#I have 2 unfinished fics about this exact thing

[abbabagel]

I love Kamukomanami but especially my very specific angst version of it where Chiaki misses Hajime with all her being and is struggling even being around Izuru because he’s not Hajime but used to be.

Izuru is in love with her but isn’t really Hajime so his perfect existence is suddenly not enough and he wants to change to be more like Hajime for her but he doesn’t know how anything than what he is and struggles with his humanity all because of a girl he doesn’t remember.

And Servant is in love with Izuru but can’t seem to get to his attention away from Chiaki and is so crazy jealous and bitter but also doesn’t want to hurt Chiaki because she’s the only person to ever try being his friend and she’s so hopeful how could he possibly hurt her

[myyoungroyalsblog]

Red, White and Royal Blue fic rec part 2 (part 1)

*Note: I have a lot of unfinished fics in my subscriptions but since there are over 120+ fics there from other fandoms too I won’t be able to add those, when they are finished I’ll do another post in the future!

*Also couldn't find some of these writers here on tumblr, if you know tell me and I’ll add their @ beside it!

MULTI-CHAPTER

Things I Cannot Accept

18 chapters, 69.703 words

By @sprigsofviolets AU where Ellen lost the election in 2016 and Henry and Alex reconnect in 2019. Super cute and interesting story, with a lot of fluff and angst, amazingly written!

Captious (calculated to confuse, entrap or entangle in argument)

3 chapters, 14.256 words

Blind date AU... Well... Sort of... You'll know when you read it hehe but honestly so so sweet with a bit of angst but so much fluff!

My Only Wish (This Year)

7 chapters, 26.374 words

By @dracowillhearaboutthis AU where Henry marries a woman and has two daughters, set 10 years later and Alex and Henry reconnect, and maybe a romance blooms... Of course it does lol very cute kid fic (with a bit of angst too) but still lots of fluff!

Comfort Crowd

8 chapters, 12.098 words

To all the boys I've loved before AU, I don't like the film but since I'm such a sucker for these two of course I read it and got obsessed with it afajsgshsvsg

And they call it—

2 chapters, 10.148 words

By @clottedcreamfudge AU where Alex can talk to animals, so when Henry needs a dog sitter he goes to Alex, and he and David obviously talk about Henry. So funny and fluffy, guaranteed to make you smile!

(do i really have to tell you) how he brought me back to life?

7 chapters, 38.498 words

By @coffeecatsme High school AU where Henry gets kicked out by Mary and lives with Alex's family. A whole lot of angst and a whole lot of fluff, just a superb story!

I'm Taking A Ride With My Best Friend

23 chapters, 79.302 words

By @cultofsappho The Last of Us AU where Henry is immune and Alex helps him get to the fireflies in hopes to create a vaccine. If you've watched the tv show or played the game, you know how this goes lol could not recommend it enough, so much angsty but has fluffy moments too! And the writing is impeccable

i'd lie

6 chapters, 18.058 words

AU where Alex and June move to England with thier mum and have the Fox family as their neighbours, we see the super six throughout the years and how Henry lies might not work anymore... If you want angst, this is the fic for you

ONE SHOT

talk too much

3.307 words

By @lazybug16 Alex has his wisdom teeth removed and Henry takes care of him, just fluff fluff fluff, super adorable (yes self promo because I'm very proud of this fic, I love it)

I trace your constellations

13.498 words

Soulmates, coffee shops and demi Henry AU, just pure flirting and fluff, suuuuuuper cute read!

Never Truly Leave

2.443 words

By @clottedcreamfudge Catherine finds a letter that Arthur wrote... To Alex. We cry alongside Alex as he reads it; very emotional, it will make you cry, and fall in love with these characters all over again, could not recommend enough

you knew the entire time (you knew that i'm a mastermind)

8.239 words

By @coffeecatsme Uni and autistic Henry AU, we see Alex and Henry fall in love. Fluffy but also a bit of angst, you just want to protect Henry and tell him everything is going to be okay

starry eyes sparking up my darkest nights

16.367 words

By @coffeecatsme Hugh school AU where Arthur is also alive and becomes like a second father to Alex. Very very sweet with a bit if angst as well, you'll love it and might have a few happy tears towards the end

learning to love (without it having to hurt)

4.861 words

AU where they aren't famous and they are roommates. We see Henry figure out his asexuality and Alex be there for him, and them getting together of course :) very very sweet read!

The last letter

2.173 words

By @floatingaway4 They are in the afterlife, at peace. This weiter managed to combine angst and fluff at the exact same time and I don't know how they did it, it will make you ugly happy cry!

Fourty-Four Days

8.675 words

They are living in the Brownstone when Henry needs to go to europe for the shelters and Alex to California for a campaign, and they end up not seeing each other for 44 days, and it's too much. Angsty but then fluffy, it just hurts seeing them miss each other so so much

take me out, and take me home

11.837 words

Roommates AU and we see Alex get some feelings, only friendly feelings of course... Really cute story and ending!

i’d take the bomb in your head and disarm it

22.392 words

By @evanbuvkley roommates AU and friends to angsty friends to lovers afahsgsjshdj so much angst that you might cry but a bit of fluff too (happy ending don't worry) such an engaging story, very well executed

and I wrote down our song

6.072 words

AU where Alex is a musician and Henry isn't a prince and they meet at a bar where Alex is performing. Super cute and we see how they fall in love and grow and it's just full of joy!

Group therapy

3.243 words

By @stutteringpeach AU where Ellen is Henrys therapist and he is dating Alex and talks to Ellen about their relationship, without knowing that it's actually his boyfriends mum... They "meet" at a family cook out and its honestly hilarious lmao you will not stop laughing

[krowsindulgences]

Progress on my Recreyo AU - Recreyo Myths

Okay, so it feels like I haven't updated in a while, but I have. And I want to make an update post or two! I will have a list of what I will talk about here.

Something with the title

The reason why Im not writing another fic

Story Progress

Okay, so first lets talk about the-

1. Title

If you have noticed from my past works on ao3(Just one), you will have seen the title as 'Recreyo Mythology'. I have changed it to just Myths because even though it sounds cool, Mythology means to STUDY myths. I really feel like a said 'woopsie daisy' on that one. So... expect it to be renamed when I post my next fic.

Actually, when am I making my next fic?

Well... not soon. Yep. You want to know why?

Its because we'll be going on number 2 now. Which is-

2. Osha-Rkry Progress

WOO! Yep, Im taking this language stuff seriously. I have long finished the phonology(sounds) of the language, so here are the things I have written in my grammar document at the moment:

Articles

Grammatical Gender

Grammatical Cases

Time Tenses

Numbers

Let's now see the progress.

The ones that are completed are Articles, Grammatical Gender and Cases. Yes, that's not a lot, but I am not including the more basic things about the language which are completed.

For now, I can give a sneak peek of what I have. I dont really know why, but I just dont want to show off everything.

First to show: Grammatical Gender + Pronouns

This is the whole thing, actually. I just dont think people would be able to really read this all at a first glance/dont take their time into it.

I actually do have a list on how some of the characters would refer to themselves.

Ai and Ao / Sasha /sə.ʃə/ - "Nrdw Ghrknyhry" (LIT: Like 1(S.God))

Chilly - "Nrdw Rknyhry" (LIT: Like 1(J.God))

Curt - "Kazhodo nrdw" (LIT: It like (1(?)))

Please remember the context of the structure being Object Verb Subject. 1 in this context refers to a first person pronoun, for example I and Me.

Second to show: Articles

The words are whited out on purpose.

Third to show: Time Tenses System

I think this can also be considered as 'Immortal Time / Mortal Time' too...

Well, thats all I want to show of Osha-Rkry right now! Hopefully you'll see more soon. Now, onto the next!

3. Story Progress

I think this is what most you all are for. Actually, with some help of @turkeyinnovember (Maybe a bit more with a reblog lol) I have done...

The backstories/backgrounds of EVERYONE! Along with a basic story concept.

You can expect 2/3 seperate stories/perspectives in this au. I will be listing the concepts of these plotlines, not the title.

Main Story 1: A girl gets spirited away to a new path in life, which changes her world a lot. The Gods she knows are not what is in front of her. Is she just forced to live a life in a different world? Is it even a different world?

Main Story 2: Did she find him? Or did he find her? No matter, because the Goddess of Knowledge has found a issue she had never faced before: She doesn't know a smidge about him.

Side Story 1: 'To meet a God is a Glory,' they said. One way or another, he finds himself in that exact situation. Is this what he wanted?

Also, the designs are REALLY unfinished. I only have Chillys concept going along, but I appear to be stuck.

Hint: I need ideas for tattoos. Please help me, anyone.

Well, I think thats it! I hope you all will like the AU Im preparing. This is Krow, saying goodbye! Have a wonderful time, folks!

Kra Rkry, its past 10 pm...

[rollercoasterwords]

like. i still wouldn't want someone to copy and paste my fics into a large language model like chatgpt but it's not so much bc i'm worried abt my work being stolen (seems unlikely that an LLM would spit back out my exact words considering how it works, and even if it did, i doubt any individual would be able to like. publish and profit from those words, based on the nebulous status of copyright law when it comes to LLMs like chatgpt. and having my words fed into the LLM really isn't going to make much of a difference when it comes to corporations profiting off the tool in the first place; plus in instances of corporate exploitation i think there are more effective ways to organize than like...arguing for strengthened ip laws or trying to like make ip laws for fanfiction spaces). it's more because i'm wary of what that says about how a person is like...approaching my fic specifically + fanfiction more broadly. in two main ways:

1. i think it is just. basic respect to check with a writer before u take their work off ao3(or whatever fanfic-specific place it's been shared) and put it somewhere else. and like, this applies to lots of things outside chatgpt--reposting fics to other sites, posting them on goodreads/storygraph, printing + binding fics, etc. if u are treating fanfic writers as people who u are in community with, who are generously sharing a gift with u, then it seems like basic kindness to check in and see if they're alright with u taking that fic outside the space it was posted to do something else with it.

with chatgpt and similar LLMs specifically, a lot of people are wary because there's still so much unsettled in regards to how copyright laws might shake out, and most people (myself included) are unsure of how/whether our writing/data might be stored and used by these corporations that own the LLMs. i don't think ai itself is something that should be mythologized as like ontologically evil technology, but anytime a corporation is introducing us to new tech like this we need to be wary of where it's coming from and how it could be used--people have already pointed out a lot of very serious issues with the way this technology is being developed and how it could/likely will be/already is being used exploitatively--which, again, is more a matter of organizing against corporations than railing against ai tech itself, but is still a valid reason for writers (again, myself included) to be wary of having their work fed to LLMs without permission.

and like. sure, u don't have to care abt writers' feelings + boundaries and can just take their stories and do whatever u want with them. but to me that says u aren't treating fanfic as a community space, but rather a content farm in which fics are products that u are entitled to do whatever u want with. and i just think that's shitty! and if that's how ur treating fanfic then i'd rather not have u reading my fic at all

2. i honestly think it's a strange way to engage w storytelling by treating endings this way. like. story endings are usually v important + intentional, and can completely change the entire tone, themes, messages, etc of a story. i understand going to the writer and asking them abt what they had in mind for the story ending if ur looking for closure, and i understand imagining ur own story ending or even writing ur own ending to an unfinished story. what i don't understand is plugging a story into chatgpt and having it spit an ending out for u.

and like. maybe this is bc we've all been calling these LLMs ai, which evokes an impression of like. a sentient robot creating something. but that's not what these programs do! the first article i linked explains how they actually work really well, but essentially--chatgpt and similar LLMs cannot create new ideas. they can't take a story and synthesize its themes or pick apart its tone to then come up with an original idea for an ending. at the same time, they aren't just plagiarism machines that are ripping text directly from other writers and spitting it back out.

instead (to my understanding), what they're doing is compressing vast amounts of information by running statisical analyses to just save the most common trends, patterns, recurring info, etc, and then plugging that in to fill the gaps. it looks like it's writing something new, but it's essentially just paraphrasing already-existing information pulled from the internet. so i'd imagine that if u fed an ai a fic and said "write an ending," the ai would basically compare the fic to whatever similar stories it has saved and then spit out an ending that is most commonly found on the internet for that type of story. [not an expert here tho--this is just my best guess based on the bit of research i've done].

my point is--you won't be getting a new ending inspired directly by the story u put in. you'll be getting a paraphrased version of the most commonly recurring type of ending for similar stories on the web. and i just....don't see how that would be satisfying in any way. it seems, again, like a way in which someone would be approaching fic like a product, something that needs to be finished + complete bc ur entitled to it, rather than viewing fic as a piece of art with its own unique themes, message, and story that can't just be plugged into a one-size-fits-most ending generator. and like, i'm trying to avoid mysticizing writing as some sort of ethereal art form that would be blasphemously degraded by having someone plug in a shitty ending paraphrased from a conglomeration of various similar stories--i don't think someone creating a shitty ending for a story is like. a horrible evil thing. but i can understand where the satisfaction is coming from if you're writing your own shitty ending, where you get to come up with where u think the story would go + where u get to synthesize the themes u picked up on etc. but ai isn't even doing that--so again, i don't understand where the satisfaction is coming from aside from just going "well every story i read needs to be finished," which. makes me wary bc it just feels like a completely different way to approach stories and storytelling than i would hope to find in fanfic spaces, one that treats fic less as a creative place to explore and more as a transactional space where u are entitled to products.

anyway. feel like my thoughts + feelings abt ai keep changing the more i learn abt it + i'm sure they could change again, but rn my impression of this whole situation is like. i find the fact that some people are plugging fics into LLMs less concerning re: ip + ownership rights, and i don't think it's useful to exaggerate or mythologize abt what ai actually does (i think even calling it ai has kind of misled a lot of people, myself included). what concerns me more is that plugging fics into LLMs to write endings feels symptomatic of a broader culture in which people treat fanfic as an informal profit economy in which fics are product or content that a consumer-audience is entitled to, and i think that sort of approach leads to a whole plethora of other issues + makes fandom a more hostile space.

[wuxiaphoenix]

On Writing: Finding the End

I’ll start this with a caveat: different writing advice works for different people. Most people know about the plotter vs. pantser split, but another useful division is methodological (you have a plan!) vs. intuitive (Plan? What plan?)

(My roommate and I have annoyed each other for years trying to trade writing advice. Turns out she’s an intuitive plotter while I’m a methodological pantser. Our ways of getting Story out of Brain and down into Words are completely different. Now we just toss “this is interesting reference material” at each other.)

If you saw methodological and thought neat and organized... hahaha no. For me a book in progress is an explosion in a reference library; accumulated books, papers, internet snippets, scribbled notes and of course the draft-in-progress. Some bits of which I’m usually loosely editing even as I’m writing other bits.

Instead, methodological means I have a more-or-less set strategy for how to write, what tools I need to keep the plotbunnies from whining (Bic Crystal pens fit my grip best), and specifically, what parts of the story I have to have figured out before I start writing the story, or the whole thing’s going to spin out dramatically and leave me in a fiery, bruised pile of a writer with Unfinished Fic.

...Yeah, that hurts.

So. What I need is first, a good idea of the setting. Second, a good grasp on the characters, both heroes and villains. Third, a beginning scene of Shiny. How do I kick this adventure off? Last, and critically important, I need an End Scene. Heroes vs. Bad Guys. What does the final clash look like?

This end scene doesn’t have to be exact. I even came up with a final scene for Colors and wrote most of it before realizing said End Scene actually belonged in a much later story; while a fight scene before it was the real Final Battle of the book.

(Also note that these are not foolproof. I have end scenes for Track of the Apocalypse and scene ideas for a follow-up, but writing ran headlong into traumatic RL events and it jammed. I want to finish it, but my brain just won’t until I get some more stability into my life. Bleeping inflation....)

Right now, as I hack my way through filling in holes in Colors, I’m trying to figure out what would be the best end scene for Druid vs. Zombies. I’ve got a dungeon maze, a demonic sword (I think), an angry necromancer, a lot of zombies, and a rag-tag party including the Druid who mostly aren’t really fighters.

They’re just the only ones the quarrytown has who can try.

I think part of what I’m stuck on is the tone of the story. The original inspiration was partly Scooby-Doo (“and I would have gotten away with it, too - if it weren’t for you peasants and that druid!”)

But, zombies; and not as friendly as those on Zombie Island. Plus Resident Evil 2 vibes; characters in sudden zpoc trying to survive. So fighting the necromancer has to be more serious.

The classic would be going down into the maze to face off with the necromancer before he can grab the Evil Artifact. But our heroes know they’re outmatched. Go into a dungeon maze filled with traps, monsters, and now necromancer-led zombies? That has bad idea written all over it.

So... I need to know if they think the necromancer has to come out the way he came in, or if they have reason to believe he can just teleport out when he grabs what he wants. Hmm...

[annawayne]

I LOVE YOU ART

♥️ 💥 👻

OH MY THANK YOU SO MUCH! I appreacite it a lot T_T

(sorry I didn't find the white heart, so if I missed it somehow, just send me a question, pleeease, and sorry T_T, so I would answer just a simple heart)

❤️ What is your favorite line that you’ve written in a fic?

Hm, I just realized I actually have a lot, wow!

From BMSS:

Chapter 1:

Some sketchbooks remain open, displaying unfinished strokes of pencils like the firm proof of her futile attempts to catch inspiration. The brushes and pencils are all over the surface, and some watercolors are long-dried. This table is like the cemetery of her dead muses, and the crumpled papers around the surface resemble tombs of what she called once drawings. Near the table, calmly rest canvases, covered with fabric, as she can’t face it. As if it has its will and power, the blonde woman can’t stand its muted screams of whiteness. The artist’s touch is the blood for it, it begs her for it, but she can’t be a donor when her blood is charcoal-dark. And it lazily savors her, tasting piece by piece all of her hollow beliefs and dull desires - everything that hangs on the apathetic carcass people give a name of a body. 

Chapter 2:

Silver rainy drops seem to be the bravest thing in the world, as they keep falling, falling, falling down from the sky - like the monotonous, infinite heartbeat of clouds. The rain continues to pour at a steady pace, and the timid piano sounds flow into the watery symphony outside the window, making ripples with its gentle, sensual tune. His breath, his heartbeat, his heat, his blood - everything dive into sleep. There’s no past, there’s no future, there’s even no present, and the sense of time has erased the same second the needle hit the record. There’s only now, only this exact instant that he wants to embroider over his body with the tight stitches of his memory - maybe, “forever” is the word that was created not for people, but for the moments like that. 

AND

She isn’t beautiful. She’s like the art she is so in love with - beyond this valueless, average sense of beauty. The man always thought about languages as the unseen, ultimate power that could express anything, and he thought that she is a forgotten lingua - another challenge, another source of knowledge. But he was wrong. This woman gracefully outshines any word humans could master. She would be so cramped between trivial letters that wouldn’t give even the closest thing she actually is, and every century with its standards of what is pretty or appealing cry out loud with bitter tears of jealousy that they never could have her. She said that art was born to make people feel something and make people think. And now, every fiber of his corrupted body, his messy, dirty soul, finally understands the true meaning of it. 

From Neverland of (our) desires

For him, Annie was the shoreline of wonder, the one he never refuses to chase even if she pushed away his waves. 

For her, Armin was the sea, he has his storms and his serene times, but the boundless patience of his waters is the bright promise of the future. 

They are just two pieces of the same phenomenon, impossible to separate. They always meant to be, because every sea needs its shore, and every shore covets its sea. 

It’s the rules of nature - and with nature, humanity can’t argue.

So, the tides of their bodies crash into each other. Every gentle movement of his lips against hers is like the long-awaited drops on her heated sand, every inexperienced slide of their tongues is filling his missing waters with the new soil.

It’s happening, her trembling body leaves the footsteps of their kiss in her sand. 

It’s happening, his goosebumps create the water circles of his erratic heartbeat.It’s happening, their kiss washes away all their thoughts.

AND

 Everything just fell into place. 

They are parallels never meant to collide, but breaking the rules of the universe, they always meet in the middle. Annie and Armin have the same start, the A as the spot of their rendezvous. Their date is limited to one letter, only to depart in their universe with different sounds.

He is the pleasant exhalation, the lack of vowels, the crash of waves with the extended N like a perfect piano pitch floated in the rising sun. 

She is the bird’s song of the early spring morning, the repeating vowels, and the continuous N sound like the infinite whisper of the sand pattern.

They're different, but they begin with the same tonality. 

They're different, but their names muse together, like the light shivers offshore through the tide of the sea. 

He knew her body like a musician knew his instrument. The curve of her waist was like the graceful smoothness of the clef; each dimple on her lower back was the piano key he knew exactly how and when to press to create a pitch of her beautiful whimpers; each rib a guitar string, pleading with the softest chords under his calloused fingers when he is in search for a melody of her heart; he could name each mole on her skin with his eyes closed like the dearest and memorized to the last digit sheet music painted the rhythm of her body over his mind; her thighs like a violin, the intonation of her beauty so close to the perfection he is playing with the only true condition - with love.

Different, but this is how nature is. Opposites attract and fight for their chance to change the already written truths.

From My yellow light in your soft whispers (based only on posted chapter 1) (but it's a lot, WOW!)

Her throat fires with the dry winds of suffocating, and the bizarre construct of words appears in her mind in a weird, erratic dance of senses as she’s looking at the man, who sacrificed his everything for the sake of tomorrow, erased his today, and forgot his yesterday. So vulnerable, brave, fragile, and strong, Armin is showing this side of him that only her has witnessed. Only her has tamed, only her hands have deep cuts of the tight embrace of the comfort, only her ears and the distant light of the moon hold his tears, and only her heart knows all his battles. 

AND

His back an open field of the still fuming battlefield with the smoke of his bright enthusiasm burning in flames of the cruelty of this world, the dry branches of the burnt beliefs all around like the barbed wire, and the blood, all unspoken wishes of his fallen comrades whittle away his posture.

AND

Armin knew all of it.

AND

Years passed and all their firsts were already a precious echo of time so distant, but not forgotten. However, with the steady rhythm of their life together, comes the most natural thing ever - the realization that each "I love you" doesn't taste like first, but the beauty of every day "I love you" feels natural as breathing.

From Golden hour of our forevor

His love for her may be the sunset itself, the everyday promise of another morning with the bright rays of the new, rested sun after the velvet touch of the night, each intense blaze of colors - gentle pinks, rich oranges, vibrant purples - the poetry of his heart from the flame to the soothes warmth, each verse is the rays chasing the stars. And even if poets already describe with all the lyrical possibility what love really is, he knows that whenever it’s real - nobody could find the words so right and so full to convey what sets their heart afire with the myriads of emotions living inside. 

AND

People say the golden hour is the magic hour, the evenings of the ethereal dream from heaven, sprayed like the angel’s stardust among the shadow silhouettes. And only among the slipping beauty of the never-stopping life, it’s possible to find the unmasked happiness, riding on the radiant rays of the dying sun like the manifest that even something so beautiful can’t freeze the flow of time to cement the perfect memento, but the sixty diamonds minutes of the pure fairy tale is worth of living the limited forever. 

💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

Hm, not to change, but to add. Aruani sweet interactions, hugs, kisses, all this jazz :D

But, well, no, one thing I would change for real. It's Eremika kiss. I just wish for them, it wouldn't happen the way...it happened (I love the angst and feels, but I just want them to be happy, so they could to vibe with Aruani in Switzerland...).

We don't have Aruani kiss, but we have Eremika's, but at what cost...

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

You know, it all depends on what is considered wild... And I'm terrible at this stuff, if the question would be more specific like about kiss or nsfw - I would tell you, but wildest...

I would share just my headcanon, that is not really headcanon, but the thing that I like, okay?

I really like Armin-Historia being siblings or very close friends, if AU has them as siblings, I start giggling like a child who received their favorite sweet.

[essayofthoughts]

First, I just want to say that all your AUs are literally amazing and I want to read every single one, they're just so great!! I'd personally love to know more about the fem!Percy and masc!Vex AUs (the dynamics sounds super interesting, and I'd love to hear your expanded thoughts on that), as well as Murder on the Exandrian Express, which just sounds like sooo much fun. Who are they killing? Why? Does it follow the exact format as Orient Express or are there new angles and characters? Who knows!

Aw, I'm glad you like them! Hopefully I'll get to all of them in time; if I end up moving on to a new fandom I have already determined I'll post all unfinished fics and notes to AO3 for adoption. But in the meantime!

fem!Percy is a quiet favourite of mine, because a Percy socialised to lean more on soft power, to be less of a stuffy young man and more of a stuffy young woman, and the social expectations that follow at her social class, like...

I know Exandria is better about gender than our world but 1. It isn't perfect and has gotten better over the campaigns, which are also happening on a timeline! Suggesting that the improvement is constant and continual; that there are improvements to be made even in C1, 2. Gender stratification tends to become a bit more distinct at higher classes, where the leisure time to be a picky authoritarian bitch is more present, and 3. the de Rolos came from Wildemount and are based on Prussian nobility; that implies links to the Prussian inspired Dwendalian Empire and German-themed Zemni Fields, and we know the Empire is pretty authoritarian.

So. They probably mean well and have ostensible equality and fairness, but there would still be implicit Baggage passed down and boy do I want to play with that.

Canon Percy is such a traditional like... polymath genius young man, allowed the leisure time to indulge his interests, to be a bit obnoxious and socially oblivious. But historically women have been expected to do some degree of socialising - to exert that soft power - and that'd impede a female Percy's ability to study, this expectation of social normativity.

And that's interesting! A Percy who's a bit more shy about her interests because she was, intentionally or not, subtly discouraged from them. A Percy who's even better at social things by necessity, but also maybe dislikes and resents it - until she gets to use it to help her friends. A Percy who perhaps looks up to Doctor Ripley as an example of what she could do if perhaps she was only given more freedom to do so (and perhaps a Doctor Ripley who looks at Percy and resents, because here is a young woman with all the leisure time and funding she likes to apply to her education, spoiled as she never was).

A Percy who, not unlike canon Percy, is probably extra uncomfortable explaining her scars. In canon it's traumatising for Percy and he avoids discussing it like the plague, but he's also got the level keel of "Ripley is awful" to anchor himself on. A Percy who looked up to Ripley and who was then so severely hurt and violated by another woman, who she'd wanted to extend trust and friendship to - that would sting badly. It'd be not unlike female-socialised bullying all over again - lies and deception, manipulation, ostracisation. "Of course we'd never let you play with us, why would you ever think so?"

It's extremely insidious and given how we know Percy overthinks things I'd love to see how that impacts a female Percy with that kind of social baggage - we know canon Percy was ostracised a bit by his cousins and classmates from some of the things Taliesin's said; given female socialisation and expectations a fem!Percy likely would experience that too, just in a different form.

Now, masc!Vex on the other hand...

Vex gets a lot of her way by persuading - often aided by flirting -to convince people to help them. Given, as I've established above, C1 Exandria isn't perfect with gender and there is some gendered expectations going on in certain parts of it and that the twins spent some upbringing in high society in Syngorn which is again stratified and also authoritarian (even more so than the Dwendalian Empire - elven partners in Syngorn aren't allowed to have children unless they gain permission from those in authority!), a masc!Vex using those same tactics would come across very differently. In canon Vex can get away with being quite forward because that kind of flirting isn't generally seen as being so aggressive from a woman - even though at times one could argue she is being so! - but from a man, that flirting could feel a lot more pressuring. And, the thing is, we know Vex. We know how perceptive and aware she is - I don't think a masc!Vex would want to be that imposing to people, especially people he's trying to convince to help. I can see a masc!Vex being much more conventionally charming, still occasionally flirtatious but much more obviously as a joke or a tease, to take that pressure off, and - here's the big game-changer in a lot of ways - a lot more cautious with pet names and endearments.

Yeah, my masc!Vex is going to use "dear" and "darling" sparingly. (It'll hit so much harder, I promise.)

And then, from another angle: as established, gendered bullshit. We saw how the characters teased and joked Vax for his interest in Gilmore. It's not unlikely that Percy, while bi (... he's a Taliesin character, I refuse to believe this boy isn't queer) has nonetheless tacitly absorbed the idea that while male-male relationships aren't wrong they aren't As Good As male-female relationships, and consequently tamped down on any acknowledgement of his own queerness. He's not unaware but he prefers not to look too closely at it. And then, in canon, he ends up with Vex, so it's not something he needs to think on.

In this, he ends up with Vex too. And that means he has some shit to process first - to acknowledge that he is interested in Vex, that he is attracted to Vex, to unpack the baggage he imbibed intentionally or not. Unpacking one's own heteronomativity can be a whole Thing and I'm looking forward to digging into that just as much as I am how Vex's Everything changes (I have not here even gotten into how the twins closeness would be different in this AU - another time perhaps!).

And. Lastly. Murder on the Exandrian Express.

You seem to think that it's Perc'ahlia who'll be doing the murderer.

My darling, they are Poirot.

There's some other people on the train committing a murder - carefully planned for and managed and explained (and, frankly, justified, Ickythong deserves it, and I've found a way to explain how he gets there too because it's me and I overthink everything) - and I'm going to have so much fun.

Also, Percy gets to build a train! Not the same as a skyship, but lets be honest, a train is still his kind of fun.

Send me asks about my fic ideas!

[scoops404]

hey

i read the last chapter of just ome touch and now i judt finished rereading the whole thing and oh my god, I've got things to say. first of all.. THANK YOU!!! this was everything i wanted and needed in a fic and you wrote it so perfectly and used the concept so well and just!!! so so good!!! i loved the ending. so many times a fic ends right after they get together and I'm always so unsatisfied because i want to know more, yknow? like just tiny things if ciera and hartley make it or how other people react or stuff like that and the way you finished it off with like the narrating what happens and it was just perfect!! also your writing style is so nice to read and just the last sentence "it's a nice ring" toes it together so well because there's still a future for them but also not as abrupt yknow? also dream would 100% try to propose at someone's wedding just because it made him so emotional and mushy like i can see that!! your writing feels really authentic and in my opinion you characterise them so well. I've read george pov so often were it just felt so wrong but your george and his thoughts and emotions felt so real. the way you portrayed the other characters also really stuck with me because it didn't feel like you just used them for the plot or anything but made them feel alive and and real. larray for example. (i think you mentioned how you were uncertain about his characterisation but it was incredible imo!!

i said it before i think bit the sentence "an man can dream but a man can't have dream" made me pause again completely. like i read it and then just sat there staring into the void.

georges journey meant a lot to me. the struggle of 'i'm straight because what else would i be, i just did things with the other sex even tho i never really enjoyed it' to 'making experiences that confuse you completely' to 'choosing the most logical label (i love dthe way you said that btw, like him doing maths of not being attracted to any women but to dream and dream is a man so he must be gay)' to 'total disaster confusion' to 'there's something that actually feels right and describes who i am' you really nailed that i think. i think this exact journey is so personal and familiar for lots of queer folks and I'm most likely not the only one that can identify with that a lot.

last but not least, thank you from a personal note. usually i avoid reading unfinished fics at all cost because a) I'm too scared that it won't get finished and b) my brain is a sieve and i just can't remember stuff for the life of me. but your fic intrigued me so much that i did follow the weekly updates and boy, did some things happen during that time. i graduated, went on vacation, moved two times and started my new job and you and your fic stayed with me during that and it was always a little highlight during all that uncertainty and stress.

hqve some flowers 💐 and chocolate 🍫 and a cat 🐈‍⬛ because cats are cute and yeah, i really appreciate you and your writing <3 !!!

I've been sitting on this ask 1) because i love it so much and it's so nice and 2) because it has some spoilers and I wanted to wait a little bit before blasting them everything

THANK YOU omg thank you for saying such nice things!

Everyone's journey is so personal and unique. I still have trouble to this day explaining that one night stands don't do anything for me. They just make me uncomfortable and for a long time I had no idea why since everyone else in college seemed to be fine with it

If it helps at all watching a character go through something similar, then i can die happy lol

I can't believe so many things happened while this was coming out and all I did was drive across the city a few times and go to my parents' neighborhood pool

Lucky you, experiencing life!

Thanks for reading along as the chapters dropped and thank you for such a sweet ask :DDD

[jomatto]

I don't know if I've officially announced it, but I'm presently in the process of rewriting Mister Cinderella. I've written some things down but now I'm trying to organize everything into Scrivener.

This is something new I'm trying, at least in regards to my stories. I've spent the last couple years dealing with workflows, kanban boards, spreadsheets, and all sorts of annoying BS at work. From this experience, I've learned that I'm a very meticulous sort of fellow, and applying this approach to story writing may generate tangible results.

However, my plan is to only update once everything is complete. I ain't about that update-as-I-go life anymore. I want everything to be ready to go as soon as I make my comeback announcement, and nothing would kill my momentum more than a disappearing act moments after my grand entrance. If I'm gonna be coming back, I'd better be bringing something big to prove it.

Mister Cinderella has become a testbed for learning Scrivener. The more I dig into it, the more I'm digging its features. Being able to move scenes around willy-nilly or bring up reference cards for characters, settings, and themes across multiple windows fits very much into my modus operandi. I find it easier to set up foreshadowing and callbacks, maintain thematic consistency, and just make the whole thing a lot more structurally sound.

I've reached a point where I feel like I'm making steady progress, so I've started looking ahead for what's next on the horizon. Besides MC, there's only one other story that I haven't finished in my FF.net profile, and that's Best Deceptions Redux. The last update was July 2014, which means it's been more than 8 years. That's a helluva long time.

After a brief flirtation with Ranma 1/2 and Evangelion in middle/high school, it was Best Deceptions that pulled me back into the fanfiction writing game and it made poetic sense to close out my run with the story that started it all.

We go back even further and the original has been dead for much longer -- since 2006. That's over 16 years, twice as long as my neglect. Methinks the story is cursed since it failed to cross the finish line twice -- but I suppose getting a second wind is more than most stories get if we talk about the massive graveyard of unfinished fics floating about the internet.

Since I wanted a refresher course, I tried to look up the original story but it's been gone for a long, long time -- and I mean gone. The profile for the original author has been done and dusted, with nary a trace left behind. Imagine my sheer panic that the story I'm trying to remake no longer exists. Well, shit.

But didn't we encounter this exact situation not too long ago? Luckily, an enterprising individual requested that I recover a story that I long since buried, and I was able to exhume its corpse thanks to the foresight of preservationists who backed up FF.net's entire story database.

To my abject horror, I could not find it after searching in the "K" archive. I gave it a couple more tries and eventually resigned myself to thinking that I'd have to depend solely on my faint memories to finish the tale. I went to bed, weighed down by the prospect of trying to complete a story that no longer exists.

Next day arrives and I search for it again. Found it. Turns out, I was looking in the wrong folder. You'd think a story that was never completed would be in the "In Progress" folder, but since the original author officially discontinued it, they marked it as "Complete". Now that's just confusing, not to mention, the archive has multiple folders for Kingdom Hearts (because of the crossover categories).

I backed that shit up immediately. Since the original author deleted everything, I could now claim sole ownership over the plot and firmly declare "I made this".

Obviously, I'm not as unscrupulous as to take credit for something I didn't make, but I do find it funny that I credit a writer that can no longer be found by conventional means. There's no way for readers to unearth this mysterious original "Best Deceptions" that I mentioned unless they go through the effort that I did. I might archive it publically on my profile somewhere if I ever get started on this final story, but for now, I'll hold on to it as reference material for my version.

I always thought that the internet was a place where everything is recorded forever, but the state of data is much more precarious than we think, and that has been demonstrated multiple times over the years with the loss of huge websites that are forever doomed to be remembered by a cache image.

Someone sent me a message last year warning me that FF.net could potentially be closing down and suggested that I repost my stories on AO3 or archive them somewhere. As far as I know, FF.net is still up, but who knows how long that will last? Although I've been lucky enough to recover two long-lost fics thought to be destroyed, it makes sense to make a backup while the opportunity is still there -- just in case.

[driftwoodskeleton]

WIP Whenever

was tagged by the wonderful @captastra and fabulous @the-lastcall recently-ish, sorry it's taken me a little while to get it done, i am feeling under the weather again :')

haven't got much on the go right now other than my Ghost fic, the drawing of Terzo, and some test thing im trying for Merryn, my new Warlock in Destiny 2. words and art below the cut:)

Far Away From the Stench of the Heavens:

After a little while more, Aether finally broke the silence, his voice back to normal again.

‘’So, yer Maj, you ever gonna explain to me exactly why you and Mountain decided to have the worlds most intense staring competition back there? Don’t tell me that lanky idiot is the Antichrist, because I will give up on everything if that’s the case.’’

You looked up at him in confusion, delicate features twisted as you tried to work out what he meant. You could hardly tell him that you’d once tried to kill his friend, not after he’d been so very kind to you. But at the same time, the thought of lying burned at your spirit like acid. You decided instead to give him a question of your own. If he told the truth, so would you.

‘’I don’t know. You ever gonna explain what exactly the deal is with you and Omega? Because there’s no way that kind of anger comes just from a stupid joke, none whatsoever.’’

You paused for a second, frowning thoughtfully.

‘’And why would it matter if Mountain was the Antichrist. How would I even know?’’

Aether gave you a strange look, like it was obvious how you would know, which only served to confuse you further.

‘’Alright then, keep your secrets, your Highness. I’m sure you’ll find out mine and Omegas after you’ve been here a little while, gossip is the preferred pastime of so many Siblings here, after all. As for the Antichrist thing, maybe I’m not the best guy to explain that to you. If we have time tonight, I’ll see about taking you to someone who can explain, deal?’’

You nodded, unsurprised by his unwillingness to explain the animosity, but also refusing to judge, seeing as you were doing the exact same thing.

Dead Woman Walking:

Merryn rolled her eyes, an exasperated sigh hissing its way from between those unearthly lips. Devrim shifted from one foot to the other slightly, uncomfortable. It felt like he was seeing something secret, that wasn't meant for the eyes of a mere human. The reluctant Guardian was talking again, tone dripping with fury. Despite his better judgement, Devrim couldn't help but listen.

''You think this is a blessing?? You think that I would ever choose something like this for myself, that I'd choose to be some awful puppet of that damn Traveler?! I don't give a damn how long you were looking for me, I want you to put me back! Go find someone else! I am not playing this fucking game, you worthless bundle of scrap metal!''

The Ghost was saying something in response, trying its best to sooth the furious Awoken, but it didn't seem to be working. In all his years at the Farm and just the EDZ in general, Devrim had never seen anyone react like this to becoming a Guardian. Sure, you got the odd one who was afraid, or confused, but never anyone actively furious to have been brought back. He wondered about the life Merryn had left behind. It must have been special, if she was this angry at losing it.

Though, now that he thought about it, didn't Guardians lose all memories of their pasts when they were brought back? To avoid this kind of thing? Something must have gone wrong then, if she remembered enough to be angry. Very wrong.

Terzo WIP:

mmm so blurry and unfinished. alas, artblock means he will go unfinished for a while yet:')

no pressure tags: @toyapandora @the-laridian @strangefable @purplehairsecretlair and anyone else with anything to share, consider this me tagging you too:)

[fixfoxnox]

Hey, absolutely not trying to rush you or anything but seeing as sito has been consuming my life for the past weeks and I live and breathe this fic, could you give me a vague timeline of when/how much you'll update it? Just so I can schedule every mayor life event around that. Wouldn't want to have to cancel my wedding because there's a new chapter out yknow.

(you are amazing and I normally don't ever read unfinished fics and this is just showing me why, this is KILLING ME and it's so good and so sad and I know I'll have to cry myself through the next few chapters and I just can't wait for things to start looking up again)

(sorry)

(I am very excited and stressed about this fic)

(you are amazing)

(pls take all the time you need, I'm sure I'll survive it)

Hello! First of all thank you for the support on the fic! I'm really glad you're enjoying it and I'm sorry for stressing you out with it lol!

I can't give an exact schedule for updates because it mostly depends on if I feel I need a little longer before posting or not. Generally I try to have two chapters fully done for the fic at all times (so like right now I have the next two chapters finished) this kinda helps me stay on track and gives me a little wiggle room if a chapter is taking me a little longer to write.

Usually, I try to update every 2-3 days, typically every three days! If I plan to take any longer than that, I'll let everyone know either here or in the notes on Ao3! The next chapter should be up Tuesday (probably would have been tomorrow, but I'm a little behind).

Hope this helps! 💙💙💙

[yueisyum]

I’m kinda confused on what is or ain’t new… or like what are you currently working on right now? Anything in the drafts? When is dtai part three coming out!?

sorry I know that’s a lot

That’s ok don’t worry! I love when people ask questions.

1. My newest releases are in linked in my pinned post. And right now the newest stuff I have out are, (behind the scenes) for dtai and (look alike)

2. Currently I am working on: part two for look alike, part three for dtai and behind the Scenes. But my priority right now is a Valentine’s Day thing with Jeno. I don’t think I’m going to finish it in time but at least it will get done 🙈

3. In my drafts? I have jenos chick flick fic and a bunch of unfinished crap.

4. Don’t think about it (dtai) part three is in the works!! I’m scared to give it a exact date because I don’t wanna lie to you guys. But when I’m close to finishing it I can!

But over all. I’m working on (look alike) and Jeno’s!

[mandy4ever69420]

do you read fanfiction? if so, do you have any recs?

ok obviously you mean shameless fanfiction with this but how funny would it be if i started dropping links to the weirdly stellar fanfiction i've read for the world's most dogshit television w/ absolutely no relevance to shameless. anyway the answer is "yeah a little"

i have 2! for you. both pretty short, which is sad, because i love longfics and really admire the people who make them. but i wanted to reread both of these because giving recs makes me nervous & i'm extremely specific about characterization for things i recommend

this take on the 'gay friends' plot (5k words) is by far my favorite - very much this is to my taste as fanfiction as a ruse to do some character work +matching source material tone. i want to note a very shameless-esque behavior in the setup here where it has a perspective that initially makes me a little upset (wrt: mickey's response to "who dies first?") and then upon thinking about it i actually decide it's actually fucking phenomenal. couple very sweet moments dotted in. :)

The Second-Time Commitment (14k words) this one does draw a conclusion from canon facts that isn't part of my read, but i don't think it's unfounded or poorly supported. i read it first because i appreciated it going into the nitty gritty sucky bits of bipolar beyond being depressed which is more familiar to more people. didn't expect it to take a dive into mickey's character which was also carefully done and lovely. i urge you to mind the tags but nothing is explicitly detailed in there. the sequel (16k) is also good but sadly unfinished. probably the only story i've encountered for which i enjoy the characterization on mickey, ian, AND mandy AND debbie (though she's barely there. sad!). i'm gonna compare about the conclusions this one draws to mine also but under a readmore in case you want to read the fic first

none of this is a critique of the story!!! it is very well done this is just my thoughts, as prompted by this story. also, some of this is kind of sad. Sorry

the author in this concludes from a handful of traits in the story that mickey was sexually abused prior to the series. when they draw their conclusion i think IMO it's a perfectly reasonable read, but my read was just that he was likely witness to sexual abuse. i mean, more or less exact canon, given where and how he grew up. probably sandy.

this is something that could not have possibly been written in intentionally, and a good place to point out that authorial intent is an interesting addition to a narrative, not the law you have to follow!

WRT: mickey alluding to resenting foster care, i absolutely see concluding that something worse must have been happening than at terry's house, but to me what comes to mind is a sense of abandonment. my read on mickey will always be that he really did love terry, even still in s11 when he didn't want to anymore. so feeling ditched by him would feel worse than being stuck with him.

[annachibi]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I wasn't technically tagged in this but it popped up in one of my old ship tags so close enough!

How many works do you have on AO3? 18, I'm not very prolific haha

What's your total AO3 word count? 60,598 (again, not very prolific lol)

What fandoms do you write for? It changes over time, depending on what I get inspired by. Back in the old days (not on AO3) it was a lot of Pokemon and Gundam Wing. On AO3, it's been mostly Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (yes I know lol), Victoria (ITV), and Remedyverse. You may notice 2 of those 3 feature Rufus Sewell in them. :D

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Autumn Hearts, my first big fanfic; To The Rescue, which was written for a friend; Christmas Lights; Compass Rose; and Winter Hearts, the attempted sequel to Autumn Hearts that I ran out of steam for. 4 out of 5 are for the ship Vicbourne from Victoria, a fandom I was very active in at the time. (Hopefully one day a Remedyverse fic will pull into that lineup!)

Do you respond to comments? Yes, just about every one! Sometimes I don't if it's been multiple years since I wrote the thing and I don't have much to say back, since I figure some people don't necessarily want the author to respond anyway.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Uhhh maybe Dreams of Zanarkand, but it could tie with a couple others depending on how you look at them. I don't tend to write angsty endings in particular, more just one-shots or chapters.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Autumn Hearts, for sure. It's akin to a fix-it fic.

Do you get hate on fics? Not really. I had someone harassing me via comments some years ago, but despite what they said, it wasn't really about the fanfics.

Do you write smut? Yep, sometimes.

Do you write crossovers? I used to, a looong time ago, but not anymore.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, but that would be cool!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, though not in a very long time.

What's your all-time favorite ship? Whatever my current one is. :D Haha but seriously, aside from a few pieces that I wrote for friends, you can pretty much tell what I'm fixated on by what I'm writing about.

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Honestly, Winter Hearts was never intended to be finished because it was just going to be something I chipped away at when I felt like it and had ideas, but it would have been really cool to have the full 4 seasons of titles. I tend not to post anything unless it's finished, these days, because having them sit there unfinished saps my motivation.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue that flows and sounds natural and in-character, I hope. If nothing else, I want to get the characters right, even in AUs. Most of my stuff is character-based rather than plot-based, anyway. I also love leaving little crumbs from the source material in my writing, like exact phrases or motifs used in different ways. Not sure if that counts as a strength.

What are your writing weaknesses? Supplementing dialogue with action or prose. I often like letting the reader draw their own conclusions, but I think that can make things a little sparse or unclear. And long plots are hard. And I'm just a rather concise writer in general, so nothing gets particularly long, even when another writer might have the same thing be twice as long.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I don't really do this because I don't have occasion to, but there are various ways to do it. If it's substantial and you want it to actually be understandable to the reader and aren't relying on, say, language puns or something, then just mentioning they're speaking another language and putting that dialogue in italics can work.

First fandom you wrote for? Pokemon, so many years ago! I actually wrote a story with my friend by passing notes in class, kind of like roleplay but before I knew what that was. I copied a lot of it into a little notebook that I still have. I didn't even know to start a new line for each character's dialogue back then!

Favorite fic you've written? Autumn Hearts and now Apeiron. They're my most ambitious. Though Autumn Hearts will always hold a special place for me because it taught me I could finish something that long.

I'm tagging @wondrouswendy @pintsizeninja @residentvampp @zoi-no-miko @ryanthedemiboy and anyone else who sees this that wants to! No obligation to those I did tag, of course.

[randum-famdoms]

As a small writer who’s only published a handful of fics (and has many more unfinished in my Google docs), I’ve written things for both niche and popular ships and tropes.

One fic, in fact it was the first fic I ever published, was for a ship that had maybe 2 pages on ao3. I never finished the fic, my mental health went on a downhill spiral and by the time I recovered I lost interest. But you know what? The fic got the most positive reception compared to everything else I’ve posted. Sure, it didn’t get a whole lot of hits or kudos. It’s not the fic I’m most proud of; I was still a novice writer in middle school. But it is the fic that brings me the most joy, because even with bad writing and shallow understanding of how to write romance, there were people who read it and were so excited because someone else got the thing that they liked and made something for it. People whose names I recognized from the comment sections under other fics for that ship.

I’ve also written fics for ships and tropes that are super popular. I’m proud of those, too. They’re more recent, so they have better writing. They didn’t get a whole lot of traction. That can be hard. The audience is bigger, so there is more content and yours can be lost in the sea of options. But writing for things that are popular isn’t bad. You can take the popular ships and tropes and add your own twist. You take the popular A/B and you stick them in an unfamiliar situation. Oh, you’re childhood friends? One of you has amnesia now and you have to rellearn everything about eachother. Oh, this fandom likes to do timetravel fics? Well guess what, the main character is travelled back in time by a trickster god but they are stuck in their childhood body and they don’t have all their memories and slowly gain more as they grow up and they have to fumble along hoping they fix the thing that went wrong, but guess what at the same time their enemy is stuck doing the same exact thing and neither knows they aren’t alone until they do find out and guess what secret surprise enemies to lovers romance.

You can stick to the basic no subversion tropes and ships, too. I personally prefer only doing that in one shots so I don’t get bored, but it can be a nice pallete cleanser, or even just because you fell like it.

I guess my point is that you can do both. You don’t have to just stick to the niche side or popular side of fandom. Do what you like, experiment, have fun! If you want to become popular, you have to have something Omg that sets you apart. Maybe you draw fans in through your more stereotypical fics, and they click on your page to find out that you also write for that niche thing, so they decide to read that too since they like your writing. Or even the reverse!

Regardless, it is true that becoming a big name can through fanfic is nigh impossible. It’s a lot of luck. It’s easier in smaller fandoms, since there less saturation in the market. But don’t let that deter you!

Writing for fun, for things you like, will make your writing more engaging. You can tell when an author isn’t having fun. So write what you enjoy, regardless of popularity. But also, don’t forget that you can *make* popular things fun, if you’re creative enough.

my biggest obstacle as a writer is that i desperately want to be a popular and well-known fic author, but my main fic inspiration comes from characters most fans don’t want to read fic for, or ideas that go against popular fanon/characterization and so are doomed from the start. i end up feeling paralyzed and like i can’t write the unpopular ideas I want to write, because i hate knowing i could have done better by writing something with broader appeal. but whenever i try to write solely for numbers i lose motivation while the halfway through the fic. so i end up unable to write anything and feeling miserable because of it.

i want to see my unpopular ideas come to life, but i don’t want to see my fics crash and burn and keep missing the chance to create fic that people really love. so most times, i don’t write anything, but i hate that i’m so hamstrung by my own anxieties. i so desperately wish i could create one of those extremely well-known long fics that most people love and always rec everywhere, but i feel like i’m completely incapable of that. i know i should be writing for myself, but i’m greedy and want results and for people to like my fic, however unlikely that is. wanting to write my ideas but knowing i’ll limit my audience if i do is something that’s constantly on my mind. do you have any advice for me?

My biggest question after reading your ask is simply: why?

You're very clear about wanting to be a popular writer. You want to write a fic that lots of people talk about, and you want people to know who you are. Have you examined that desire at all?

You say that the things you actually want to write are not the things that will make you a popular author. That means you have a choice:

write things you don't care about with no guarantee of becoming that Big Name Fan or

write things you love and enjoy spending time writing and know that BNF status will probably never happen.

Writing fanfic is really not a great way to try to become popular. It's an even worse way to try to become "famous" in any kind of way. So dig into what it is that you hope to get from the "broader audience" that you could appeal to by writing something you don't really like.

Are you trying to get a feeling of being liked? Respected? Looked up to? Do you want to be someone other fans look to for advice or for setting the tone of the fandom? Do you want love? Power? Some kind of community connection? Recognition of the effort you put into your works?

Some of those things likely will require you to pretend to be someone you're not. You might even manage to write that one big fic that gets thousands of comments and tons of people talking about it on tumblr (or wherever else you care about, social media-wise).

Others you can probably still get by writing your "unpopular" ideas but seeking out your fellow fans. It will take more legwork to find them and you'll need to be willing to be the first one to reach out for a conversation, but it can definitely be done.

I'll leave it up to you to decide what you actually want, anon. But take your time and scrape off the top layer of shiny thoughts about popularity first. Then you'll be able to see what's underneath.

[unwanted-editor]

Whilst reading yet another fanfic, I came across this line by the author:

“… her fire wasn’t the usual orange flame that we see- it was instead blue Fire still, just a bit cooler, a bit gentler.”

1st- The sentence would flow better/ be more grammatically correct if it was written “… her fire wasn’t the usual, orange flame that we normally see; it was instead blue fire- just a bit cooler, a bit gentler.” Still, though, even if the sentence was written this way, it would still be factually incorrect- which brings me to my second point.

2nd- Blue fire is hotter than orange fire.

This bugged me, so I scrolled down and looked to see if anyone had said anything in the comments section. Which, someone had:

Reader: “… Just an fyi, blue fire is actually hotter than orange/red fire. Of course if its magic then I guess ignore whatever rules you want.”

Author: “… Haha, seriously just thought that it sounded cool. But, that’s and interesting fact! Yupp, please assume it’s another one of those ‘magical’ reasons. Thank you!!”

(Please note that the reader was being nice and respectful about the criticism! I took it out, because there were potential spoilers/irrelevant stuff, but the reader began by complimenting the writing and expressing interest in what might happen in future chapters. This is exactly how you should go about giving constructive criticism!)

The reader was right, of course. Blue fire is actually hotter than even white fire! And the hottest fire is a white-blue flame.

“When all flame colors combine, the hottest flame color is white blue.”

“The color of the blue flame indicates that it is even hotter than white. Typically, blue flames can go up from 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.”

However, there are actually two different ways to turn a fire a different color- temperature, which we’ve already discussed, and the fuel’s chemical composition.

So what chemicals can be used to turn a fire blue? Here is the list I have come up with: Copper Chloride, Copper Halide, Bismuth, Arsenic, Cesium, Germanium, Indium, Niobium, Phosphorus, Selenium, Lead, Tin, Tantalum, or Zinc.

As you can see, there’s actually quite a variety of chemicals that could be used to create blue fire (although the exact shade would need specific ones). However, I have no idea how the chemicals effect the fire temperature, because as one of my previous pictures stated, “… blue flame is typically fueled by natural gas, and natural gases tend to burn hotter than organic materials such as wood.”

“But Unwanted-Editor! None of that matters if it’s magic!” That is correct, my dear readers, magic is a handy little tool that we can use to ignore science and logic. And truly, I would be content with letting it be, if not for a line just a little bit after the one I read that initially got me into this rant:

“Blue fire was known to meld and carve”

Meld. Meld!

Now, the author isn’t incorrect to say that blue fire is used to meld, but melding (and I assume the author is referring to welding) is bending metal to your will. Logically, don’t you think that the fire would need to be at a higher-than-normal temperature in order to actually do that? Yes. Yes it does.

“Temperatures high enough to produce blue flames are unusual in campfires, which is why they are more often seen when metals are used, as in welding.”

Now, magic can excuse a lot, but I draw the line at having a low-temperature-blue-flame-that-can-also-be-used-for-melding/welding. It just doesn’t make any sense, especially since the magic of the world we’re in relies heavily on the balance of things. Please, if you’re going to make the dragon breathe blue fire, than at least do it right.

Anywho, if you look at one of my previous pictures, you can see that I was already on Chapter 16 when this all happened, so clearly the author wasn’t actually a terrible writer. In fact, I even finished the fic and started the Part 2 of the fic (unfinished) that the author had written before I made this post. So, Kudos to the author for still engaging me, even when my brain rebelled against certain things! Thanks for being brave enough to share a piece of your heart on a public platform, and best of luck on all future writing endeavors!

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