#and yes 400k words of it

[itsscottiesstark]

Getting interrupted when reading the first frisky scene 100k words into a 400k words slow-burn is the worst kind of c*ckblocking there is, change my mind.

[chdarling]

feeling pretty emotional this morning about how there are only 2 chapters of TLE2 left. Holy shit.

[robobee]

[pushes up my glasses] declan lynch needs to look unassuming and irrelevant-- re: Boring -- for his day job but every description of the Lynches suggests that this is functionally impossible and he's pulling a Clark Kent somehow. I would add to this by saying that it's his suits: Declan wears suits that fit him, because he needs to look Rich and Formal, but he wears them in a regular fit instead of the more trendy slim/tight fit. this makes it Look like his suits don't fit him right (and that he's a sloppier/younger person) but it also makes sure that it's not wrong Enough to get him out of contact of the Vague Father Figures that he attaches to. also it hides his big boobies and boxer biceps

[trentxaa]

i read this soviet era au fic a couple of years ago that is so stuck in my mind I was just reading something about the ural mountains region and that fic is all I associate it with cause it's partially set there

[phoebenpiperx]

Depending upon how you count it, I've just surpassed 400K words of fanfic for HSMTMTS. Go me!

I think that's officially the 2nd most fic I've ever written for a single fandom. 😁😁😁😁

[lovekt]

⋆ ｡˚ ⋆｡ BIRDS OF A FEATHER ⋆ ｡˚ ⋆｡

(we should stick together)

pairing; oscar piastri x fem!reader

blurb; where oscar funds your slightly unhealthy obsession, and uses it as a way to your heart.

author’s note; i’m thinking of writing this up into a little friend to lovers blurb. anywayss something short and sweet as i’ve only got two weeks left of exams!!

🎶; now playing… birds of a feather - billie eilish

<< the library , op81 masterlist >>

oscarpiastri just posted to their story!

user1 and that's what I get for screaming my man, my man, my man too loud

↳ user2 girll he was never your man. we all know who that's for

user3 honestly get you a guy who adds to your jellycat collection no questions asked.

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, mclaren and 2,374,918 others..

oscarpiastri Another one for another year. Can't wait until there's seventy or so stalking me everywhere I go. Happy birthday "bestie", some more surprises coming soon...?

view all 20,372 comments

user1 everyone say happy birthday rn or ill show up on your doorstep

user2 HE’S PLANNING ON BUYING HER ATLEAST SEVENTY

↳ user3 and yall complain that my standards are too high

yourusername planning on sticking around then?

↳ oscarpiastri For as long as you’ll let me

user4 the last slide is giving parents 😭

user5 my all time fav couple 🫶

↳ user6 i’m gonna hold your hand when i tell you this…

user7 oscar pleaseee tell yn to go public 🙏

yourusername 🔒

liked by oscarpiastri and 43 others…

yourusername spent the new day with my bestie and this random aussie lad. dont know where he came from, but i have to say it was the best bday i could’ve asked for 🥰

view all 17 comments

oscarpiastri Was it the same random aussie lad who carried you home after you fell asleep on him?

↳ yourusername potentially 🌚

yourusername posted to their story! 🔒

↳ oscarpiastri That bunny should be me

↳ yourusername not a very bestie thing to say mr piastri

↳ oscarpiastri Would you prefer I lie?

↳ yourusername yes

mclaren

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 167,388 others…

mclaren Before and after we told Oscar who our special guest is!

view all 7,268 comments

user1 does it count as a “special” guest when she’s here every race weekend?

yourusername aww im special 🥹

↳ landonorris no get out

↳ yourusername won one race and thinks the world revolves around him

user2 oscar’s lucky charm 🥲

oscarpiastri Definitely didn’t already know who it was

↳ user3 you already knew but still smiled at just her name

liked by mclaren

↳ user4 when will this friends to lovers ao3 400k words slowburn torture end??

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, mclaren and 836,018 others…

oscarpiastri P1 and the best gift I could ever ask for.

view all 64,828 comments

user1 something's telling me winning isn't the best gift he's talking about...

yourusername 🧡

user2 don't act like we don't know EXACTLY what happened after that last photo was taken

user3 moments before disaster

yourusername champagne tastes disgusting

↳ oscarpiastri It’ll never happen again your highness

↳ yourusername when did i say i didn't want it to? 🙄

↳ oscarpiastri Noted

mclaren You deserve it all! 🎉

yourusername

liked by landonorris, mclaren and 76,381 others…

yourusername get you a man who doubles as a footrest

view all 628 comments

user1 war is over. YN IS PUBLIC!

↳ yourusername hii!

user2 THE PASTRY JELLYCAT OMG

oscarpiastri This is the first thing you say on public?

↳ yourusername i don't see the problem?

user3 DID OSCAR PASTRY BUY YOU A PASTRY TEDDY??

↳ yourusername yes he did 😋. dyou think if i stab it he'll feel it like a voodoo doll?

↳ oscarpiastri Wow.

↳ yourusername im jokingg bestie its my favourite one

↳ user3 not the friendzone

↳ oscarpiastri Acting like I didn't buy you all of them. Ok

user4 dare i say the wait was worth it

user5 do you guys need a dog?

landonorris happy for you ig

↳ yourusername see you next weekend ig

yourusername posted to their story!

↳ oscarpiastri Can you stop calling me bestie now?

↳ yourusername never.

[druckkugelschreiber]

So all my Oneshot documents are named „working scenes“ and then a number behind it. My Chromebook can’t handle docs bigger than 100k so I have 4 full docs just of oneshots.

I made the newest one at the beginning of my Lesso hyperfocus exactly 14days ago… it’s already at 60k words and only containing Lesso Oneshots (one of them isn’t really a oneshot but more like novella length but we don’t talk about that). Like usually all the others have different type of fandom Oneshots, even if one fandom is the main player. Not this time, I should probably rename it but I refuse

[maladaptivewriting]

yes of course i want regulus and james to kiss softy on the lips

yes i’m also writing 400k+ words to get them there

[dustythewind]

Star Trek Rec — even if you’re a hardcore TOS-only fan (like i was, like I mostly still am) I recommend you check out this longfic (really long longfic) that had this OldSchoolTrekkie in tears multiple times throughout the 400k+ words. I don’t recall where I originally found it, but now it’s available on ao3. Yes, yes, its set in the alternate timeline JJTrek universe which took me a long-ass time to appreciate (because I kinda hate JJA) but it has its moments. (It also took me forever and a day to come around to TNG and DS9. Still not sure about any of the others, but haven’t been able to see any of the newer ones)

Anyway— It’s been a minute since I finished reading this fic (for the second time) but IIRC, it’s all from Spock POV

[I’ve always read well loved stories multiple times. Even long ones. Watership Down and The Once and Future King I read at least 4 times each. My 100+ TOS Trek books multiple times each, Hitchhikers Guide series, same, etc]

So, go take a look at your next longfic Trek read:

Observations by anon-j-anon

And yes, there’s Spirk (eventually)

tl;dr - GO TO THE LINK AND READ IT

Listen to your fandom grandmas.

[kworus]

yes i dont have time to read yes i just finished a 400k words long fanfic in the span of 24 hours

[canonicallyobserving911]

First Child (Buck) & First Baby (Buck and Eddie)

Fanonwriter2023 on AO3

Where CANON and FANON collide!

FANON Future Buddie Fanfic Series

New Buddie Fanfic

Part 15 - Chapter 5 is now available on AO3.

First Child (Buck) & First Baby (Buck and Eddie) - Eddie’s been a father for almost 14 years and Buck’s been a legal guardian to the same child for 4 years. However, after a court hearing, Buck will become a father to their first child and the title of legal guardian will be given to someone else. Also, one year and three months later, Buck and Eddie will welcome their first baby into the world.

First Child (Buck) & First Baby (Buck and Eddie)

Currently 101.3K Words and 5 of 7 Chapters have been posted; Rated: Mature

Chapters will be posted one at a time.

___________

Here's a snippet from Chapter 5 of a conversation Buck and Eddie are having while they're lying in bed.

___________

Eddie reaches over to the nightstand on his side of the bed, he opens the top drawer and after he removes an 8”x10” box, he turns over and says, “My love?”

“Yes babe?”

“I got you an anniversary present.”

“You did?”

“I did.” He replies then he sits up in bed and hands it to him.

Buck sits up too and after he removes the navy-blue and white wrapping paper, he opens it and when he looks inside, he becomes speechless.

“I researched it and I learned the first wedding anniversary is known as “The Paper” anniversary and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to get you. I hope you like it.”

“Eddie! I love it!” He replies as he reads it. Once realization sets in, he turns his head, looks at his husband and says..." 

What did Eddie give Buck for their first wedding anniversary? 👀

____________

First Love Confession -Buck and Eddie share their first real and meaningful love confession.

First Date - Buck and Eddie go on their first date.

First Kiss - Buck and Eddie share their first kiss.

First Argument - Buck and Eddie have their first argument.

First Couples Therapy Session- Buck and Eddie go to their first couples therapy sessions.

First Time - Eddie and Buck make love for the first-time.

First Morning After - The night after Buck and Eddie make love for the first-time, they spend their first morning after together.

First Relationship Reveal - Buck and Eddie’s first relationship reveal.

First Mourning - Buck and Eddie experience their first mourning after a loss together.

First Marriage Proposal - Eddie and Buck’s first marriage proposal.

First Fiancé Introductions - Buck and Eddie’s first introductions as fiancés.

First Wedding Planning & Preparation - Buck and Eddie’s first planning and preparation for their wedding and honeymoon.

First Civil Marriage Ceremony - Buck and Eddie’s first civil marriage ceremony.

First Honeymoon - Buck and Eddie’s first honeymoon.

First Child (Buck) & First Baby (Buck and Eddie) - Eddie’s been a father for almost 14 years and Buck’s been a legal guardian to the same child for 4 years. However, after a court hearing, Buck will become a father to their first child and the title of legal guardian will be given to someone else. Also, one year and three months later, Buck and Eddie will welcome their first baby into the world.

__________

Their Firsts, At Last - 400K Words; Currently 14 completed works and 1 in progress: A multi-part fanfic series about the romantic “firsts” Buck and Eddie share as they journey through life in an established relationship and their lives as a couple will include some of Buck’s individual “firsts” too. It’s filled with the FANON love, romance, fluff and domesticity their relationship should have been allowed to experience in CANON. The second part of the series title was adapted from the song “At Last” by Etta James.

This series of FANON future speculation fanfics is being written on a continuous timeline that begins with the start of season 7 (if it were to start in September 2023). Each part ends at a specific point in Buck and Eddie’s relationship so the next part can begin with the ending of the previous part. Therefore, parts 1-6 should be read prior to reading part 7 and the series will continue in that manner until it’s complete.

Parts 1 - 15 are available on AO3

Part 15 has 7 chapters but they will be posted one at a time. Currently, Chapter 1 - 5 are available on AO3.

[roosterforme]

I'm so sorry! I was distracted when I sent you my blurb request and I said 400K instead of 4K and forgot to give you a Dagger. So let me try this again.

Rooster

"Let me see your eyes"

Aftercare.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! And congrats again!

If it was in fact 400k, I would be dead from shock LOL. Here is your blurb!

Written for my Smutsational Smutfest!

Just One More

Bradley had worked you over good. You were a teary eyed mess beneath him, his cock buried deep inside your pussy while he teased your wet, swollen clit. You could barely even focus on him now, so far gone after multiple orgasms. 

"Look at me, baby," he commanded, and your bright eyes fluttered open again. "That's my pretty girl."

"Bradley," you gasped, trying to catch your breath while he chased his own finish. "I can't."

"Yes you can, sweetheart." And then he felt a soft clenching sensation around his cock as you came again for him. 

"Oh, please," you whined softly, your eyes closing again. 

He leaned down and kissed your cheek as a tear fell. "Just for you, baby," he whispered, rubbing his mustache along your soft skin as he came with a groan. Bradley pulled out and painted your belly and tits with his cum. The relieved look on your face spurred him to guide his softening cock up to your mouth, and he watched as you kitten licked the drops of cum from his tip before they fell.

"Thank you." Your soft voice broke on the words, and Bradley kissed your lips hard. 

He scooted off the bed, running his fingers along your lips and admiring the white mess covering you. "I'll get you all cleaned up," he promised before returning from the bathroom with a wet towel. He watched you start to doze off as he cleaned you, careful to be gentle with your sensitive body. 

"Baby, let me see those eyes," he whispered, and you were alert again. "You did so good."

[campbyler]

frequently asked questions

GENERAL

what is a cruel summer with you/camp byler?

a cruel summer with you is an ongoing multi-chapter fic by @wiseatom/@astrobei/@andiwriteordie that serves as the mainline story in our stranger things au that we fondly refer to as camp byler. it is essentially taking the characters of stranger things, taking them out of the 80s, and plopping them down into a modern day summer camp - camp whiteman! mike and will are friends but also not, due to their very loaded history together.

why is it called camp whiteman?/any comment on the camp name

thea (wiseatom) went to a summer camp as a child called camp wightman. when creating this au, we used it as a placeholder (spelled whiteman) and then it just stuck because it’s funny and ridiculous. it is an ongoing joke between the three of us and the characters! 

what cabins are the three of you in? how do i find out mine?

thea is in yellow, suni is in green, andi is in blue! you can find the cabin sorting quiz here :) 

how long is this fic going to be? is it finished? how often will it update?

we are projecting 400k-500k words for the mainline fic once it’s completed. we cannot adhere to a strict posting schedule due the obligations we have in our personal lives, but we will always be transparent about when we think an update is going up!

are you going to abandon this fic and not finish it?

no! thea and suni are very committed to seeing through the rest of the mainline fic. we may have to delay chapters, but we will finish it!

where is andi?

andi has stepped back from acswy moving forward. you can read our update here.

who is writing what chapter? what pov is the fic in?

everything will alternate back and forth between mike and will’s pov, and this is how our chapter setup is laid out: CH01 / will pov / thea CH02 / mike pov / suni CH03 / will pov / andi CH04 / mike pov / thea CH05 / will pov / suni CH06 / mike pov / andi CH07 / will pov / suni CH08 / mike pov / andi CH09 / will pov / thea CH10 / mike pov / suni CH11 / will pov / suni CH12 / mike pov / thea CH13 / will pov / suni CH14 / mike pov / thea CH15 / will pov / thea

STORY SPECIFIC

are we going to learn about the fearless lore/is this going to happen/etc.?

we can’t answer questions like these because of spoilers, but please trust the process, have patience, and know that we wouldn’t have mentioned something big if it wasn’t going to be addressed or resolved!

where's that post where you spoiled each chapter with an emoji?

here!

who is derek? is he going to appear in acswy?

derek is will’s ex-boyfriend, who he dated from december 2020 through june/july of 2021. he is not going to appear in acswy except for by name, but will be featured in a companion fic detailing their break up! he's ~10 months older than will and one grade ahead of him.

how many companion fics do you have planned? when will they be posted?

we currently have several planned, but the ones that are most plot relevant to acswy are the discord era fic, the fearless lore (expanded) fic, and the will/derek break up fic. we will post them at some point in tandem with acswy going up, and will have more after acswy is finished, too! 

when does you know that i caught it take place?

refer to the timeline :) 

does justin have a crush on will? is justin evil? is justin going to interfere with byler?

yes, no, no. any justin slander will be deleted ♥️

[chickenkurage]

This is from the anon who finished arcs 2-3 of CSAlan in one day

... I've done it again. I read all of the Cursor!Alan in one day. Including the two lil oneshots. I have officially read all of ur AUs, including the tumblr exclusive ones, in... *checks browser history* two weeks? Yeah like exactly two weeks. So... over 400k words... half of which was on two days alone... anyways I am very glad that I could find such cool AUs, specifically ones with good stories and fanart to go along with it :). Just wanted to say all this is amazing, enjoy yourselves, don't work so much you forget to sleep *checks time and realizes it's almost midnight* aka don't be me. I will now go read the rest of my to-read list and forever randomly giggle at lil moments I remember and confuse my entire family ;)

(it's late for me and this probably makes lil to no sense so sry)

HELLO AGAIN! The Anon who read the whole CS Alan Arcs XDDD

Oh my goodness, you've read all of it?? Jaw is dropping at the moment, i have like....a lot of stuff written and HOW?! Is this-Is this the power of the hyperfixation? The power to read that many words?

But on the other note, thank you for enjoying the fics and JM's art. We're very happy that you enjoyed this so much!! Honestly i never thought that i would be writing so much fanfiction au's and i enjoy this so so so much!! We both do, there's a lot of times we mention how we enjoy this, since we don't join much fandoms. AvA/M is the fandom that somehow made us...to this(?) XDD It's hard to explain in words, but maybe our works are the answer :))

And yes you! SLEEP! Don't worry about us too much, we get plenty of sleep (a bit too much sleep) BUT, you, you go rest now my dear anon! You are our child, so take care hehehe!! - S

[eyedoeluhn]

I think a daring synthesis is a better celestial forge fic than Brocktons celestial forge.

To preface this comparison slash review, and all posts after I make on ADS, I’ve only read from chapters 86 (a glib facsimile 2.1) to 145 (killing hope 7.9) of A Daring Synthesis, the section of the fic that covers Greg with the celestial forge. I have not and have no plans of reading the first 85 chapters which are Greg with a gamer power. Those chapters ARE plot relevant as the fic has Greg go back in time from the original timeline during the enchadia fight and are referenced frequently in the fic. I have had a summary of the first section from ads defender #1 and I don’t think that really impacted my experience negatively with the fic. I have read all of the celestial forge. Both of those fics are very different in experience and I’m it going to recommend reading either one fully here, one because I would never want anyone to subject themselves to the forge let alone BCF, and two because defending ADS is how @zizbombs pays for his robux and I’m not going to push him out of the market. this is going to feature heavy spoilers of each, it’s not my plot comparison but I’m going to mention events.

I think to start elsewhere from how unpleasant the experience of reading ADS would be a little disingenuous. Full disclosure, I’ve attempted to read ADS from chapter one several times and completely bounced off of it.

I have a very low gamer tolerance and a lower Greg protagonist tolerance on top of that. Im also not a fan of the slur frequency. Yes it’s an accurate 4channy Greg but I don’t like Greg anyways. Also the authors opinion on this is ass. so this was pretty firmly in the not my thing territory.

I did skip a large portion of the character development and Greg does still say the n word but we’ve graduated to refraining from dropping slurs. As often.

If you don’t like Greg and gamerfic as a catagory, I’d recommend skipping it as well.

Moving past that admittedly large roadblock to judge it on CF merits, it’s….pretty fantastic actually. This is a post glazing ADS via the worlds easiest target ever that I’ve previously lambasted but it’s actually exceeded my expectations.

ADS does not have a filler bloat problem. ADS is just under 400k words including a previous timeline that extends all the way to enchadia starting from before Taylor’s trigger. We’ve started again from before the locker, to the locker, to a ziz attack and now the aftermath of, while BCF is still weeks out from its first endbringer attack and hasn’t finished up its bakuda arc. Greg has frankly done more good for the city than Joe has by several times over. He’s volunteered in hospitals passing out pills that have healing effects, Joe has only selectively healed a handful of people, then the bakuda bomb victims, and Aisha once visited hospitals during the absolute peak of overfilling to provide his significantly better healing tech. Greg has openly shared his whitebox and black boxed tech with Armsmaster (to use in fights as well causing the arrest of hookwolf) and Dragon and a network of other tinkers which has had a positive ripple effect. Joe has dangled white box miniaturized cold fusion in front of Dragon that he purposefully kept the secret of how it worked so it couldn’t be recreated as a bribe then took it back when she refused it. Greg hasn’t spent ages cloistered off to himself, he frequently interacts with an entire cast of characters who have their own motives and aren’t created by him and working for him and are his own age. The fact that’s a bonus is crazy. ADS also addresses Cauldron with a lot more grace than a lot of fic, which I’m not even putting here because we haven’t seen a pov or even a trace of a cauldron agent besides Alexandria holding a meeting in BCF because there’s so much goddamn filler.

A large contributor to this in BCF is Joe getting a new power and then agonizing to himself about all the implications and uses of his power anda description of getting it and all the rolls get mentioned even failed ones frankly and it takes so much goddamn time.

Reading ADS, I nearly missed the first power roll. And they got shorter. And then they got interesting. I was genuinely always looking forwards for the next roll, not because I was excited for the power (though they were still significant) but because they actually affected the plot. Which was frankly an amazing move.

In Brocktons Celestial Forge there is a semi visual component to power rolls. Joe goes into a “thinking stance” which seems tied to contemplating his powers but specifically after rolls, this seems involuntary but he doesn’t really try to stop it in the first place. This stance isn’t well described but it’s noted by every character who witnesses them and is quickly associated with power use and theorized upon. This still remains a rarity though we discuss the theorization in depth because of well, it’s a PR an and reaction piece elevating it to the highest priority of discussion.

When he does gain powers in public it tends to cause social friction—New Wave assumes he is activating a battle thinker power and is threatening them, those attending the Summit believe he is contemplating something that could have dire consequences for them—since it’s not explained what exactly he’s doing, all characters must glaze and fear Jozef, and his erratic behavior fucking the bay up. Beyond that that’s basically all the relevance the roll has. The Celestial Forge is just a collection of powers materialized as “stars” and “nodes” that his Shard wants to collect, unrelated to the plot. They aren’t tied to Worm specifically in any meaningful way and exist on their own, truly out of context. The powers themselves are mulled upon in hypothetical for paragraphs and paragraphs.

On the other hand, ADS approaches the forge in an entirely different context. Firstly the physical consequences of the rolls are more of the vision itself. Greg actively eats shit sometimes, falling flat on his face. There’s no awed moment of everyone waiting quietly with bated breath as Joe contemplates how he can upgrade his ultra sword that he’s literally never used for the 10^50th time. The text itself is also brief, the original one is a small paragraph of like, four lines and then it gets shorter until it becomes plot relevant. However this is not the only consequence of rolling for powers, we’ll pop back to that in a second because I’m bad at formatting and you’re reading a tumblr review about fanfiction.

The celestial forge itself is kind of a bad power set. I’ve complained about it before but in short, it’s heavily unbalanced, doesn’t fit worm’s philosophy whatsoever, isn’t even really about crafting. It’s designed seemingly around eradicating stakes as quickly as possible and quickly becomes hard to write. Both ADS and BCF work off of a modified CF. It’s just that BCF works with what the author feels most comfortable writing, and ADS based off of what would make the best narrative.

BCF cut all unfamiliar IPs and most insert companions whose personality is not dedicated by the author, while ADS takes an axe to many of the weak points of the forge. Spent too long idling in a safe space that can’t be attacked or compromised? Gone. Most of the more absurd free gear has been cut, like tinkertech. Perks that improve your body instead of giving you crafting powers are also gone, no free indestructibility and super speed and super strength without technology. They’re acknowledging to be missing from the forge and I’m all the gladder to see them go.

To me, the essence of a tinkerfic is about building things with your own hands and the reliance on your technology. A tinker who isn’t a squishy wizard because he’s been magically enhanced to be an ultra man and is really just using a vorpal sword he mentally created within a second out of materials he summoned into being for fun isn’t compelling. It’s not what I’m here for when I read ‘tinker’. BCF is, for all its technobabble, hardly a tinkerfic with how much Joe relies on his other abilities , and how much further they’d stretch if he didn’t waste so much time working on tech he doesn’t need in the first place. Joe is not a tinker. He did not even start with tinker powers, and frankly when I talk about him and read about him I don’t really classify him as a tinker. He’s a shaker.

With literally millions of less words, Greg is a tinker. When you strip him of technology, he’s pretty goddamn helpless, which is something the CF (and jumpchains) loathe. He needs to eat, sleep, can get hurt, he gets his arm ripped off a couple times even. Vulnerability and conflict means the power fantasy train has to end and when you don’t address that, writing a six thousand words about a spaceship isn’t going to match the empty pit where meaningful conflict and plot progression is supposed to go.

But ADS goes a step further than cutting the slow strangler vine killing conflict from BCF’s power tree. It actively makes these rolls vital to the plot and character progression of Greg, not directly because of the powers themselves, but Gaylien.

Gay Alien, aka Gaylien, technically goes by the Celestial Forge but is referred to as Gaylien by everyone else including myself. He is not the CF, but a new consciousness implanted with the memories of fanon slash worm and an innate knowledge of the original Forge, and god, I love this character and I think it was an incredible choice.

To contrast, BCF has a direct analogous character. It’s Forge itself is the powers of the post spark jumper that is Joe’s “shard”. Joes shard has been described and acts in continuity with the opinions of the fanbase, particularly on places like Reddit, combined. Shard communicates with Joe by sharing its emotions with him. It isn’t really a specific character than it is in its influence on Joe. Which sucks ass. Let’s break the “fanon insert character” down a little bit.

I think it’s pretty safe for me to say on Wormblr that a lot of people who post about worm haven’t actually read the book and there’s a lot of….interesting ideas floating around about how things go down. Mashing this into canonical worm is always a fun treat in my opinion, and I’m always a fan of seeing how it plays out when canon is taken seriously. When you openly say a characters opinions are based off of fanon, I don’t think it’s erroneous to assume the character is largely misguided and working off of the wrong information.

This is not true in BCF. Joe’s Shard’s information on canon events is all correct, things like aura theory that are just categorically untrue. Joe’s shard DOES lead Joe wrong—in its moral attitude. Shard wants to see Taylor beat people up, has an affection for the undersiders despite Joe’s reluctance based on their personal histories. This isn’t bad per se, but combined with the other letdowns just irons away some of Joe’s character. After his trigger Joe relied on his shards emotional support to the point that in the early chapters it was basically making the decisions as noted by Lisa, and when it told him Taylor was the coolest person ever and the undersiders were all super cool and sympathetic and he needed to help Taylor, he ultimately chose to work with them because of it. However shortly after with the bank job, Taylor maimed Aegis with Joe’s tech, he was horrified to be dragged into their criminal behavior (eyeroll but hey pussies are characters too) but ended up committing, in for a penny in for a pound. This permanently hurt his relationship with his shard, by that I mean it’s pretty much written out of the story, taking a backseat besides warning Joe of big threats like March.

Joe operates off of all of its information on the Protectorate and New Wave like it’s true and this is never portrayed as negative or harmful to him in any real way. Armsmaster is a control freak who’s impossible to work with because he’s too much of a glory hound to do anything productive. Victoria is brainwashing her whole family. Piggot really is a fraudster, too cape racist to be an effective leader. So on so forth, there’s no friction between fact and fiction, no meat to this addition. Shard really just feels like a roundabout way for Joe to operate with some level of awareness of some canon events, and a reason why a total doormat like him would handle living after his trigger event and ever work with the undersiders.

Gaylien is very specifically not the forge. He’s also very specifically dead fucking wrong. He is also not written out of the story in increments, but becomes a bigger presence within the fic the longer it goes on. His gimmick is not emotional influence towards Greg, he’s a completely separate person sharing Greg’s body who takes control after every roll. First for only a few seconds, then a minute, then five, then ten, then hours at a time. He wakes up wherever Greg is and fumbles through trying to work out what’s going on while Greg quickly becomes aware of him and tries to figure out what he even is or what he could want. Their relationship is antagonistic from the start, Gaylien is more “Taylor saved the World” and “the Protectorate is another gang” than a Greg fan and is pretty upset to be dealing with him at all, while Greg isn’t pleased that a guy who hates his coworkers and himself is stealing his body, and staying even longer each time. Did I mention Greg goes to join the Protectorate? It’s great.

Gaylien as a character is incredibly interesting from the get go. Initially all we see of him is from other POVs, Greg listening to recordings he set up, the other Wards when Gaylien crashes a graduation party, before we settle into his point of view for several chapters. There’s two aspects here that make him more enjoyable than Shard.

As a plot device he’s an active threat. Existentially he stays longer every power roll, every couple thousand rolls is another step closer to Gaylien taking control. And when he does take control it has consequences for Greg, even when he sets alarms to warn others and creates Pilot, his sexy chatbot, with the capacity to restrain him. He spits venom at Amy, trashes Greg’s room and technology, spouts random information like Rebecca Costa-Brown being Alexandria to Armsmaster in plainclothes (which he doesn’t take seriously lol) and its legitimately a problem to where you don’t want power rolls to happen and when you get close to one you’re just praying Greg’s in a position where the fallout isn’t big. Which is where one of my favorite moments comes in.

Greg learns to reject rolls. With active effort he can deny the Forge’s connection and opt out of taking a power, and has full incentive to do so. To me it really summarizes how the author treats the forge and powerwank where rejecting powers is an incredibly useful and incentivized skill. We’re so detached from sitting in time dilation thinking about powers to get powers that this is seriously hype. And Greg having some agency out of his hate for the forge and his powers is a lot more interesting than “well my powers unconditionally love and support me in everything but are kind of weird so I ignore them on moral questions”.

As a character, Gaylien is a lot more interesting. With the CF taken as post spark perks and how little backstory the forge itself has, the most character you can prescribe to Shard is that it’s a post spark jumper traveling the multiverse who wants to see Taylor blow things up and wanted to help out the guy who harassed Parian for reasons I guess. On the other hand, Gaylien is a fresh person. Like, completely fresh, never eaten, slept, shat. Literally all he knows is that the world is going to end, the heroes and cauldron are all evil, and Taylor is going to save the world and he needs to help her. He’s actually a pretty sympathetic character, he feels. He gets stressed and confused, feels guilty, gets angry, he genuinely likes building and takes pride in his creations and while he’s an asshole and wrong he’s just operating off of incorrect information and is incredibly stubborn. Even Greg has a short lived moment of sympathy for Gaylien despite the encroaching ego death he’s causing when he’s lost and alone. Then, when the rolls start coming fast enough for Greg to be gone and Gaylien takes center stage we really start seeing his character shine. The last several chapters have all been Gaylien POV, from his first appearances and now what he’s doing with full control of the body. Gaylien believes that Taylor is always right, that the world is going to end, and that he can help her become something glorious. It’s genuine, it’s stupid, and it’s great. I really want to see more of him.

ADS also makes several great points with the differences between Greg and Gaylien and how they use their powers compared to Joe. Gaylien, much like Joe, spends a lot of his time after each power rebuilding items and over engineering simple things and putting lots of effort into every item for small increases. Greg on the other hand doesn’t replace things if they don’t need to be, functionality is his most valued aspect. Joe had an “arc” about his obsessive rebuilding of his kit where Aisha told him he had high standards and his technology was cool even when he didn’t try and he eventually started doing the rebuilding less often.

Bringing up the coolness of tech, Greg spends less time glazing his technology than Gaylien (and of course Joe), despite literally admitting he’s making decisions to look cool. Greg is open with his more selfish desires, he’s making the bot that restrains him super hot because he wants a sexy robot. He used his powers to make porn. A lot of porn. He makes figurines of his waifus, designs his suit so he’s taller, goes out of his way to use his powers to look nice. This is all less than Gaylien who lauds his technology all the time while making it instead of having a looking into the camera moment. Gaylien does have a large ego and loves his tech, but it’s a noticeable difference in the POVs. There’s a specific line from Greg about not being a pussy about making his gear look cool because he had to or not admitting it, which reminds me of Joe.

In BCF, Joe physically cannot make things below a level of quality (despite powers he could use to mitigate that). He is “forced” to make things supernaturally beautiful all the time and constantly look cool, handsome and awesome. Don’t worry, if you thought this had consequences he has a nano machine swarm to help him print anything normal he’d need and he can just glamor up to look average so we can have our paragraphs of paragraphs of paragraphs describing just how amazingly awesome he is and even more this time I promise he looks and wow he even started a fashion war which he’s winning by leagues look at how super humanly hot he is phew. While it’s in character for Greg, it’s definitely a breath of fresh air and an interesting critique.

Frankly, Greg and Gayliens dynamic is far more interesting than Joe and his Shards. Joe doesn’t even have a unique relationship with it, he’s unconditionally loved by his team, several sentient objects, has a supportive therapist, so on so forth. Greg and Gaylien are both battling over the right to be alive and who is making the most of their time with their powers, Greg with his knowledge of being a cauldron agent and protectorate hero and Gaylien with his information on Taylor and Zion. The fear of ego death is treated with weight, where in BCF joe has a blink and you miss it arc about struggling with implanted memories and impulses before deciding to not bother to fight them and a large part of those impulses vanish asides from a few “I have magic ptsd from this world” for a chapter or two outside of paragraphs of filler about his past lives. Frankly, ADS does that better too. Greg’s adjustment period to this timeline is fraught with anguish and uncertainty and his gamer ptsd about missing his old powers is also a problem. His old life means a lot to him, who he was and what he did, it’s not something he contemplates for a time and moves on.

Greg’s clones are also just better than Joes clones. Ugh, seriously. They’re short lived for one and bring up things actually heavy in Greg’s thoughts instead of “goto the therapist” or whatever and he’s open about summoning them for emotional reasons. To be frank Greg finds his moral footing extremely quickly and sticks to it a lot better than Joe. He doesn’t spent hours mulling over stupid stuff and he’s open to actually relevant questions, like handling being a cauldron agent and wanting to help case fifty threes, the fic acknowledging that these ideas aren’t at odds and Greg is also made to really understand firsthand the scope of cauldron.

Man the cauldron stuff is so good. So is the ziz fight honestly. reading ADS was actually fun, armsmaster is great, Amy was fun, it was just a better fic. I could roll my eyes and laugh along when Greg did something self indulgent because one, it’s Greg, two he was self regulating a lot better than Joe fuckin’ was, and three it wasn’t getting in the way of plot. While the rest of the fic isn’t my speed and I have my problems with it, I’m definitely going to be seated for the next update and start to consider ADS on its own footing. As well as comparing it to BCF more because honestly it feels like there’s some digs in there that I wholly approve of. I have more thoughts, and I’ll probably have more as I reread it and more updates come, but I think this is a good enough opener.

also yeah I have a slur counter. Nice one ironypus. I’ve already read BCFs terrible writing decision of sexualizing a black teenage girl until she’s “made modest” by the adult white mc who adultifies her into his on call therapist, so both CFs do have a racism problem. Fair reason not to read, I dnf’d the first half because it was too much on that count a couple times.

Something something Joe getting lapped by Greg making waifu porn something go read tilt. Seriously go read tilt.

[crucifysam]

what was the exact amount, or estimated??? what fandom was it for?? ship, or no ship?? if yes, which ship!!!?? how long did it take you to read?? what platform?? do you normally read longform fics?? was it a series?? a podfic?? if so, how long was the podfic??? au?? canon compliant?? tell me it all!!!!!! I wan't to know!!