#Fanfic Talk

[domini-porter]

Since the writers are out with our begging bowls pleading for interaction again (hi!), to mangle what the dude said about planting trees: while the best time to add a minute or two to the time you spend consuming someone’s work to leave a comment—work that they’ve created in their spare time to appeal to your specific interests and have made freely available to you forever—was yesterday, there’s always today. We make and share stories and art and music because we’re participating in the fan culture just like you, and every single one of us is wishing and hoping and praying this time it turns out to be a two-way street.

In my experience, both personal and talking with/listening to other creators, nobody’s grubbing for compliments (even though everyone agrees compliments are very nice). Personally, it’s more like having a realization about how far the shift in how the writer-reader relationship works has pushed the dynamic of fandom and fanfiction in particular—collaborative and reciprocal to a place that’s much more reflective of starkly passive consumption, at least over the 25 years I’ve participated as a creator in fandom culture. And it’s not just my fandom, or your fandom. It’s systemic.

I’m sure people have their reasons and explanations and justifications for not letting creators know the ways their work has benefited or impacted them, but at the end of the day, I only know you value what I’ve added to our little shared universe if you tell me. I’m glad people are consistent readers, and the ones who reach out are the ones I’m writing for, but it’s hard to pretend the other 97% of you aren’t there too, lurking in the shadows, watching and forming silent opinions. It makes me second-guess myself, and my writing, and whether or not it’s a waste of my time like it is yours (this is what my self-criticism and imposter syndrome lick into my ears, not necessarily what those people who click on every chapter to the bitter end are thinking)(I hope). It makes me feel like a faceless content creator, and not a person who makes things and shares them freely out of love and excitement. It makes me feel like I’m not a welcome participant in my fandom, sometimes.

Anyway. I’m so deeply curious as to why there seems to be such a weird, insurmountable gulf between writers and readers; the readers are the only ones with the boats to get across it, and I really really really wish you would. Nobody’s going to be mad or icked that you let them know you like something they spent time on. We will develop gnawing neuroses and self-doubt and decide maybe it’s just not worth it any more after enough silence, though. Which is such a bummer, and it really, really, really doesn’t have to be.

Support the care and feeding of your fellow fans (and the health of your fandom overall): leave a comment on AO3 (or wherever your writers are found) today.

[yummygender]

I love it when writers on reader x Loki fanfics with the relationship already there, makes Y/N essentially wearing the pants in the relationship.

A Y/N that’ll protect Loki no matter what.

A Y/N that is the definition of ‘Hel hath no fury like a woman scorned’.

A Y/N that even LOKI can get scared of sometimes.

Love it.

It’s my bread and butter of fanfics.

You put in a scene of a deranged Y/N flailing around and cussing at Thanos while Loki is holding her back.

“Easssyyy Love, h-he didn’t meant it…”

“LIKE HEL HE DID!!!!”

Love that.

I need that shit.

[desired-misery]

why did I have a dream about BOW!Leon (who was turned into a BOW by experimentation) and ended up trapped in a facility for a few months that is later stormed by Chris and Alpha team (with Piers obviously). They figure out that this place has some strange BOWs, but especially this very particular one started off really scared ends up being really smart and cooperative and clingy???? So some BSAA aligned scientists are brought in to try and figure out what the hell is going on (and surprise, Luis is there!) Long story short, Luis ends up befriending a whole ass BOW and the BOW makes friends back. Luis has basically bonded with BOW!Leon and become very protective of him Luis: this is my new laboratory pet, Sancho Everyone: uh... you can't have a BOW as a pet, Dr. Serra Luis: he is smarter than the average three year old, I've adopted him Everyone: that's a monster Luis: look, he grew fur to be extra cuddly and soft BOW!Leon, who indeed grew fur to be extra soft, and also developed speech mimicry: friend Everyone else: *Horrified* Luis: *delighted* :D

[sarasade]

There is a lot to be said about how fanfic can sometimes feel grippingly canon accurate THEMATICALLY while the characters are actually doing things the original story (and the marketing department) would never let them do.

That's an essential ingredient of good transformative fan creations, I think. Analysing the themes and subtext of the original text and mixing them in a new way.

[jonathan-samuel-smith]

TW bipolar discussion and nonconsensual kissing, mental health discussion

So about Saturn Girl kissing Jon without his ability to consent to it: I get that she isn't actively deciding to mind control the people around her, but she does have a choice in the matter. Her family wanted her to stay home until she could control her mind control powers, but she didn't want to and left. To me that's like if I noticed I was manic (not hypomanic) and didn't go to the mental hospital... Like I can't control my bipolar but I have the choice to stay away from others when it would harm them. That's not even a good comparison though because my judgement isn't clear enough to consistently do that when I'm manic, whereas she is at baseline and is able to think rationally. I wouldn't blame someone with bipolar because they have no choice, but I'm just saying the obvious choice would be to keep yourself away from others even if it's not fun for you. I feel like I can blame her, because she has a choice.

I do sympathize with her, but I really think she's hurting others disproportionately to the distress she feels stuck at home, and that's not okay.

If you look back on the events with the knowledge that she can't turn off her mind control, you see how manipulative she is, especially to Jon, and she does high-control group tactics: love bombing, isolation, guilt tripping, not letting him have rest alone where he would have time to realize he didn't want this.

I don't like the JonDami narrative that Jon was an asshole for leaving Damian in the past or was running away from his problems, because in my view he was dragged into a cult and I can't blame him for that, especially because he was extremely vulnerable at the time. I also don't believe Jon would have left in the first place if he knew up front that he couldn't bring Damian to at least visit him.

Jon had been in a state of fight or flight for around 6 years (not just talking about the volcano because there was also his verbally abusive grandpa and their deadly adventures and being trapped in space, and then him struggling to survive on the streets and trying to find a way home after he escaped) and the first time he really got a chance to cool down was when he was talking with Damian. He really needs a long break, therapy, and medication because what he went through can't be treated with therapy alone as the stress has chemical effects in the brain that need to be adjusted.

The writers don't care about how Jon should be extremely hypervigilant and defensive and anxious. I guess that's just not brave enough for a superhero, nevermind that leaving the house and getting treatment for these things, learning to trust again, and letting people help you is so much braver than punching guys when you have superpowers. It's natural to fight when your fight or flight is activated in a protective manner, but doing the logical thing when every signal in your body is telling you not to is really damn hard. The only coward is DC for giving Jon trauma and not actually writing a traumatized character.

That all being said, Damian clearly doesn't see how Jon is being manipulated, probably because his head is full of self hatred & doubting & repressed desires to ask Jon to stay, and thinks he needs to go against his abandonment trauma by swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction in his speech. With his c-ptsd and abandonment issues I can see him becoming bitter towards Jon for going to the future.

That could make for a really complex fanfiction, don't you think? The conflict coming from their unique life experiences and traumas, and them learning to understand each other like they're always doing. This misunderstanding of intentions born not out of something dumb like hearing the wrong thing or being unclear in language, but from their different points of view.

My jondami au where Jon leaves the legion early is calling me lmao "Isaac we have more problems for you to fix~"

That being said I have no exclusivity to these ideas for writing.

[ladyriot]

Hello rizzles people. I have (too) many things going on in the WIP folder these days and I'd love a little insight into what sounds most interesting, so I can decide where to put my focus. On my own, I may just skim little bits off of each into perpetuity...

Of the bunch, the first and last have the most progress already made (and thus would exist faster), if that sways you.

[madrabit]

“So… I was wondering if you wanna go to the gym later?” Bojan looked up from his phone, eyes darting up to Nace who sat next to him on the couch.

Chapter two of my lil 5+1 BoNace kiss prompt is up 🩷💜✨️ (chapter 3 might take a lil longer, sorry, but what else is new with me 😃)

[pocketsizedcat]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40266474/chapters/100858614

genuinely one of the best satosugu fics ive ever read, heart-warming, gut-wrenchinly good, 10 out of 10 and one of the best written shoko's actually

[need-a-name-101]

Why is it that every fanfic about a werewolf show has slightly ABO undertones please no I don’t want that, I don’t like it. I just wanted to read a few teen wolf fanfics and now I will never, why WHYYYY????

[bellisima-writes]

Question for fic writers and readers - do you guys care at all about chapter titles?

In both of my fics, my brain has spent way too much time agonizing over chapter titles. Which ends up being something that starts satisfying and ends annoying because it holds you to a certain template (my first fic was all distance of time away from the final 15 and my current WIP is less structured but turning into all singular nouns with a “the”):

But do readers even care? Is this an indulgence that only authors pay attention to? Looking for honest feedback.

Thanks!!

[that-guy-sleepy-miles]

A quick Daily Rayman before I get back to work!

I am back into the artistic mood today! I have been doing a lot of work today updating, adding HTML to, and working on art for fanfics, and I also have an idea for a Rayman (franchise) persona! I hope this good mood lasts <3 <3

Currently doing artwork for my fic To Find My Own Shoes and I plan to do some art for Primate Period Problems (and then I'll be finishing up chapter two, which is almost done!)

[yonemurishiroku]

I'm not normal about fanfics

[desired-misery]

BOW!Leon WIP | Luis's POV

An unlikely ally in Luis’s trying-to-comfort-a-BOW-because-it's-the-right-thing-to-do plan is one of the BSAA’s own soldiers. One of the soldiers who encountered 537 in the field, actually. Lieutenant Piers Nivans, second in command of Alpha team. Luis finds Nivans watching 537 over the lunch break, curiously peering at the computer monitor to see 537 inside its crate (which it had returned to and not moved from since the crate was put back inside its enclosure, proving the attempt to teach 537 the floor was safe was a failure).

Nivans— he insisted Luis not use his rank— is very interested in BOWs in a more academic way than Luis would have expected from one of the BSAA’s top soldiers, especially from Alpha team, which Luis knows is deployed to eliminate BOWs all the time. Frankly, Luis is surprised that Alpha team didn’t shoot 537 on sight. He asks Nivans about that decision.

“It’s really weird, but it wasn’t attacking us. It was doing exactly that, so we left it alone.” Nivans points to 537 through the one-way glass. “I’ve never seen a BOW be calm, you know? I thought it was just an animal at first, like a leopard or something. Didn’t feel right to shoot something that was minding its own business, so we just closed the door to the room and moved on.”

. .. ... .. . It is a brutal, callous thought, but it is scientifically interesting that 537 could even be taught to be ‘calm’ as Nivans put it. Nivans is thinking along the same lines, though, because he suddenly looks even more interested.

“Have you guys ever trained a BOW before?”

Luis frowns. “No.”

Nivans tilts his head. “Do you want to try?”

Luis stabs a finger at the paused video on his tablet screen. “That’s cruel, I won’t let anyone—”

“You know zoos train their animals, right? Their dangerous animals, including lions and reptiles. It’s possible— straightforward, probably, as long as the animal has the capacity to learn, which 537 clearly has.” Nivans pauses, looks Luis over. “Do you have anyone on the team who has experience with training dogs?”

“Why would we have someone on the research team with that expertise?” Normally, BOWs are pretty single-minded. If awake and aware, they are either trying to destroy or trying to produce more of themselves. The only time Luis has heard of anyone having any sort of progress ‘training’ a BOW is with Nemesis— but those were human, so it was more about preserving enough of the mind and brain to allow tasks to be remembered and completed.

“I could teach you how to do it, if you’re serious.” Nivans offers like Luis doesn’t already have a full time job. “I’ve helped train MWDs— uh, military working dogs. It’s actually pretty fun.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?”

Nivans shrugs. “I don’t really have much free time usually, but I guess I could for a little while. Until we’re moved onto another assignment.”

“If you think that could be helpful,” Nivans adds.

“I don’t know what good it would do, to be honest. What do you think we could train it to do?” Luis asks.

Nivans watches 537 pretending to sleep inside of its too small crate. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s really smart?”

“That would be fascinating to discover,” Luis says. “But I think 537 is owed at least the understanding that it can have the whole room to itself.”

Nivans nods. “Let me talk to my captain.” 

[confidentsalt]

Im sorry I kinda died, I hope that I get more time to draw🙃

(Yes I did take inspiration by lexintothenex)

Raymesis pfp for y'all to use since I noticed that there isn't that much fanart that you can use for that😋

Is your reading this far check out this fanfic RayxRo...

[domini-porter]

🍍

🍍: AUs let’s goooooooo! I almost universally love them, because, as is my usual focus, when they’re good, they’re an excellent way to do character work. I do generally prefer far-flung AUs, hence zombies and the Gilded Age; I’m usually less intrigued by contemporary AUs that replicate the beats of a procedural, just in a different professional setting, but I still love and honor them (like, I’d absolutely read a story in which Maura is a judge, but I probably wouldn’t write it, unless there was some additional AU element, like the setting or era). Part of this is because I love doing research, and I tend to be able to get interested in almost anything if the story is interesting, or puts the characters in interesting or unusual situations. And Maura is obviously a dream for this; given her googlemouth status it lets me really delve into one of my favorite things, which is General Trivia.

I do get less enthusiastic when writers feel like they have to make everything fit 1:1; like, only utilizing the setting for replicating beats from the show (even though I did it, sorta, in the first Age of Wickedness with Hoyt/Dr. Spijker). It can be cute and fun in a Leo-pointing-at-the-screen, easter-egg way, but I get kind of frustrated by it in the way I get frustrated with a lot of fics that explicitly incorporate show plots (especially when replicating entire scenes, just with someone’s internal monologue on top); it’s your world, you can mash ‘em together however you want!

(Not saying people shouldn’t do pentimento stories—where you’re revealing what’s going on behind what’s presented—just that as a quadruple Sagittarius with a Leo rising I will always prefer and crave novelty)

Anyway. I adore an AU! Even though I’m fully toasted on the Gilded Age for a while (I do have ideas for a fifth one if the vibe is right) I’m always imagining what other setting could be fun (*cough*hardboiled noir*cough*). I encourage everyone to try it; breaking the characters out of their usual environment is both super-fun and can be really freeing as a storyteller!

(and I really do want to read a Judge Maura story)