#I've written the same amount of fanfic as original work XD but that's bc I write fanfic at lesat 3x faster than my own stories

[not-poignant]

Do you view Gary/Ef as a 'fanfic' ship? Like... for me, Augus/Gwyn, Eran/Mosk, all the canon FT ships... whenever you wrote a different setup with them, I loved it, but I was sort of aware that it was a fannish thing. But somehow I don't get the feel here? Like I know Arden/Ef came first, but Gary/Ef feels just as canon, if that makes sense? Maybe bc the Rainbow verse is so fleshed out, idk, but I thought it was interesting and I'm curious how you feel abt it XD

Hi hi anon!

This one's complex, so I'm gonna try and explain how I think about it as clearly as possible.

To me, everything I write that's set in my own world with my own main characters is original fiction.

That includes the alternate universes, because those alt universes are canon within those universes. So what happens in The Wildness Within isn't canon for the main universe, but it's certainly canon to TWW, and not only that, but about 70% of the extra character details are canon to the main universe, they're just things I couldn't share there, for whatever reason.

On the other hand, if someone else wrote an FT story, it wouldn't be canon to anything at all, except for like, their own story.

I think of many of the Fae Tales AUs as being fannish in nature (they're serials, they go up on AO3, I'm pro transformative works, they show characters in different or new scenarios etc.), but to me they're still original fiction. I've never seen a single AU that I've written as a 'fanfic' ship, no matter how connected it is to the original canon (like The Nascent Diplomat and The Wildness Within which I think we can say are probably the closest to the original world, and the original canon).

However, when it comes to almost complete departures, where characters like Efnisien become almost unrecognisable compared to his original counterpart, I think of those as new worlds. For example, I almost never tag any of Underline the Black with 'fae tales AU' anymore, because it doesn't really mean anything. It's not helpful to newcomers. It's not useful.

Most of the cast never appeared in the canon. (This was also true for the main cast of Falling Falling Stars sans Efnisien - Arden, Gary, Kadek were all newcomers; for me, if a story is 75% new main characters and 25% one holdover vastly AU character, that's now another canon universe lmao).

But back to Underline the Rainbow:

Kadek, Gary, Anton, Flitmouse, Caleb, Faber, Nate, Janusz are all either original characters or were developed as original characters in AUs (like Kadek). Kadek, Caleb, Faber, Kent, and more aren't AUs of anything, they're original to the story. Characters like Gary, Anton, Flitmouse, Nate, Janusz were never anywhere near the Fae Tales canon, or the early Fae Tales AUs, and to me they have nothing to do with it. Which makes classifying Underline the Rainbow as a 'Fae Tales AU' make about as much sense as classifying it as an 'FFS AU' - there's about as much crossover in the characters, after all. And not only that, but main ensemble characters more fundamental to the canon - Ash, Mosk, Eran, Julvia, Gulvi, Augus, Gwyn, either haven't made an appearance (or been mentioned once), or have only been one or two chapters out of 50+.

Proportionately, the amount of characters remaining from the original canon Fae Tales universe stands at about 10%. If you had a dog that was 90% border collie and 10% beagle, you probably wouldn't call that dog a 'beagle AU' or a 'beagle cross' - you'd probably just start calling it a border collie with a weird grandpa. Falling Falling Stars is the same to me, honestly, because so much of the core cast was original to the story, and everyone else from the original series mostly got 'cameos' if they weren't Efnisien or Gwyn. I made a conscious decision to give more weight to original characters - even side characters we don't see much - Vicki, Bridge, Han Yuen, Leo, Nate, Janusz, Teddy, Mika, Gary, Arden, Kadek, etc. The story is nothing without them.

To me, this kind of process (10% og characters remaining) separates Underline the Black out into its own universe. It has very heavy, fairly robust worldbuilding for an omegaverse story (enough that I need to use worldbuilding software to keep track of some of it). I don't need to go back to the Fae Tales canon ever to write it (which I did have to do sometimes for The Wildness Within, and have very rarely had to do for The Nascent Diplomat). I don't need to go back to the Falling Falling Stars/Spoils universe to write it. It stands fully on its own, complete and contained.

Because it has some links to Fae Tales (Efnisien + Gwyn's family mostly), it still has like... a Fae Tales flavour. And now that I've started working on like completely original world stuff in the background, there is a difference.

But yeah no, for a start I don't consider any of it fanfiction, and it's weird when people do, because it's not fanfiction if it's something the OP is doing. We don't call comics by the same comic author - that happen to be different versions of the same world - 'fanfiction.' If the Russos direct two Marvel movies focusing on two separate characters, but the first character cameos in the second in a way that retcons the character's narrative, we don't call the second movie an AU of the first, or fanfiction of the first. It's still an original property.

Underline the Black and Spoils are both separate universes as both have like less than 25% of the original story/characters within them (Imho Iron Man is still Iron Man just because Loki or Thor cameo, or join the ensemble as minor characters). It could be that the Spoils universe feels less fleshed out to you because it's contemporary, for me they're on a similar keel. Especially because Efnisien was literally a 2 dimensional paper cut-out of a fae before Spoils who exists for like 5 seconds in the canon, and he bears almost zero resemblance to his originating character except in name, family and appearance. But certainly not in personality, origins, actions or capacity for growth - i.e. everything that makes the character a character.

But it is fannish.

Tl;dr: I definitely don't see Gary/Ef as a 'fanfic' ship. I don't see any of my AUs as 'fanfic ships' because I don't see any of my original writing as fanfiction even though it's fannish in nature.

If anything, Underline the Black is a Spoils AU, lol.

[maniacalmole]

2017 Fic in Review

@lvslie tagged me in this! And I am 50% nostalgia, so I will definitely do it. Thank you! ^_^

total number of completed stories:  5 fanfics and 2 stories of my own writing! Which I am still trying to get published. I also am in the middle of like 7 things....

total word count: 73,989 of fanfic, plus 53,778 of completed (first draft anyway) non-fan-fiction, plus about 25,000 of an uncompleted story that I feel like counting since I’ve written a lot of it. It’s less impressive when you know that writing was pretty much all I was supposed to be doing this year XP

fandoms written in:  All Good Omens, plus one of them was in the style of Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories, which was REALLY fun :)

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

I don’t think I had any particular plans about how much fanfiction I was going to write, so idk? I’ve been thinking this whole time that I didn’t do enough writing for my other stories, but when I consider that I had to plan and polish them a LOT more than fanfics, looking back on the wordcounts now makes me feel better about the amount I accomplished. So thanks for that :D

what’s your own favorite story of the year?

Since this is mostly a fanfiction ask I’ll just look at those. But still, how can I choose!? I had a lot of affection for “Stay Here” while I was writing it. But now I might be happiest with “Even Without Looking”, although, I have to admit, I always get biased when one gets a lot of good feedback!

did you take any writing risks this year?

This is a cool question and I don’t at all know the answer! Except that “Very Good, Omens!” was hard to write since PG Wodehouse has SUCH a distinctive style with slang that is sadly mostly out of use, and I knew it was a very niche thing to write, but it was totally worth it anyway.

I also, for the sake of my own future nostalgia, feel like saying that the longer story I’m currently writing is a risk because it’s basically taking my exact thought process and emotions from my life for the past few years and putting it into a book that I’m actually going to try to get published....but we’ll see how that works out in the future when I actually finish the thing XD

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? I

Profit goals? Well I’m definitely trying to find a literary agent, so I hope I can at least find one for one of the completed stories by next year! I don’t have specific fanfic goals, but I do have a ton of ideas, so I hope I can write some of those before they vanish forever :O

best story of the year?

:O wut

most popular story of the year?

This is a much easier question. People definitely seemed to like “Even Without Looking”. So I guess you could say that’s a good argument for it being my ‘best’ one of the year?

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

I totally understand WHY “Very Good, Omens!” doesn’t get much attention, but I’m personally pretty proud of all my silly jokes and references in it XD And I’m pretty much happy with the rest of the feedback I’ve gotten for other things!

most fun story to write:

Oh yeah. “Even Without Looking” was a blast. I’m so grateful for Aziraphale for letting me use him to have fun with how little I know about flirting and love.

Tbh I wrote “Not Too Late” SO FAST because the idea hit me and I couldn’t stop writing it, and now I’ve kind of entirely forgotten it XD I feel bad because I’ve hardly mentioned it at all in this! I need to look back at it again, because it kind of consumed my life for a month and then vanished.

story with the single sexiest moment:

?????????????sex????????????????In MY stories????????????????????

Every now and then I realize that I’ve put a curse word in something, or that I’ve made a sexual innuendo, or that I’ve TOTALLY implied that characters are sleeping together. And I startle myself because I’ll just DO these things in writing even though I hardly ever used to talk about them at all XD I’m still not used to it. I do that last one in something I’m CURRENTLY writing but I don’t actually think I’ve had any ‘sexy’ moments in ones from this year. Maybe it’s “Not Too Late” when Aziraphale is like ‘ah the seductive voice of sin’ when Crowley talks and then immediately does a double-take at his own thoughts. Or maybe it’s in “Even Without Looking” when he thinks about kissing Crowley for a second and his brain just stops working.

most sweet story:

“Even Without Looking” or “Stay Here”?

“holy crap, thats wrong, even for you!” story:

*checks to see if I wrote that one Cage Omens thing in 2017*

Nope that was last year. I don’t think I actually wrote anything that disturbing this year? But, like with sex, whenever I do I kind of instantly forget about it, so feel free to correct me if you think of anything XD

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters & most unintentionally telling story:

I KNOW the way I see the characters has changed, but I don’t know how >:( And I don’t remember which story changed my perception most, sorry...

hardest story to write:

“Very Good, Omens!” because I was nervous about daring to try to sound like Wodehouse, haha. Also the plot was silly and convoluted and I had to work a lot to sort it out.

There’s a fic I’ve been working on that’s a bit more angsty than usual (for like two seconds anyway) and I’ve had to edit that a lot because I’ve never been happy with it, since it’s not what I usually write. But I haven’t finished that one yet.

biggest disappointment:

I don’t think I’m disappointed by any? That seems like the kind of thing I would only remember when I’m in a bad mood though, haha

biggest surprise:

“Even Without Looking” got kudos so fast! Did somebody recommend that one or something? That was fun :)

Tagging @sous-le-saule and @not-a-space-alien if you guys want to do this!

It was nice to look back! This year has felt really weird since it’s my first year not in any sort of school. Time has passed strangely so this was a cool way of reminding myself what I’ve actually done this year. Thank you again @lvslie for tagging me!