#THIS IS JUST A FIC THAT I AM WRITING FOR MYSELF WHY IS IT BEING SO /DIFFICULT/ WHY IS THIS SO /HARD/ HELLLLPPPPP

[mikuchan]

@bardoveryonder

My response on the infographic post itself got long, so I'm answering in a new post.

First, yes! I'm specifically talking about fandom attention, versus others like casual players and non-fandom players. AO3 is an accessible source of fandom-heavy stats + a platform I myself use and am familiar with, which is why I'm focusing on it (versus other fandom-heavy platforms like Tumblr, Reddit, etc).

The rhetoric of male characters being focused on because there are just more straight women on AO3 (/in fandom) is a myth. AO3 user centreoftheselights has some good data on this - here's their 2024 demographics post, where 81% of users identified as LGBTQ+, while only 12% of users identified as straight.

Obviously there's more conversation worth having here - being queer =/= attraction to women, and it doesn't mean unattraction to men. These demographics are also from polled AO3 users, not every AO3 user and not everyone in the BG3 fandom. But it offers a great basepoint.

Secondly, the tags I used for my graphic are all tags - not only main character or main ship tags, but also including every background, mistag, and side character appearance tagged across every work in the Baldur's Gate tag. Obviously, romance is a huge facet of fandom behavior, but that's why I chose to look at flat tags versus main character tags/etc (which I did in my character-specific deep dives). It isn't that there are less people shipping their Tavs with Mizora than Raphael -- it's that Mizora is showing up in all Baldur's Gate fanworks with less frequency than a male character with a similar role, even in side roles and other nonromantic/nonsexual roles -- and we can point to similar situations often enough to see a concerning pattern.

I want to clarify that this post isn't me saying the men characters are worse than the women, or that every m/m fan needs to write an equal amount of f/f fic or else. I also hope this isn't coming off as combative. I've been semi hands-off with long responses because I don't want to come off as just arguing with everyone who dares disagree with me. But since this is a question that keeps coming up, I wanted to post my response in full.

[spookyquill]

Hi! Saw you're taking JJK requests and here I am. I'm sick and just not getting out of bed so kind of wanted a fic with Satoru where hebwas away for a mission and got back only to find his wife sick (like, nothing life threatening. Just a cold or fever or something) so he decides to take care of her but she feels bad because he's so busy and has to 'deal with her being sick', especially after he just got back from a mission. Thank you so much if you decide to do it! I'm on a different account right now but please tag @ladyodpandemonium if you write the fic so I can catch it. Big thanks!!!

Apologies for the delay, trying to focus on myself and that includes letting some requests go. But I have some drafts ready to post so look out for them.

@ladyodpandemonium

~•~

Bleary eyes open, your head pounding despite the long rest you just took. Snot drips down from your nose and onto the pillow you rest on. With a disgusted groan, you reach over to your bed side table and pull out a couple tissues from the box. As you hold the tissues to your nose, you take notice of the other things occupying your table.

A couple boxes of pills and a glass of water sit there idly next to the box of tissues. They had not been there when you collapsed on your bed. You didn’t even think of those things. Which really meant only one thing.

Gojo kneeled in front of you, his concern etched on his face as he gently tucked your hair behind your ear.

You groan in contentment. “You’re supposed to be on a mission.”

“I’ve completed that. I came home expecting you to be doing pointless chores or something, but instead I’ve found you cuddled up sick in bed.” Gojo sighs, moving his hand to cup your cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve left the mission early to come take care of you.”

You lean into his touch, his palm cool against your flush skin. “I didn’t want to disturb you- wait.” You lift your head up, looking for your phone. “What day is it?”

Gojo gently guided your head back to your pillow, silencing your search. “It’s Thursday. How long have you been sick for?”

Panic washes over you. “Shit. I came to bed on Tuesday. Shit I overslept!” You sit up, ignoring the pulsing headache beginning to take shape. “Why didn’t my alarm go off?!”

Gojo is quick to stop your attempts to get up, standing and keeping your ass on the mattress with his hand on your shoulders. “You obviously needed the sleep. Stay in bed, you need to rest.” When you stop fighting against him, mainly because of the overbearing headache, he moves to sit on the side of your bed, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead and grimacing. “Have you eaten anything?”

You tried to eat something before you went to your bedroom, but everything in the fridge made you nauseous and you couldn’t think enough to cook or heat up some food. Your growling stomach answers gojos questions before you can verbalise any response.

Gojo nods. “Stay here. I’ll heat up some soup for you.”

You shake your head, which protests angrily at the movement. “No, I don’t want to get you sick. I’ve already bothered you enough. You shouldn’t have to deal with me being sick. You’ve been so busy and I don’t want to get you sick because of me.”

Gojo lifts a finger to your chin, tilting it up to look at his sparkling blue eyes. “Nothing matters but you at the moment. I’ll never be too busy for you and I don’t want you to think that you’re a bother to me at all. You take priority over everything else in this world.” He presses a soft kiss to your temple. “Now stay right here, lean against the head rest while I go prep some soup for you. I want you to have something to eat. Keep your energy up.”

You sigh in defeat, mumbling an agreement as he walks out the room. It doesn’t take long for him to come back, but he walks back in to find you almost falling asleep again.

“Baby, I know you’re tired still but I would really appreciate you having something to eat.”

You grumble, eyes lifting lazily to stare at the soup in his hands. Even the thought of lifting your hands exhausts you. And Gojo sees this.

He walks around to the other side of the bed, soup still in hand, and carefully climbs on top of it, nestling himself beside you. He nudges your body to lean upright against him, your cheek pressed to his chest and one arm falling into his lap. He hears your sigh of relief and can feel your muscles relaxing into him. He brings the soup over to you, spoon sitting in it. He holds the bowl with one hand and grabs the spoon with the other, encasing you with his embrace as he does so.

You watch as he scoops up some soup into the spoon and carefully brings the spoon to your lips. As soon as the soup trickles down your throat, you let out a soft hum.

Gojo continues to spoon feed you the whole soup, thankful that your eating something at least. Once the bowl is empty, he places the spoon down in it and puts the bowl on his bedside table. When he looks back to you, he finds you already snoring softly against him.

He lets out a light chuckle. “Get some sleep babe, I’ll be right here when you wake up, ready to take care of you.”

[elodieunderglass]

I wish I had something intelligent to say but I really like His Delicious Materials. I’m waiting eagerly for the next chapter. Thank you for some truly excellent writing!

(In reference to the Dungeon Meshi Daemon-AU fanfic)

You are very very welcome, and don’t worry about saying anything in particular, it’s nice just to have readers for the weirdest fusion in the whole ao3 tag

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

Mks angst - existential crisis. his friends being hurt or taken from him. Being abandoned. Failing. Being seen by others the same way they see swk maybe???

Swk angst - just indescribable physical pain being inflicted on him. Loneliness. Losing Mk

Mei angst - familial. Losing mk. (with the samadhi fire it was having a power she couldn't control ig but that was short-lived:( so) not being strong enough maybe???

Pigsy angst - losing his kid. Losing his shop. Being a lazy good for nothing. Being Zhu Bajie

Tang angst - being useless. Being left behind. Being seen as useless by his friends

Sandy angst - becoming violent/blackout rage. Causing harm

[swallowtail-ageha]

I think someone should study the fact that all of the moral issues people have with coleen hoover are just the modern day version of "this erotic literature will corrupt our pure women!"

[astrodances]

Z for...Zella!! 😜😄🩵💙🖤

I grew up with horses, and definitely wanted to be a cowboy or something horse-related growing up (one of my school mascots was even the Cowboys, so bonus points to that!), but Zorro was like, my first hero. He's the guy I always imagined myself as when I was sitting in the saddle (except when I had my Batman costume on), and looking back, he's influenced so much of my life and love for stories (especially a lot of favorite character aesthetics 😜). And he had the coolest horse (which is my dream horse, just with a different name)!!

All that said, I'm going with Zorro Della for Cowboy Della. I think she would've loved the character, too. 🖤

This was a bit rushed, admittedly, but I got to play with some perspectives, clothing choices, and shading, so good exercise! ^_^

+ bonus Della sketch though, bc I also loved this idea:

Young Della's trying on Scrooge's old cowboy clothes (from Life & Times of Scrooge) - they're still just a pinch too big for her. 😝🥹🤠

[coffeebanana]

anyone who writes hurt/comfort of my blorbos breaking bones…i will love you forever just saying

[amoneki-ramblings]

do you think Kaneki might ever pray with Amon despite not being catholic himself? just sitting next to him mumbling the words as Amon says it because he likes to be with him

speaking of religion, what kind of faith do you think Kaneki would follow? I hc him as an atheist :) but I think you know more about religions than me lol

Ooooh I like that idea a lot actually I have So Many Thoughts (rubs my hands together evilly)

also this is just a sidenote but i know some people may be uncomfortable with religious discussion, so if you are lmk and i'll start tagging it :thumbsup:

I feel like Amon hasn't prayed often in a while because of his past, but he may still on occasion (habit), and may get back into it properly after actually resolving his feelings with the past. At some point Kaneki starts to join him. He doesn't really know How to pray, especially since a lot of it is in silence, he probably just kneels there and silently wishes for safety for his friends, for strength and resolve, etc. etc. But when Amon starts saying the actual prayers out loud he just sits there and listens to him quietly saying them.

At some point Kaneki might start mumbling along with them, he vaguely knows some of the prayers and has heard Amon say them enough times to kind of know them. Amon is surprised when Kaneki starts doing that and it just kind of becomes a Thing; maybe Kaneki even asks Amon to tell him how to pray the rosary since he sees him doing that often as well (when the rosary is prayed in a group there's one person leading that says the first half of most of the prayers and the rest say the other half, and I think it would be interesting with them alternating like that)

While Kaneki isn't catholic himself he finds it reassuring, while it's unlikely to him that there's someone out there that'll actually grant his prayers it's a nice thought, y'know? It's also just very relaxing there, even if it was kind of awkward at first

I think he also finds the sound of Amon praying very relaxing *cough*

I also think Kaneki would be atheist, while he wouldn't completely deny the possibility of there being a god of some sort he also isn't really a follower of any particular belief system (note: ive actually been informed that there is a better term for this, agnostic, which is essentially being neutral lol). I think Amon would know this, and therefore doesn't really know why Kaneki chooses to pray with him despite this, but he figures that Kaneki does have a lot of things he would want to pray for, things he would want to seek forgiveness for, too, and he appreciates that Kaneki is willing to spend time with him like this anyway.

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

me waiting for my writer’s block to fuck off and leave me alone so i can finish this chapter:

[minhmynchi]

man i wanna ramble about my fic to someone so much

into the tags i go

[doctorweebmd]

I was thinking about this the other day and wondering why it’s become so much less fun to write for BNHA and I think it’s because… I’ve written too much?

Like being a one-off author was fine and fun and novel and people were so cool and supportive, but now I’ve got multiple long fics and people have started treating me like someone that “creates content” rather than someone who is writing for fun. And I’ve shot myself in the foot by continuing to write long-fic and putting my heart and soul into them and it’s like never enough, people just expect more and more and more and I want to keep giving and keep doing better but no matter what I write it’s just not ENOUGH

And like… this started a little after I finished Zero Sum Game but like… people have started forming “opinions” that they share openly about “me” - I can’t stand going into fandom space and seeing people say they can’t read anything I write, or they don’t like me as an author, openly ranking my works, saying xyz is overrated or mention me by name in shipping discourse or send me hate mail or update requests or just straight up telling me they’re not going to read what I write anymore… and these people don’t know me!!! I’m just an empty space to them!!! Just a machine that pumps out thousands on thousands of words to just look at an forget about instantly!!!!!!!!

Where do people get off honestly. Is it like this everywhere or is it just BNHA? Is it because it’s so popular that the community has broken down completely? Sincerely what the fuck how can anyone treat writers like this…

[black-rose-writings]

Hello! I know it has been a very long time since you added anything, but could you write something related to Price of safety? Maybe related to the one-shot you wrote about the different ending of Siege and Storm featuring Marya? (I'm always dying for more "The Saints are actually all friends and help Sasha in hsi quest for safety for Grisha" content!) I love your blog so much!!

I have a couple of short fics I'm almost done with for the Grishaverse, though unfortunately none of them involve the Saints. I'll try to finish something and post it soon (I've been on a more of video game fic / original work kick recently, so Grishaverse (which is a lot of work and not much fun, especially considering the things I have almost finished are largely Alina POV, which is bad for my mental health in larger quantities) had to take a back seat.

But to make me more motivated to write, I'll post the premises for some of the fics I'm pretty far into:

Retelling of season 1 of the show but Kaz is Aleksander's son and all of the Crows are Grisha

Baghra's attempt to convince Alina to leave ends... poorly for Baghra. Shenanigans ensue.

Aleksander overhears the fight between Mal and Alina after the Fete and goes to see if she's okay, unintentionally preventing Baghra from doing her "big reveal".

Mal and Alina do find a bit of privacy (wink wink) during their time in Novyi Zem. This causes some challenges for Nikolai and Darkling that they probably should have forseen when chasing after two a couple of teenagers.

And a few that are slightly less finished/fleshed out:

Luda Lives AU (I have the idea and a few scenes but can't quite pin down a plot)

Alina is Aleksander's daughter AU (same as above. I have a few posts about this, but it's one thing to make a bullet point post and another to write a compelling story)

Show!Inej centric story that is unfortunately (but IMO completely justifiably) very mean to Kaz and Jesper and I'm kinda scared to post because of that (might get mixed into some of the other ones, because it has more of a side-plot vibe than a stand-alone story vibe)

[watercolor-hearts]

.

[lit-in-thy-heart]

people leaving not glowing reviews in ao3 bookmarks my unbeloved

[hershelchocolate]

Oddly enough I feel like now is the perfect time to write my next Lyf fic. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but Whisper Court has kept me too busy to write anything else. Now that that's mostly done, I'm free to write some fic and my cold is mostly gone so my brain isn't melting anymore

I'm still hurt I am still Injured but oddly enough. It makes writing the fic I have in mind more appropriate. I just still, after all this time, cannot come up with an excuse for why Monsters Lyf would be injured for multiple days in a row

[killadelphias]

thoughts.......................