#I'm not the only fanfic writer who was targeted but that doesn’t make it feel any less personal to see years of work and love stolen

[ljandersen]

Hello! I absolutely love all of your Mass Effect shenko stories, they’re all SO GOOD :) I went to reread Burning Barriers and Sideways on ao3 but didn’t see them listed anymore. Am I just crazy and somehow overlooking them?

Thank you so much for the kind words! It makes my day knowing my stories are so appreciated.

For your question, no, you’re not crazy. I have locked most of my fics to AO3 members-only, which is why you probably can’t see them.

Recently, someone took my work and self-published it on Amazon. This has really affected me. My greatest fear when I started sharing my fics was this would happen, specifically that someone would publish my stories on Amazon.

While the matter has since been resolved, it’s shaken the security I felt posting online. It’s left me kind of devastated. It’s the reason I locked my fics. I’m not sure if it’s the answer, since people who profiteer off fanfic writers probably also have AO3 accounts, but it’s the only step I had available.

That said, my work is still accessible, if you’re interested.

If you’re already an AO3 member, just make sure you’re logged into your account to see my fics.  If you’re not a AO3 member, I recommend joining. There is a little bit of a wait time, but it’s free and comes with several perks. From my understanding, the membership program exists to keep growth from overwhelming the servers and to deter spam. It’s a non-profit enterprise supported by community donations. Your email is kept private.

When it comes to perks with AO3 membership, you can bookmark fics you enjoy for easy reference on your profile.  You can subscribe and receive emails on fics or a specific user when they update. Then, of course, there’s the opportunity to read fics which may have been hidden to you previously. Since concerns about the kudos bot (which spams fake guest kudos) and scrapping/AI technologies, there are more fics than ever before locked to AO3 users.

For all of those reasons, even if someone’s not a writer, I recommend an AO3 membership (even outside of seeing my specific stories).

I’m sorry for the shock of my stories disappearing overnight. It was a hard choice to lock my fics and one that I’m not convinced will stop this sort of thing, but it’s the best I can do for now.

Thank you for reading my work and reaching out.

[tamelee]

pls bottom naruto is disgusting stop drawing this ooc cringe

Eh? And it hadn't even been a full day.

Anyway, do you know what this means?:

It means… that I don’t give a damn about your whiny gibberish about this top/bottom bullshit, because it sounds incredibly silly. (And wrong because I draw both?)

It’s fine to have a preference, good for you (I have one too!), but if all you care about between a character-dynamic is the single notion which establishes a rule within a fandom that demands only this particular dick in only that particular booty and nothing else, while dividing yourselves between "us and them" while seeing the people who like the same exact characters as your "enemy" and treating them as such— well, 

I have nothing to say to you, I couldn’t care less what you think about me and I don’t know you. 

But for the sake of other creators who are often a target also, some which I know quit because of this… there is a little something I'd like to say about these servers:

You don’t think I (we) know what is said in there and by who? 👀 That your rules of "what is said on here stays here" with a bunch of people online that you don't know, is actually respected? Why do you think I never join any. And bet your ass that I'm not the only one. This constant fighting between NS/SN is such an embarrassment for this fandom, seriously. I hope you realize that.

Because, instead of encouraging a (new) creator to share something about the characters you claim to love (for fucking free) you go off chastise them for not “doing it right”/“your way”, pretending it's some unspoken commission no one knew of or was paid for. Instead of being happy there’s still so much creative contribution for characters from a story that ended years ago, you go complain under fanfics and dishearten writers, often grinning away with your little server-“friends” and make fun of work someone poured their heart in. Or, you huff, puff and breathe fire as you make plans to cancel them out of pure bitterness, to the point (especially new) creators are too scared and dispirited to ever share anything again. It's easy to do anonymously, aye? And if you think that doesn’t affect their lives and sends them right back into a crestfallen pit of dark hell because it prevents them to do/share the single thing in life that gave them a bit of joy, then...

Congratulations; you’re a heartless bastard.

And you, as a fan, did yourself dirty too.

Do you know how many people don’t want to share anything at all for this fandom because you people leave comments, tags, asks, tweets constantly complaining about an incorrect portrayal of the (in your opinion) only acceptable dynamic, like a bunch a brats? Do you? Because I’ve talked to quite a few of these discouraged creators, they have to hope for the best and pray they’re spared from your scrutiny. I receive it from both sides every now and then.

Again, congratulations: you’re the reason there’s less chance of you getting what you want in the first place. 

Do you... really not realize?

The more you squabble with "your enemy" (lol) the more it affects the "us" you care about while the rest of us just bask in the glory that is SNS/NSN and couldn't care less about what you think/have to say. So, keep everyone else out of it and go mope elsewhere.

But, between you and me? There are better ways to share what you think is right. Make something yourself, because what's stopping you?

You’re perfectly capable, it doesn’t have to be art or a fic, maybe there’s just something in the story that you really enjoyed— write about it. Make a meta. Post the panel, show the moment that determined your undying love for this single dynamic and why— whatever.  Because, wouldn't it be nice having someone encourage you to create something you like? 😬 Especially because you and your server feel so strongly about it? And then you don't have to depend on others either?

Wouldn't it be nice?

Well?

Hm!?

Try it, ffs.

[sleepy-grav3]

Bonding - Kikaku x Uramichi

A/N: Ok so... I love these 2 so much and there's... nothing on them... I can't find enough fanfics about this entire fandom. So I'm just gonna start writing random things to fill my empty heart ^v^.

Summary: Amon was stalking Uramichi, as usual when he ran out of show ideas. Thankfully, Kikaku was there to spot him and Uramichi, deciding to just drag the poor victim away and send a small warning to the script writer.

Tw: Swears, stalking, hopefully nothing else that I forgot about

There's not any actual romance, just a bunch of bonding because this specific idea got stuck in my head and just wouldn't correlate with actual romance... It does hint at one though.

“I swear I’ve been getting this feeling once a week now…”

Recently, Uramichi has been getting the sensation that he’s being watched. And he was. And by none other than Amon, the writer of the show he worked on. The writer had decided to gain as much inspiration from Uramichi as possible by stalking him until his idea became more popular than Uramichi’s nightmare friend, Kotori-san, the creepy bird drawing that no kid actually liked at first.

So now, Amon was following the adult into a cafe.

“Maybe a change of scenery will give me a change of pace. A cafe should do the trick.”

“Hello sir, a table for 1?”

“Uh, yes. Just one.”

“Just one, huh? This guy must be a single gym rat who lifelessly works out to fill a void in his heart.” The waitress thought, inwardly sighing at how sad she assumed the man’s life was.

Sadly… she was spot on.

“Right this way sir!”

He was guided to a round table that had 2 chairs despite the table space seeming to only fit 1 person’s plate. Uramichi’s thoughts drifted to that subject once he sat down and was given the menu.

“You know, having multiple of these tables is good for more customers… but the space on the table is something that tends to make people realize their boundaries more. The small table makes it that 2 people are too close together, so only one person could comfortably put their arms on it, but doing so would make them feel selfish or overbearing because they’re imposing on the potential space the other had available. And they can’t properly stretch their legs either or else that’ll lead to them awkwardly brushing against each other. This table… This table is only welcoming to lovers or those who don’t have any awareness of personal bubbles.”

All of these thoughts only drained him further, making him not realize that amon was sitting diagonally from him, staring without an ounce of shame.

“He doesn’t usually go to cafes… I think I could get something great from this!”

Ding Ding!

“Damn bastard, I told him to stop putting up the pre-order pages when they weren’t approved…” Kikaku grumbled with a wide-eyed death glare.

“It doesn’t look that bad this time th…ough…”

Kikaku paused for a moment.

“Table for one this time, sir?”

He didn’t bother to listen to the hostess, snapping his head to the left, seeing Amon spying on Uramichi with a camera on the table and a notepad in hand. The hostess obviously noticed. Due to him being a regular, she knew that Kikaku had known him well enough to put so much attention on him.

“Oh, is that your friend? You can sit with him if you’d like.”

“Yeah, sure.”

He didn’t bother to look back, walking on over with his usual closed-eyed smile.

“Uramichi, buddy!”

Uramichi flinched, turning his head stiffly with owlish eyes.

“K-Kikaku? I didn’t *ahem* expect to see you here..”

“Yeah! I felt like a good coffee. Once I saw my good friend sitting all alone at a table, I couldn’t help but come over.”

His eyes opened with a dark look that shot straight at Amon. The said writer jumped with a squeak while Uramichi tensed, thinking that he was the target of the glare.

“R-really?”

Kikaku’s expression went back to cheerful as he sat down.

“Yep!”

A door to Uramichi’s heart seemed to creak open slowly as Kikaku took out his phone to see the cafe’s menu from there, as nobody gave him the physical menu.

“Seeing him calm like this is oddly comforting. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten with someone one on one like this before… Nobody that didn’t give me stress immediately after they spoke that is… This is a nice change.”

“Is my face that disturbing to you or something?” Kikaku questioned as he put his phone aside.

Uramichi tensed.

“No, you look just perfectly fine- I just- um…”

“What the hell do I say to him?”

“I never saw you come by here. Change of pace”

“Uh, yeah. It might sound weird but… I’ve been getting this feeling that someone’s been watching me. It’s every week now. I think my usual routine has gotten to me so I decided to.. come here.. Sorry, you probably don’t really care about it.”

“Every week now, hmm? When does it start? Actually… do you get this feeling when you get home too?”

That last part was said a bit louder, making the writer who had picked up his camera set it back down immediately with a jolt. Meanwhile, Uramichi felt his heart speed up just a bit, looking down at the menu still in his hands with a flowery aura around him. The door to his heart creaked a bit more open.

“He believes me.”

“It starts right when I get out of work and tends to end only when I get to the building.”

“Really now? Huhh… Well! I bet you don’t want to think about it at the moment- So what are you thinking of getting?”

“Just a strawberry shortcake, you?”

“Black coffee with as much sugar as they can put without poisoning me. Seems like the big boss wants me to design shirts with.. What was the bird called again?”

“Kotori-san?”

“That.”

Uramichi pursed his lips, sweating a bit.

“I don’t know if he likes me or hates me.”

“Hello! Have you chosen what you want?”

“A strawberry shortcake please.”

“And for you, I’m assuming it’s the usual coffee?”

“Yeah, add a sunset lemonade for him too.”

“Huh?”

“Right away!”

And off she went, making Uramichi look over at Kikaku for answers when he froze up. Kikaku had an elbow on the table, leaning his cheek on his hand.

“The lemonade here is pretty good. Anybody who doesn’t like their lemonade doesn’t have any taste at all and should just die.”

“Y-you must come here often then…”

“Yep. I come straight here for coffee and come up with designs late at night since the boss like to give me work last minute-”

His phone then rang. He looked at the caller ID and instantly clenched his jaw.

“THIS IS THE 3RD TIME YOU’VE CALLED ME IN THE LAST DAMN HOUR! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU WANT?!”

“Scary…”

“Sorry about that, one of my side-chicks is pretty clingy. No matter how much I tell her to leave me alone, she keeps bothering me. The complete opposite of you and yet you’re both upsetting.”

“Um, sorry?”

“You better be. Do you know how frustrating it is to get in contact with you without your number? I have to actually keep track of your work hours and finish stuff or even wait to start things until I can align it with your schedule.”

Uramichi could feel Kikaku’s temper rising once more.

“So sorry…”

“..”

“.....”

“.........”

“..............”

There was an awkward moment of silence until Kikaku took a deep breath to calm himself.

“He’s so damn dense.”

“Can I have your number now??”

“R-right!”

Uramichi scrambled to get his phone out, nearly dropping it before turning it on and pulling up his number before handing his phone over to Kikaku to not anger him further. Kikaku, satisfied with his achievement, entirely calmed down and added Uramichi into his contacts and vice-versa.

“There we go! Now I can contact you whenever I need to!”

Uramichi looked down at the contact name Kikaku saved himself as.

Kikaku🖤

-

“It was nice to-”

Kikaku put his arm over Uramichi’s shoulder.

“Leaving already? C’mon, I’ll walk you home. I insist.”

“S-sure..! Can you please uh.. let me go…...”

Kikaku didn’t let go, making him walk forward towards Uramichi’s apartment. He took a moment to look back though, sending another wide-eyed glare to Amon who also exited the cafe a second after they set off.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH! He’s going to kill me!!!”

Amon ran off afterwards.

-

“Goodnight, Kikaku. Thanks for walking me here. That feeling went away thanks to you. Guess I might’ve just felt lonely or something.”

Kikaku paused at the door for a moment before he let out an airy chuckle.

“Yeah. Let’s hang out more often. I’ll show you some new hobbies, seeing as you’re such a gym rat.”

“Uh, yeah sure. That would be great.”

“See ya then, Uramichi.”

“See ya, Kikaku.”

Uramichi walked into his apartment and closed the door behind him. But he only stood there, hearing Kikaku walk away.

“He wants to hang out with me more…”

A smile made its way onto his face at the thought. In fact, the smile kept popping up each time he thought of it until he fell asleep.

Kikaku felt a similar way, looking forward to their next hang out as he made his way to Amon's house. It was just a little visit...

-

“What. The. Hell. Is. THIS?!” Kikaku shouted, his entire body trembling from anger.

He was currently looking at a new shirt design that had a new character inputted into the show. Apparently, Kotori-san had a new bird friend�� A creepy owl named Yuzu-san. He knew immediately what that was about.

“That bastard…”

But despite his anger, he actually kept 2 shirts and forcefully gave the rest to Uramichi once the product came out. He seemed a little less resistant this time to the product. They both did.

A/N: So uh, not that good but it's something? Anyway, hope you enjoyed it. I'll probably never get motivation to do anything like this again :)

[anoceaninthesun]

Hello, I'm sending this to warn you about a potential harasser. I'm sure you know of Dastaan Go, a Sakura hater who used to harass fanfiction writers some years back. Well, I think they have come back under the name of Dushman-e-jaan. I've already seen them write hateful things about a Madasaku FF writer here,

https://at.tumblr.com/dushman-e-jaan/693676422367150080/b7181kdizkaa

Another one where they are hating on fineillsignup,

https://at.tumblr.com/dushman-e-jaan/636937288156348416/sprd7kloikz6

This person have also written entire analysis posts on naruto in their blog that are exactly the same as what Daastan Go has published in their fanfiction account.

Now I don't know if they go to other's blogs and starts fights with them or send hateful messages(I haven't seen anything like this so it's possible they stay in their lane); but I feel it would be best if you block this person.

If you feel all this is stupid or unwanted, please ignore my message. I'm just a fan of your work and just wanted to let you know about this. Thanks!

Thanks for the head’s up. I did read the links and it does seem rather hatefully targeting writers that they take issue with. I went to block only to see they are already blocked. Lol I have not consistently used tumblr in quite some time so I have not added anyone to my blocklist in quite some time. Makes me wonder if I had dealings with this person before. At one point I also received lots of hateful anons that had the same tone over my fanfics and did block whoever was on anon. There is no telling. Anyway, if anyone else is a fic writer or just doesn’t want to see the content this person makes, feel free to take this as your sign to block as well.

[bigskydreaming]

My favorite thing (cough bullshit cough cough) is when fics allude to all this stuff Jason holds against Dick but never go into any specifics. While at the same time having no trouble being detailed about other stuff in the fam's history or Bruce in UTRH, but the sec its Jason bitching at Dick it gets real vague. Jason's like oh you know what I'm talking about or don't think I've forgotten, you dick....but we're supposed to just imagine for ourselves what that is. Incheresting.

Me at all the fic writers who are like “Oh so you think Dick was never a fuckhead to Jason huh, well in this essay I will....”

Like here’s the thing, as I’m always saying:

Fanfic? Inherently transformative. You can do whatever you want with it.

So that means that yes, absolutely, if you want? For whatever reason? You CAN write Jason and Dick having this extensive history of Dick being a jerk to Jason and Jason resenting him because of it.

But.

But but but but but.

You have to like, actually WRITE that.

And that’s the part that people just.....don’t do. Instead they rely on just handwaving into existence a backstory that only exists on their say-so, and expect readers to just accept Dick’s characterization here as fact, even though its literally not based on canon OR based on anything they’ve actually provided in story......

Because even in a transformative medium, you have to actually TRANSFORM something to get from Point A to Point B!

You want Dick’s character to be this callous jerk full of regrets because he came to his epiphany of How Not To Be A Jerk too late in life and his siblings are all like well we don’t really have time for you now, you missed your shot bro?

Cool cool.

But you have to TRANSFORM Dick’s character from what he’s ACTUALLY like in canon TO that figure there, and there’s no actual transformation in any of these stories. They just start with it taken as a given that this is the way Dick already is, and expect everyone to just catch up and get on board, despite the fact that if we were to anthropomorphize their fic and ask “hey Siri-fic, show us how you got Dick from Point A to Point B,��� the fic would say no because there’s no work to show. It doesn’t exist.

Instead, what we actually get is a characterization of Dick that to most of his fans honestly doesn’t make any sense, and we’re like, wait, why is Dick like this here, and in response we get fics being like *points to this part of canon, says everything you need to know is right in there* and we’re like no we’ve been to that part of canon, what you’re describing is literally just NOT THERE. So again, still, once more with feeling: wait, why is Dick like this here?

And not to be contentious on main, oh wait lol I don’t care, but like......tbh this is a very cheap and lazy form of storytelling. And I don’t actually feel bad for saying that, sorry not sorry, because I feel like writers in this fandom have long been perfectly happy to run with this sorta thing and then hide behind “cant criticize my story, Im doing this for free” to keep people from commenting on how this is an ummm not great approach to taking characters from canon and transforming them into something else. 

Even though its like.....I don’t really care about your singular story enough TO criticize it, I’m perfectly content to x out of it and move on to the next one, but when so damn many of these stories are relying on the same shortcut without a single one of them actually doing any of the transformative work to justify their take, and over and over we’re just expected to go along with this, its like.....umm yeah, I do actually feel that at a certain point its abundantly relevant to point out that this IS a ginormous fucking trend and the trend itself is absolutely deserving of criticism.

And quite frankly, when fics or headcanons RELY on the expectation that people just nod and smile and shh don’t question it every time they come across a depiction of Dick Grayson as just this total thorn in his family’s side......like, “no” is actually a perfectly valid response to that expectation, lmao. Nobody is owed fans of this character just sucking it up and being like nah, this is fine, as everyone continues to run with this ball all while justifying it with handwaving and vague pointing at an ever moving target whenever somebody’s just like....”I’m not even trying to criticize your fic, I’m just wondering what your take on Dick is based on, because I think we’re looking at two entirely different characters here.”

Because like....we are! Lmao. Yeah, different interpretations are a thing, but when the Dick Grayson in question is foundationally based on formative events that literally don’t exist anywhere BUT in the fic writer’s mind because the writer never actually wrote them into the fic and they don’t actually exist anywhere else.....we are effectively at that point talking about two entirely different characters. And its extremely irritating for those of us who want to talk about the one that’s based on actual canon events to be constantly told we’re doing it wrong and just being referred back to the general collective view of how ‘Dick is bad actually, cuz we say so,’ when pressed for specifics. Like, I’ve literally had people post or comment about ficlets I’ve written that show Dick and Jason getting along pre-ADITF, where people are like “aww this is so much better than canon, would’ve been nice if we could’ve had this instead of Dick being such a jerk to Jason.”

I mean....fahlkfhaklfhaklfhklafhklahfalhaf! Y’know?

But I mean. I digress. Probably. I don’t know. What was the question?

[tohokuu]

Anon ask time:

I'm a writer on here and im pretty notorious on getting things out late and I feel bad or it especially when it's a request.

But no one talks abt how it's just hard sometimes to be a writer on Tumblr. Like i worked my ass off to get only 500 followers and then an anon that reached out to me and asked for advice posts like three works and gained 1k followers in a month. I'm v happy for her and everything but it feels unfair sometimes. And i just want to be a big voice in the ateez fanfic community and have people recognize that im a good writer and be like you or hongism or pk but when you post something that you spent all this time on and for it to only get 10 likes is very disheartening.

And I have been revamping old works too but it still is so hard

ahhhh my love, it’s okayyyy

let’s pretend i’m letting you cuddle into my arms and i’m stroking your hair gently 🤗

now, PLS don’t compare me to caly, shes huge 😭 but that’s also like the biggest compliment ever, do not make me cry at 6 AM

the biggest thing about ANY hobby that ppl fail to realize is that it’s not supposed to be a job. it’s a hobby, you do it when you feel like it. i haven’t been able to paint in over a year, i feel like i’ve lost my artistic talent, but when i look back at my old pieces i’m like.. holy shit i drew that ??

or, DEAN ? if you know who he is, he hasn’t released music for maybe 2-4 years now ? people ask for more music but no one realizes how difficult it is to produce art. it’s difficult to put your brain together and find something satisfactory enough for your audience. writing is the same way. it’s art. it’s talent. sometimes it doesn’t flow in your head properly and it’s difficult to produce stuff.

and don’t ever feel bad for being late to a request. you’re not obligated to answer anyone. what are they gonna do ? tell their mom ? 🙄

and sometimes it is hard to gain followers. my old blog only reached around 570 followers before i just gave up and made a new blog. i had decent amount of works up there but it didn’t make much of a difference.

maybe a blog change could help ? a new environment often helps (that’s what all my friends that constantly change blogs say)

and maybe with recognition, it’s also a matter of tags. tags make a BIG difference. i changed some tags for my fics and it made my fics grow. tumblr ever only puts the first 4-5 tags to use and you gotta use the ones people will go for the most. it’s bit of a marketing situation as well

and i understand where you’re saying that it really burns you out when you work so hard on a fic and it only gets 10 likes :( that can be upsetting. but tumblr is literally a gamble, not everything will do well. many of my fics that’s i write don’t do well. my angst fics never do well and i have a couple of those. my fluff fics aren’t all that popular either.

my melanie series; even tho i worked hard and completed it, if you look at the individual works, there’s not many notes on it. and it’s not just me, it happens to every writer. i spoke to caly (hongism) a couple months back and she told me that a lot of her kinktober works didn’t get the most recognition, so really, tumblr is just a gamble

and also, notes don’t really matter when you’re doing something you love. if it soothes your heart to write, then fuck notes. i understand that notes and comments can be a motivator too, but that’s the readers job, not yours. us writers do our best to get our readers to reblog our work and leave comments, some listen and some don’t

and there’s also a target audience. most people consume the horny stuff, so other genres don’t often get the same love

i’ll be back with some business strategies later and you can drop another ask, or i’ll make a general post abt it

i’m started to get late for school now so i gtg 😭 if there’s anything else, my ask box is open

[qqueenofhades]

Hi! I need fic etiquette advice. I've written fic for a long time but only recently started putting it on AO3. I am a scholar, and I write fic to relax, and I often write for corny fandoms, so I don't do research because it's supposed to be fun, and I don't need more stress in my sad life. But is it bad to not research? I love the research that is visible in your fics, but I think I would stop writing if I had to look up, for example, UK dialects for all my fics set in the UK, and it triggers my intense anxiety about fucking it up. I just don't want to be rude, so I put a disclaimer at the beginning about how I'm American. Is that good enough? This is very clearly an anxiety ask lol help

Aha, high five for "scholar/academic who writes fic to relax," since I'm also in that camp. Likewise (sad) high five for "intense anxiety about fucking up by somehow not researching enough," because that's basically our whole life, isn't it? So yes. I feel you. I feel you hard.

As for fic research: I sometimes get lovely comments on my fics about how I must have researched for hours or even weeks/months, and I always feel somewhat bad about being like "well, lol, yes, I did Wikipedia and Google a few things, but it's probably not as nearly much as you think." There are cases where I did do a shit-ton of specific and extensive research, such as my Swan and Crossbones series, which is an OUAT/Black Sails duology set in the historical 18th century/Golden Age of Piracy/Age of Sail. Then I really did spend hours on extremely obscure websites/online historical archives, and likewise for my Timeless All Souls AU trilogy, I did some extra reading on the Elizabethan period. But that's just because I am the kind of person who desperately needs authentic trivia and for my facts/scene-setting/world-building details to be correct (see: intense anxiety about fucking up). And when I am interested enough to write a fic using a particular place/time/scenario as a setting, I usually already know enough about it that it doesn't take long to plug in said details.

Once again, however, I stress that this is just how my personal writing process/brain works, and if it would ruin your enjoyment and escapism to stop for long periods to look these things up, and/or break your writing flow: you're still not obliged to do that. Fanfic is written by amateurs working for free -- and not "amateur" in the disparaging connotation of being "bad," since a lot of fanfic writers blow professional TV writers out of the water, but meaning someone who does it simply for passion, rather than for pay. The modern English word "amateur" comes pretty directly from the Latin "amator," or "lover." When you're an amateur, you're doing something because you love it and not because you expect to get any kind of money or compensation out of it. You are voluntarily spending your own free time to write stories and post them, and you honestly do not owe your readers anything, aside from what you choose to give them. If you're putting a disclaimer at the start of your fics that you're American, and then making at least a decent effort, that's perfectly fine.

Obviously, if you're writing about certain characters or storylines, you have a basic duty to be respectful and produce the kind of fan content you want to see in the world, but -- although it may not feel like it in this hypercritical online environment -- it's better to make a genuine effort, even if you get some minor things wrong, than to be so obsessed with every tiny little detail that you never post at all for fear of being dogpiled by the purity police. Those people do exist, they will target you from time to time, and it absolutely sucks. But as I have said before in answers to other asks, most fanfic writers/readers know that they shouldn't leave the kind of comment they wouldn't want to get themselves, and that unless the author has explicitly asked for constructive criticism, it's a dick move to offer it under the guise of being "helpful." This isn't an MFA writing seminar or other place where you expect to receive technical feedback by the dictates of the structure. We're just writing self-indulgent stories about wanting some fictional idiots to kiss (or whatever we want to do to them, lmao). This is not the forum where you should roll up with your red pen and lists of nitpicks. If you don't like a fic, the back button exists. Use it.

To summarise, since this is getting long: you are under absolutely no obligation to put any more effort into your own fics than you want to, and if you want to write them as escapism from your stressful real life and without having to get bogged down in minutiae: valid! Really valid! Entirely valid! If you won't like your own work without doing at least some research, then do as much as you would like so that you can feel unambiguously proud of the result. (That is, as much as any of us feel proud of our own work, lol.) If you know that you should probably at least skim Wikipedia on a particular topic, that's pretty easy to do, and it can be enjoyable to go down a rabbit hole that is purely from fun and not for academic work. That's easy to do without breaking your flow, and you can pick up new details that can influence your plot or characters in both fun and realistic ways, so hey, bonus!

Anyway. Writing is hard. Real life sucks. Just have fun and do your best. Find the balance that works for you, which absolutely does not have to be like mine or anyone else's, and see how it goes. <3

[lucidpantone]

I really hate the crew of wtfock for what they did to me. I was such a fan of the show since s1, I found happiness in every clips, every posts on insta, I found amazing people on tumblr, twitter, but everything went downhill in s4, I could not accept Kato as a main, I'm a proud black girl and this season broke my heart to the max. The inexcusable racism, the hidden hate towards POCs on social medias, the silencing voices... I even started to dislike some actors for being friends with Romi when she was the one who accepted to take away the role of a POC, to accept to play a racist girl and have discriminatory behaviour in 2020 of all that, and to even joke on her insta just because her friend said it was ok and she didn't even apologise when we called her out for it. Yeah they ruined my happiness and I can't even be happy when I see a wtfock post now. To even have Nora do a live and defend the season, saying that it's a prejudice based one ? Hurts me so much. And not even one excuses coming from the crew, nothing, it hurts deeply. I can't even enjoy anymore the beautiful fanfics that the fandom write. I read every zoenne and sobbe fics but now I don't even bother checking if there is new fic. I hate them for taking my happiness off me. They're starting to go downhill too with the lack of insta posts from their characters and only die hard fans of sobbe are here now let's be honest. Yasmina's season can't be saved if there is still Kato but a glimpse of sobbe will make the fandom shut up and they know it. It's sad and I'm so upset about it. Sorry for the rant but I so badly wanted to talk.

This is insanely long but these words are for my anon

Oh dear.....well am happy you told me and the looney tunes. I can’t say I blame you because s4 is so toxic and cruel on so many levels. You know some people will say its just a show “let it go” but I think what people don’t realize is what this show that you clearly loved tells you about the world at large. That even shows, brands, movements and celebrities can harbor questionable morality towards issues of race. S4 ended up being an exercise in showing [us/the audience] how morally corrupt the bosses of wtfock truly are and how at end of the day all those black boxes on instagram mean nothing when it comes to money. Because guess what? Platforming racist ideology does have a price and wtfock made it very clear that they got paid. Look am gonna tell you something that my anons have been saying in a coded way but havent said directly but lets just put it all on the table. 

S4 when Romi took the role it was not pitched as a season exploring interracial relationships or white privilege. It was never meant to be that. So Romi had no way in knowing what it would turn into. After the premiere night production panicked because they saw everyones disappointment towards the main(it should have been Moyo & everyone knows it even they do now) and took a hard left. Noa was meant to be Romi’s co-star but it was never meant to have all these racial undertones or not as extreme. The reason the script changed is because wtfock wanted to keep this whole “small engine that could” rapport going that they literally made the last minute call to try to tackle race relations. I mean to you and I we are probably like are these people for real? They are just gonna try to tackle race and white privilege as a story arc without having done the sufficient research and or had the man power in the writing room concerning writers with lived experienced on the topic. Yea, they did that. So anyways they “just decided” on a whim to tackle race *facepalm*. Now that decision in itself is an embodiment of white privilege. A bunch of white dudes wanted woke points and thought “race” yea we can totally do that topic unprepared. Hence why episode 2/3 were so damn repetitive and also literally made no sense. Am sure they pitched this to Romi as some super intellectual and thoughtful narrative that would hold deeper meaning. So I am not defending her instagram actions but I want to give her situation a bit of context. Also am pretty sure she tried to tell us in a round about way. Her insta post was just a display in lacking any awareness towards the importance and pain of BLM because she obviously just lacks race education or common sense but she is a 22 year old brand model so am not really looking for her to set an example. To me wtfock became in some weird way so high on fandom validation that they were egotistical enough to think they could try to tackle this insanely complex topic on a whim and with a 1st time screenwriter at that. S4 was doomed to fail from the start because it was a literal embodiment of unconscious bias that then turned into conscious bias because at one point they knew it was terrible while filming but they were too deep in to pull the plug. You are so in your right to be upset at them because to me the most hurtful thing is that THEY KNOW IT WAS BAD and they won’t address it and now they are going to use their token queer couple to try and fix this. Leave the gays out of it. You can’t fix racism with queerness it doesn’t work that way buddy(am looking at you Rutgers) especially for those who are part of both parties. Do I think a large part of the fan base will “forgive” wtfock for what they did? Probably, but its weird since technically wtfock should be asking their fans who are poc for forgiveness above anyone else. I guess I am not as pissy about the whole situation because am either cynical or emotionally numb to this type of fuckery. I would say concerning the cast and the crew it really isnt their fault. I hear from good sources a lot of them tried to say something and they were shut down. Look if you cant let this go then try to find some semblance of resolve over this. You’re allowed to be mad but at the same time this is the world we live in and this will happen to you again and again (trust me I speak from experience). I do hope you can try to find some comfort in Zoenne and Sobbe and try not to see the cronies of wtfock in their love stories but if you can’t then pack all their shit up and throw it in the attic. Maybe one day you can reopen that box. Last words of advice, happiness is a moving target because in reality it’s a compilation of moments that continuously mutate to accommodate other moments. So don't let s4 taint what moments you had with wtfock and try to remember the things you loved and if you need to walk then walk away. I wish I could give you the biggest hug right now but trust me when I say what you feel is so valid and am so happy you spoke to me about it.

[ywhiterain]

i must confess... i'm not opposed to d*therine as a thing? maybe that's because i hate damon though. him getting what he used to want. or, what he still wants (pre-series). or, him still into his brother's girl but settling for katherine. and him being miserable in all of these scenarios. d*therine is the perfect relationship to make sure he will be miserable for eternity. <3

haha that’s not what I want. My ideal Datherine is season three with frienemy vibes and occasionally being forced to admit they still care about each other. Like my read of Katherine/Damon is that she cared about him. Not like with Elijah or Stefan. But he meant something to her, it’s just he didn’t mean everything to her. I kinda like the idea of Damon confronting that Kathrine was never the goddess who’d save or damn him, but like a person. Though Damon’s ability to see anyone as a person instead of an object for his own means is really hard to buy with later developments tbh.

My feelings on Damon are this: he should have died with Katherine after saving Stefan and never getting to see Elena again. The writing for Damon was always shit, but this was a hobbled together ending that mostly worked. Damon actually sacrificing himself and his deepest desires so that Stefan could get the human life he’d always wanted is about as good as they could ever get without lots of therapy.

In terms of fanfic, I either want Damon not really redeemed and in an incestuous threesome with Stefan and Elena that spans centuries and continents with blood and death and trauma everywhere. As for a potentially redeemed Damon, I really only think that’s possible if he gives up on getting what he wants from Stelena (Elena as his lover, Stefan as his devoted little brother) and rebuilds it into something else or lets them go all together. Or at least Stefan and Elena being allowed to break things off and come back to him on their own terms after they’ve done some major healing.

And this is not about who ~deserves forgiveness and redemption for all the shitty things they’ve all done. It’s about how Damon refuses to actually treat Stefan and Elena as anything other than objects for his pleasure outside of a handful of moments here and there.

And I love Bamon. But I’m gonna be real. The reason I’m trying to see if I can pull off a Bonnie/Damon relationship that lasts in my stupid mpreg of doom because the chemistry between Ian and Kat was so potent that I’m mad they never kissed. I mean the narrative is basically the same as his relationship with Stefan and Elena but like Ian and Kat really wanted to make out as Bonnie and Damon and they weren’t even hiding it in later seasons and racism is the only reason it didn’t happen on some level at some time and I do think Damon at his best could be good for Bonnie. You can make the same case with Stefan and Elena, but Nina as Elena always looks uncomfortable or afraid with him. And season eight of TVD was such a terrible hot mess for Stefan that I actually wanted him to have a happily ever after with Elena when I’ve never really been super pro marriage and babies ever after but after that hot mess I was like D::::::::: just let this horrible man rest with his wife a la Davina/Kol pls. And like Steroline was such a hot mess I actually started shipping Klaus/Caroline because at least Joe and Candice have this peppy. Sure it doesn’t fit their their story but you know at least Caroline was alive and motived around him and Stefan’s inability to smile on his fucking wedding day almost made me mad at Stefan? Wtf happened there?!?!?? Let them stay friends. They were great together. Their romance should have been them having slumber parties and scheming to destroy Damon’s room not whatever they became. 

er like I don’t know if I’d classify my feelings as Damon as hate because he’s interesting with my favorite characters (Stefan, Elena, Bonnie and god help me he and Elijah are fun to watch together). But like my true ideal Damon ending would have been him dying in season two and Elena and Stefan navigating trying to survive that while everyone else around them cheered because Damon is a cockroach they all stopped trying to kill for some reason.

ALSO I’M STILL ANGRY THAT STEFAN NEEDED TO PAY FOR KILLING OFF ENZO, WHO IS A WALMART BRAND OF DAMON SALVATORE AND DAMON SALVATORE IS TARGET BRAND KLAUS BUT DAMON KILLING TYLER? TYLER WHO IS ONE OF THE FEW SHITTY MEN IN THIS SHOW WHO GOT HIS ACT TOGETHER AND BECAME A GOOD MAN? TYLER WHOSE LIFE WAS WRECKED OVER AND OVER BUT SOMEHOW STILL MANAGED TO CRAWL OUT OF THE DARKNESS AND BECOME A LEADER AND MENTOR FOR WEREWOLVES? DAMON KILLS HIM BUT NO ONE CARES FUCK THAT!!!

like haha. yeah. Damon killing Tyler and getting off scott free while Stefan agonized over killing Enzo of all people and was punished so heavily for it was just me being So Over This Hot Mess That I Mostly Find Funny Because It Was So Bad But That’s Some Extra Bullshit.

err like not Bonnie’s part. She was practically a saint about it because she’s not allowed to be angry. But the writers being all oh no Stefan can’t ever be redeemed because he killed walmart Damon is just so???? No. Stefan can’t be redeemed because he a fucking serial killer you morons. Either give Stefan his happy ending or punish him for the shit he’s actually responsible you asshats. 

true story: i wrote out enzo of my mpreg of doom because I hate him and resent that he’s apparently Bonnie’s true love. Either give us Jeremy/Bonnie, Damon/Bonnie, or develop a proper love interest with her that plays to Kat’s strengths or go the fuck home. And when I truly loathe a character my choice is to ignore and erase him. 

also true story: Damon and Stefan will get a better place in my mpreg of doom because I love @ruthseriouslydothis and she deserved a better defan. 

[headcanonsandmore]

Hi! So I wrote a few fanfictions for HP (mostly centering on Ron to be honest) but I'm really struggling with posting. I don't really feel brave enough or that they're good enough. I was wondering if you could give me any advidce? I hope I'm not bothering you

You’re not bothering me at all, anon; I’m happy to help out. 

First of all, feeling that your first few fanfics aren’t “good enough” is a perfectly common feeling when you first start out writing fanfic. Every writer in the history of the world has felt like that at some stage. I know that I certainly felt that way when I first started. 

Remember that we all have to start somewhere, and that no writer started out with utterly perfect stories. It’s a skill that is learned over time; so try to avoid comparing yourself to people who have been writing for years. Just work on writing things you enjoy, and the rest will come naturally over time. 

What personally helped me was writing little drabbles, and slowly building my confidence up that way. I started off writing little ficlets that were barely a few hundred words, and -as my confidence in my own writing improved- I felt able to tackle larger forms of fanfic (multi-chapter fics, for example). It’s all about what you feel most comfortable with; some of the best writers I’ve ever come across only write short drabbles, and that doesn’t make them any lesser than other people who write long multi-chapter fics (and vice-versa). 

Reach out to writing blogs for tips. I have a tag for ‘writing tips’, and I think so does @burgundydahlia. 

Sometimes, you will hit writers block. It’s absolutely nothing to worry about, and it happens to all of us. 

Don’t give yourself massive daily targets for word counts; write as much as you want to write. If you do want a target, try for 200 words a day; it’s manageable and you won’t beat yourself up like you would if you set a larger target. 

Write about stuff you want to write about; not what you think people want. If you don’t enjoy writing a scene, cut it, and transfer any essential stuff into a scene you do want to write. 

Give yourself a treat in each piece you write; for me, that’s subverting tropes and using my favourite characters (Ron and Luna being my go-to examples). 

I hope this all helps, anon! Thank you so much for the ask!

[ailuronymy]

back when i first wrote wc fanfic i wrote cishet abled characters, and now after a few years of now writing i want to write again. but i'm so afraid of accidentally being transphobic when writing a trans cat coming to terms with their true gender or evoking a cliche i didn't know about when writing a lesbian couple... i want to write diverse characters but i also don't, what do i do?

My dear Ruddles, you are asking me one of the biggest and most unanswerable writing questions of all: how do I not be afraid? I want to know the answer as much as anyone, so I can’t help you there, but I can tell you some of my observations and thoughts on ways of working through these kinds of paralysing fears. 

The first thing to understand is that there is no version of events where you are safe from criticism. There is no safe option, where if you only write that kind of character or that kind of story, you will be protected from having to experience criticism. I think you, like many people, have made the mistake of thinking that writing only able-bodied cishet characters will insulate you from criticism, whereas writing characters who aren’t able-bodied cishets will open you up to criticism. That thinking can make the idea of branching outside what you’re used to very daunting, because you feel more vulnerable. 

However, that thinking is wrong. You are always vulnerable. I’m not saying that you scare you more, or make you anxious. This thought is a liberating one, if you approach it from the right angle! No matter what you write, someone is going to dislike it, or be totally neutral about it, or disinterested in it, or might even hate it. That’s just what it is to be a writer of any kind–or any kind of creator. If you want to be a writer, you’re accepting that you will be criticised at some point: it could be for good reasons, it could be for silly ones, it could be because someone decides they just really don’t like what you like to write. It doesn’t matter! It happens to everyone. You cannot please everyone and you don’t have to. You only need to do your best work. You need to love your work enough that someone else disliking it doesn’t make you love it less. 

I had the opportunity some months back to go to a writers’ festival, and listen to a heap of extremely skilled, established creators (novelists, poets, performance artists, journalists, all kinds) show their work, talk about their process, and discuss certain themes and topics on panels. One panel was about the anxiety and uncertainty that’s part of writing. There was a lot said during this panel that really helped me personally and changed how I thought, but the most relevant bit for you was said by Omar Musa: “Accept that you will face criticism. That’s part of the job. That’s the game you’re in.” 

When you decide what kind of character to write–i.e., between able-bodied cishet characters or a more diverse cast–you aren’t choosing between “no criticism” (able-bodied cishet) and “criticism” (diverse). You are simply shaping what kind of criticism you might receive. If you write only able-bodied cishet characters, the criticism you will get will reflect that: you will be criticised for your lack of diversity, your work might be called boring or derivative, you might be accused of -isms based on how a story built only with privileged characters takes shape. 

If you write diverse characters, your criticism will reflect that: you will be criticised for including diversity (”why does everything have to be X these days???” or “I don’t understand why Y was there, it wasn’t plot-relevant”) or accused of pandering, you will be criticised for how you write these characters by people who might mean well but have only ever read stereotypes (”next time you write about X character, I think you should do it differently, I just don’t think it’s realistic that [some nonsense opinion]”), you will be criticised for how you write these characters by people who are similar to these characters but in all likelihood different people will probably give you totally different feedback and have different responses to your work (person one: “I didn’t like how you did X, it was uncomfortable for me”; person two: “I was really into how you did X and it resonated with me, it was fun to have a character I could relate to like that”), and so on. 

When I think about this, it makes the choice easier: I would rather take criticism for attempting diversity than criticism for not even attempting it. What also makes all writing easier is remembering that, although it can feel very personal to be criticised for something you made, at the end of the day, it’s just a chunk of words. It’s not sacred. It’s not you. It’s a thing that you made, and if you made mistakes, next time around you can learn from it and do better. We can all change as soon as we choose to, and therefore a mistake who wrote isn’t who you always have to be. You don’t have to be perfect to be doing your best. 

If you do your best before putting your work out into the world, you don’t have to worry. If you’ve done your research and had a beta/sensitivity reader (if you can, it’s not always possible and not always necessary for every piece of work) and genuinely tried to do good and respond appropriately to feedback along the way, you don’t need to fret. You might still get criticism and if you do, that’s good. Constructive criticism is an opportunity to grow; you can see it as a slight against you as a person or you can see it as a chance to improve as a writer and expand your worldview/knowledge. I can really recommend the latter. 

I can also strongly recommend working to separate your feelings of self-worth from your writing as much as you can, because then you can disengage from criticism on a personal level and engage with it on a critical one. Not all criticism is useful or good or relevant! Some feedback you will get and laugh at. I don’t respond to/post most of the negative feedback I’ve received running this blog, but wowsers, do some people use some choice words about me! If you only receive criticism as personal, you will be tempted to believe all of it or value it more than it needs to be valued, whereas if you look at criticism with a critical eye, you will be able to judge what’s helpful, what’s nonsense, what’s worth listening to and learning from, what’s someone airing their personal grievances and has simply selected you as a target, and what’s totally tone-deaf and inappropriate. 

Also, it’s okay to know your limits. You’re a growing writer. You’ve got a lot of experience yet to have. The weight of curing the whole world’s problems isn’t on your shoulders alone. You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to try to represent everyone in every story you write. Some stories are going to have a central focus: it’s what you’re passionate about. It’s the story you need to tell, because you can’t get it out of your head. If you don’t have it yet, you can’t force it. I’ll find you, and in the meantime, have fun with writing!  Practice new things. Build skills. Read a lot. Read diversely! Experience living in the world, because that’s probably the best way to grow as a person and a writer. That way, when you do find things that feel right and good and important to write about, you’ll be able to do them justice. I really feel there is something uniquely powerful about sincerity and love in a story–it shines through, and the writing is always better for it. 

So, basically, to try to make a long story short: 

1. you will be criticised. You can either accept that, or not write. You can go, “Okay, but criticism isn’t the end.” You can go, “I want to be a better writer, and that means doing new things even if it’s scary and I might make mistakes.” For me, the love of writing outweighs the fear of criticism. The idea that things might go right (if I try my best) is more powerful than the worry that they might go wrong. 

2. writing is a hobby. It’s an art that you can practice and improve. It might feel important and central to who you are, but it’s a skill, like riding a bicycle or juggling. If someone tells you how to ride a bike better, you can either go, “That’s sensible, next time I ride a bike I’ll sit on the seat instead of running alongside the damn thing,” or you can go, “I’m a terrible fool for not knowing how to ride a bike, I will never ride a bike again because I am worthless and bad.” When you handle sensitive material about the real world and real people’s lives, it’s important to do everything you can beforehand to learn about how to ride a bike–but if you do mess up and run over someone’s toes or be a hazard in some way, don’t cling to your pride: apologise, learn, move on, do better. 

3. never write anything out of a feeling of obligation or fear. You will do it badly, because it’s very hard to write anything you’re not personally interested and invested in. You might be feeling guilty for only writing a certain type of character, but unless you can shift that guilt to genuine excitement and desire to write different types of character, don’t bother! If you write out of guilt, it will be miserable for everyone, including yourself. Also, recognise that you can write certain types of character without having to engage with stickier issues that might come with the character type–i.e., you give the example of trans characters, but if you’re not trans, it’s not really your business writing in-depth about “the trans experience,” especially if you’re not already very familiar with it and involved in the community and confident in working in that area. You almost surely can’t do it justice and will stumble into problems and will likely receive some harsh, and probably deserved, criticism. The solution is to write about well-developed trans characters whose “trans journey” (or whatever you want to call it) isn’t a central focus of their story or characterisation, because they’re already living as/accepted as their gender, etc.! 

I hope this is somewhat helpful to you, Ruddles, and I hope in the future you’ll find your feet writing more diversely! Try not to put too much pressure on yourself to begin with. Pick one new thing and explore that. There’s no hurry. You can get there in your own time. Good luck!

[dontcallmecarrie]

Okay, I was wrong; I found the Blue Pill. Sorry about that. It was interesting but now I'm confused I thought the Blue Pill was about Moriarty. Your thoughts on Moriarty and Martha were interesting I wanted to see if you had anything in mind for it. Your fics are still awesome.

I have absolutely no issue with talking about my fanfics [even if I have writer’s block for actually writing the main fic *headdesk*]! Part One of the Moriarty AU outline’s already up, but here’s the next part:

What can I say? Martha’s decision-making skills had her chasing after a brilliant alien through time and space, that first time. Now the stakes have changed, but then, so’s she. It’s pretty hard to feel satisfied with her lot in life when she’s an adrenaline junkie, and at least here no one’s looking askance at her because of the ceramic knife in her boot. 

Hell, she’s not even the only onewho’s got one, in this workplace, so…yeah.

She’s under the impression she’s working for a security firm who specializes in bodyguarding, and that’s technically true, all right except sometimes they’re guarding shipments, other times they’re securing the target for the next operation. 

Either way, Martha’s getting some serious mileage and seeing the world.  

It’s not until a few months in that she realizes just what she’s signed on to, but then that’s what happens when you’re used to processing dozens of permutations of NDAs in less than a week because of a temporal-spatial incident, and hey, she’s run with enough of the criminal underworld to know some of the ropes and tricks of the trade, and that some of the people aren’t that bad, so. 

Part of her’s reluctant, but thenit’s either this, UNIT, or boredom, and Soichi rubbed off enough to let hergive this a try.

Not reporting some names, becausethey’re ‘off the book’? Not a big deal, because they also tended to be batteredwomen and kids looking for a place to lay low while the restraining order paperwork camethrough, sometimes. 

Those, Martha would’ve done for free. [Kinda hard to take legal routes when the father in question has quite a few friends in high places; easier and kinda safer to simply owe a favor to ‘Dear Jim’ and keep her mouth shut if, say, ‘cousin Joe’ decided to crash on the couch while lying low for a few days.] 

In this universe, Moriarty’s networkincludes multiple cases like that, and it’s how he introduces his newerrecruits to the Underworld [or so he thinks].

But she started out with just the classic ‘still under the impression she’s working for an actual security firm instead of essentially being a mob doctor’ and since GSWs don’t phase her, and she didn’t freak out when she caught a glimpse of the alien tech, and recognized the make of the device well enough to deactivate it, well…oops? 

After Japan and Indonesia, she’s got a slightly altered stance on what can and cannot be ‘walked off’, so she’s the favorite among the guys who run security and hate dealing with staff harping on about medication and changing bandages. That being said, she’s also very insistent on them taking their antibiotics if that’s how they’re going to roll, and has no issue getting graphic about it to prove her point. [She’s just remembering the Year, they’re hearing ‘putrefaction’ and ‘flesh-eating’…semantics, right?] Either way, everyone’s happy, and productivity goes up.

For the ‘hey you’re a mob doctor’reveal, there might have also been some blackmail planned, but before she couldfeel threatened she ended up taking out the asshole father of one of herpatients after he’d barged in trying to go for round two. [Yeah, he hadn’t been…in his full faculties, when he’d barged in.] The smile she keeps on her face shuts them up, and thepracticed ease with which she broke his jaw and dislocated his arm told the belated audience everything they needed to know.

…jsyk, these two posts are like seven bullet points of the outline. There’s like sixteen. I stopped here because it’d be like four times the length otherwise.

My brain doesn’t do outlines, it does mini-fics that I then have to turn into actual fics, except then something goes wrong and one arc that’s supposed to take like 4 chapters tops ends up being like a full half of the fic. *headdesks* [TWiFFON is very uncooperative like that.]

[bedlamsbard]

Do you have any advice for coming up with a plot when you already have your setting and characters? I'm not writing a fic but I figured fic writers also have heir characters and setting pre-plot and you're an amazing writer so I thought you'd be a good person to ask?

I’m not sure that I’m going to be particularly helpful here, because I haven’t written original fiction in a while and I’m the kind of fic writer who believes that if fanfic can be completely divorced from the canon, then it’s failed as fanfic, so I’m not sure how much of this is transferable, but these are some of the things I think about as a fic writer who writes primarily plotty fic:

To oversimplify greatly, plot is the pithy description: “The one where X happens.”  (Ex: The plot of Rogue One is the Rebel Alliance stealing the Death Star plans.)

Also: “The one where X happens because of A, B, and C” – “The plot of Rogue One is the Rebel Alliance stealing the Death Star plans because a Rebel intelligence officer and a group of rogues with various ties to the Empire uncovered the existence of the Death Star and decided to find a way to thwart it.”  (Note: This is not the only way to describe the plot of Rogue One.)

Plot is also the progression of events that make up the pithy description: Thing 1 happens, Thing 2 happens, and as a result of these things, Thing 3 happens; meanwhile Thing 4 is happening because it is not at this point affected by Things 1, 2, or 3, but somewhere along the line Thing 72 will not happen unless Thing 4 happens first.

This is the primary way that I plot – I’ll have scenes or images or lines that I write the story to use, and then backtrace to work out what things have to happen for those scenes to occur later on.

Wake the Storm is a good example of this: the two images that I wrote the story for were Anakin crawling through the ventilation shafts on Vader’s star destroyer and Anakin fighting Vader on Mustafar.  So I had to go back and figure out what the sequence of events for those things to happen would be.  (Wake’s a little unusual in that these are beginning and (near) ending scenes; Gambit and Backbone both have keystone scenes that are closer to the middle of the story as well, but Wake didn’t.)

Sometimes your brain is not consciously aware of these things, and you figure it out further down along the line.  Sometimes you’re further down along the line and you go back and reread and go, “huh, if I use X throwaway line, I can do Y main plot point.”

Plot should flow naturally from characters and setting.  Most of the fic I write is in a genre that I call a single-point divergence AU: if one thing goes differently in canon, how does that affect everything that comes afterwards?  Everything is progressive; actions have consequences both immediate and long-term.  Those actions will flow from characters, both from their choices and events that are out of their control.  (And what will be out of one character’s control will not be out of another’s.)

This is essentially the same method that alternate history writers use.  (I’m a historian, so I think about cause and effect a lot.)

I try to have an action plot (the sequence of events) and an emotional plot (the character arcs).  These should be inextricably intertwined and inform each other; the events of one will ultimately not be possible without the other.

Wake has two primary emotional plots: Anakin and OT!Obi-Wan

Backbone has two primary emotional plots: Hera and Cham.

Gambit is a weird case because the action plot and the emotional plot involve separate sets of characters – the action plot is what happens with the Gambitverse characters, and the primary emotional plot is what happens with the Wakeverse characters.  Certainly there are secondary emotional plots for the Gambitverse characters and a secondary action plot for the Wakeverse characters (and the primary action plot affects the Wakeverse characters because they’re present in that ‘verse, but it’s not their action plot), but Gambit was partially an exercise in seeing if I could separate the one from the other.  I can and did, but the effect was to make the story feel slightly lopsided in a way I’m not entirely happy with (but couldn’t avoid without changing the way I approached the story).

I come up with a lot more plots than I actually use, and about 95% of the time, they flow directly from canon because of the kind of stories I gravitate towards telling.  They also tend to be questions that I’m trying to answer.

Some examples:

How would Anakin react to suddenly turning up in the OT era?  (Wake the Storm)

What would the repercussions of this be, both in the OT timeline and in the PT timeline?

How would Ben react to Anakin suddenly turning up? Luke?  Leia?

What if Queen Amidala was the leader of the Confederacy?  (Queen’s Gambit)

What are the events that would lead this to happen?

What are the repercussions of this change, both in the past and present?

How would canon!Padme react to this?

What if Hera and Kanan were Imperials?  (On the Edge of the Devil’s Backbone)

What are the events that would lead this to happen?  Is there a point in canon I can use for this or do I have to make it all up out of whole cloth?

How this does effect other characters and events in the Rebels timeline?  Other characters and events in the saga timeline? (A.k.a. how important are the Ghost crew, anyway? – Remember that Backbone was plotted immediately after S1.)

What if Obi-Wan a Sith lord?  (All Along the Watchtower; planned)

What are the events that would lead this to happen?

What are the long- and short-term repercussions of this?

What if Anakin didn’t go dark side and survived Order 66? (What is Lost)

This isn’t a great example because I wrote this literally ten years ago and remember none of my thought process, and would do it differently today.

What if Obi-Wan was a woman?  (Oxygen & Rust)

What does this change in the saga?

The way that characters interact with her – how does that change the events of the saga?

Here’s an example from a TCW story that I partially plotted a few years ago, but didn’t end up writing:

In “The Unknown”, Tup reacts to Tiplar and Tiplee as Jedi, but seems unaware of Anakin, suggesting that Anakin may have been specially programmed into the chips not to be an Order 66 victim.

What if more clone chips started malfunctioning and all the Jedi were targeted except Anakin?

The most dramatic way for this to happen would be in a group setting, so that it’s immediately evident to other Jedi that Anakin isn’t being targeted.

That’s going to look suspicious as hell and the other Jedi are probably going to take Anakin into custody.

Let’s have Obi-Wan be injured in this attack and out of the picture, so Anakin feels trapped and alone.

Palpatine is pissed off because this isn’t playing into his plans at all, so he’s revising and improvising on the fly.

If all of the sudden Jedi can’t trust their clones, then that’s going to have massive effects on the war – a.k.a., the Separatists can suddenly make a huge push forward.  What if Dooku starts taking the war seriously?

Anakin’s an enterprising sort and after what happened with Ahsoka, he doesn’t have a whole lot of reason to trust the Order in this scenario, so it makes sense that he would escape.  (Maybe Palpatine helps to engineer this, because it’s easier for him to have Anakin loose than in prison.)

There ought to be a clone in here, make it Rex, who was aware of what happened with Tup and Fives.  He teams up with Anakin.

Rex is going to be wary of having that thing in his head and Anakin needs proof, so they need to find someone to remove it.

How is Padme going to react to all this?  Anakin doesn’t want to actively involve her, but he also wants to let her know that he’s all right.

Anakin escaping makes the Jedi Council pretty sure he’s guilty, but after Ahsoka they’re feeling burned, so maybe they proceed with more caution.

At this point Palpatine doesn’t have many options as Supreme Chancellor other than making Anakin look guilty; as Sidious this is an opportunity for him to recruit Anakin.

It would make sense for Anakin to contact Ahsoka to have an ally outside the Order, especially if she’s still on Coruscant.

at this point I stopped plotting this story out.  I never had an ending.

(this was originally supposed to be my cool down story after Queen’s Gambit; I wrote Backbone instead)

Here’s a link to some writing meta that I like (and which influenced me a lot when I was younger – you’ll note that this is where I got the terms “action plot” and “emotional plot” from).  Her 10 minute AU is essentially the same as my single point divergence AU, but she breaks it down better than I do.  (ETA: I want to clarify that I don’t agree with Synecdochic on everything, but I really can’t deny that a lot of this was pretty crucial to my development as a plot writer.)

This isn’t really helpful insofar as coming up with ideas goes, because when it comes to original fic, that’s…what I don’t write and haven’t written for a while, because I’m so used to bouncing directly off canon for ideas.  When I do write original fic, I have a tendency to mash stuff together – “classic urban fantasy + ancient Rome,” “traditional high fantasy + modern urban setting,” “prison hulks + space,” “New Orleans-inspired + WWII + magic” – and see what that gets me.  If it’s something like a genre – urban fantasy, high fantasy, prison break – then I look at what the common tropes for that genre are and how they function in a different setting.  And hope that something shakes loose.  (I haven’t done originals in a couple of years, and the last time I was working on one I was co-writing.  Which is a whole different thing.)

Hopefully there’s some food for thought here!