but I seldom have the energy for that in my old age! I think if I were to get my life in order and write regularly on a daily basis to try to finish a long project, I'd like to write between 1,000-2,000 a day. This is the system I have been trying to use to finish my current novel project and it’s going all right!

If I’m doing a one-shot fic that’s longer than a few thousand, I will generally try to do it all in one sitting just so that I can stay in the ZONE. Typically I come out of this feeling absolutely addled. Especially if I have been writing from the point of view of Villanelle, or Dwight Schrute.

If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?

Ooh, interesting! I recently wrote a Luke/Lorelai AU where Lorelai didn’t move to Stars Hollow and they happen to meet at a Chilton Parent’s Night after April gets in to Chilton, and I’d be kinda interested to rewrite that from Lorelai’s point of view, because the idea of a Lorelai who never found Stars Hollow is such a heartrending concept and Luke is only really getting glimpses of it in the story, even as hopefully the readers are picking up on the bittersweetness the situation. (I would like to write a sequel to this one someday! I have some Google Doc scribbles to that effect so far.)

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fic author tag!

Tagged by: @marywhal, thank you!!

Tagging: @nekosd43 @perniciouslizard @androidsfighting and whoever else would like to do it!

Ao3 name: ungarmax, although most of my stories are still published under my old handle, rydia

Fandoms: on ao3? taz balance, final fantasy 7, homestuck, and fullmetal alchemist

Number of fics: 9 because i have a weird complex about uploading things to ao3. my old ff.net account has like 30, rip.

1. Fic you spent the most time on: that’s a very good question! most things on my ao3 were written 5-10 years ago, and i don’t really remember how much time they took. i guess since i am still working on the winter rose, i’d say that one, even though the vast majority of it was written in a few weeks for nanowrimo.

2. Fic you spent the least time on: again, it’s hard to say. in recent memory, i guess that would be things we lost to the flames because it’s a lil shorty i wrote for taagnus week.

3. Longest fic: the ghosts in the halls, although the winter rose might beat it out once it’s done. the document is still shorter, but i haven’t written the ending yet.

4. Shortest fic: after me comes the flood

5. Most hits: nothing gold, by about 10,000 hahaha

6. Most kudos: nothing gold, by about 1,000. i have one fic that is popular lmao

7. Most comment threads: the winter rose actually JUST beat nothing gold, probably because the winter rose is currently 11 chapters long and has a lot of repeat commenters (whom i love <3), and nothing gold has 1 single chapter

8. Fave fic you wrote: an extremely good question! i think maybe in terms of what makes a story good, the garden under snow is the best, as under appreciated as it is. although i just looked at it and realized it has NO tags except the ship tag, so maybe that’s why.

9. Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: i think things we lost in to the flames is a good concept but bad execution. i would take it down except a lot of people went out of their way to leave really nice reviews on it because they knew i was self conscious about posting. so that feels a little rude, haha.

10. Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: an old taako and lup taz swap that i’d love to get back into someday:

She pulls down the wide brim of her wizard hat a little lower over her face as she sits at the table, back to the door.  Her face is different from the picture in one very noticeable way, but the resemblance is too uncanny to take any chances.  She must have lingered looking at it for too long, though, because Magnus also sees it.

“Hey, Lup!  That poster looks...”

He pauses, glances around the table, sees her hat pulled low.  He frowns.  “Oh.  Uh.”

“Oh,” says Barry.

“What’s everyone lookin’ at?” asks Merle, who isn’t tall enough to see over Lup’s shoulder.

“It’s not me,” Lup hisses.  There are other people in the place, and the last thing she needs is to bring attention to the fact that there’s a wanted poster with her face on it.