#do people still say fanfic

[rmngers]

understand

by keshi

She's waking up from a nap, raising her head from a couch that's too soft to be hers, she notes. She's in an unfamiliar house, but it seems... warm, soft, definitely lived in, the kind of aura that brings to mind wood coloured like her shed back in Ohio, before everything happened; chocolate chip cookies and milk, a hazy, golden-tinted filter like a lullaby cast over it. It's ornamented by things like a piano left open, the page of a score on it lazily flipping as the wind wafts through the house, and there's a shopping list written in loopy, classic handwriting left on the table. It knocks the breath out of her, seeing all these things that seem so achingly ordinary, that it feels like she's slipped into a fever dream, one she'll wake up from any moment. 

She turns, and her heart stills so abruptly it scares her, because Steve's on the other side of the couch, his steady presence one she didn't detect- how could she have- ? She'd be dead by now, if it were anyone else, hell, if he'd had other motives.

But those thoughts dissolve away into the back of her mind as they lock eyes, because, who is she kidding, it's Steve, and in this moment, he looks so... serene, that little twinkle in his eye. Like he'd been waiting for her to see it, the hazy glow of a lamp resting on his cheek.

That's all it takes. 

There it is again, flooding her chest, again, all warmth and mush and something else that makes her heart hum with satisfaction-- and it's the first time in years, illogical, catastrophic, feeling it before she can even put it into words. 

He smiles, like he knows. 

He always does. 

It's the sort of thing she's never had to communicate to him, because somehow one look at her and he just understands. Pretty laughable, what with all her steel walls and barbed wires, when she just feels like a glass onion whenever it happens. It's probably one of the things she loves the most about him.

Loves about him.

Loves.

She blinks slowly, and it's like a million scenarios flash through the house where they're seated, snatches of toothy grins, a hand brushing away the wetness on her cheek, which should be the first indication it's not real, but she can't stop them coming-- her throwing her head back and laughing as he chases her under some trees, the sun slidding between the leaves dancing on her feet as she runs; little girls scattering flowers on the floor as she walks down the aisle, and he's grinning all the way down the other side; lips locking with his as he grabs her, chuckling, and she almost hears the roar of faceless friends and family in the church pews; holding onto a key together, sweaty fingers hastily unlocking a door and bursting through it when it opens, laughing at the space, the empty floor only boosting her spirits as she starts thinking about furniture; on a street faintly lit by the dingy lampposts that flicker like they're about to fizzle out, and he's got her right hand in his, her other hand over her tummy-- it's subtle, but she's starting to show.

She swallows. 

It's weird, the little spark in her chest. Usually it's an ache, one that grows as her eyes fall and she lets the thoughts wither. 

Maybe there's something about this place, because the scenes are staying in her head, her chest, swirling around as she blinks. Savouring them as she turns them round and round and round.

It's stupid. It feels like hope.

Suddenly, Steve shakes his head, a little wake-up call, and Natasha snaps out of it too, only just realising her right arm's heavier than normal, bandaged and wrapped. Details of the battle flood back, and the last thing she remembers was the enhanced twin running as she turned, red wisps floating from her fingers. 

"We're laying low here. I hope your arm's okay, I tried my best, but clearly, I'm no Dr Cho," he says, eyeing your bandage and grimacing slightly. 

Natasha swallows, dry lips parting. "Where are we?" She asks.

"Oh, I..." He rubs the nape of his neck. "My apartment. It was the closest, so..." He shakes his head as he looks around. "It's a mess, nothing much, but... it's home." 

"It's nice."

[coulsons-band]

pedro pascal doesn’t owe you shit.

it is absolutely fine to be disappointed by his absence at cannes. i am too. but he does not have to be there.

for whatever reason he’s pulling away from the attention. the esquire article talked about how guarded he is and his socials have really slowed down. maybe he’s unprepared or overwhelmed by all the tlou hype. i mean his follower count went up by the tens of thousands the day after the premiere. that’s insane.

but some of you have lost the plot. the ones wearing d*ddy’s little girl shirts in fucking public and yelling d*ddy at him at events and trying to convince everyone whether he’s queer or not and complaining there isn’t an explicit scene of him fucking in the strange way of life. it’s not a gay porn made for your fetish. ‘oh but narcos!!’ that’s called characterization. read literally any article from almodovar and understand why sex isn’t the point.

interacting with paparazzi content and making cute little edits - jfc. that’s creating demand and supply and paparazzi know no fucking boundaries. man’s got anxiety and no doubt the paps and fans watching his every move are probably making that worse.

let him make movies and rotate through his four shirts in peace. pedro pascal doesn’t owe anyone shit.

[justaz]

when merlin asks arthur for things, the king is usually inclined to give him what he wants but it is not always guaranteed such as when his emotions cloud his judgement. but merlin’s surefire way of getting arthur to give in? he steps into his space, lays a gentle hand on his arm, and says “arthur, please” and he folds like a house of cards.

[luvfy0dor]

incest and pedophilia isn't sexy

[frownyalfred]

Things you might not realize are affecting your ao3 readership:

Putting unrelated fics into one compilation instead of series or collections

Not tagging your fics/“haha I’m so bad at tagging!”

Tagging all of the ships in a fandom instead of the relevant ones to the story

“This is my first fic ever”/ “I’m really not a good writer” / “sorry if this is crap”

Summaries that say “sorry don’t think I will update much” or “might be abandoned idk”

Tagging “r@pe” or “unaliving” etc instead of the actual tag so people can filter/exclude

NOT tagging major, relevant tags or kinks without using the “creator chose not to use archive warnings” option

Telling people how bad your writing is and how you hate it so much and how they shouldn’t even be reading your fic (self deprecation)

Weird punctuation: not starting new quotes or descriptions on a new line, and/or putting extremely long blocks of text on the page without a break

[xskyll]

Not to sound arrogant, but yeah boiii!! 5000!! Idk why this milestone specifically is so exciting to me, but I was just as pumped when The Cupid Quirk hit it. I can't help but feel proud.

[kjones-fandom]

I do think that Neil and Aaron would eventually get along but imagine if maybe a decade or so after the king's men Neil and Aaron get into a fight. It doesn’t matter what about but Neil runs his mouth and Aaron decks him. It doesn’t hurt that much and he doesn’t actually want to hurt Neil he was just so angry. I think Andrew wouldn’t react that much in the moment. He would assess the damage and Neil’s fine but Aaron’s busted his knuckles. So he wraps Aaron’s hand for him and doesn’t say anything for the longest time. No one knows what he’s thinking but the rest of the foxes are there (think like a reunion) and everyone kind of moves on.

Later that night while Aaron is icing his hand Andrew enters the room. Neil and Aaron already would have made up by this point. They aren’t necessarily friends but they don’t dislike each other anymore. Andrew would be silent as he had been earlier and would stare at Aaron’s hand. Aaron opens his mouth to say something- maybe to apologize or maybe to defend himself. But Andrew gets there first, he doesn’t raise his voice or become violent. Instead, he makes eye contact with Aaron and says “ This isn’t college anymore. If you ever lay a hand on my husband again I will kill you.” His voice isn’t apathetic but it isn’t very emotional.

He doesn’t break eye contact and his voice is steady and Aaron knows he’s telling the truth. Aaron doesn’t look away even after hearing the threat. He just nods his head “ I know”. And he does know because the twins are not the same men they were in college. Andrew doesn’t threaten Katelyn or speak badly about her. The twins do grow up and I think Andrew would respect and even consider Katelyn his sister-in-law first and his brother's wife second. No, this isn’t Andrew and Aaron losing their relationship or having a falling out. They’ve grown and matured and Aaron would be more pissed if Andrew stayed silent the whole time. Because he knows he would have done the same if Andrew had laid a hand on Katelyn.

TLDR: Andrew and Aaron grow after college. They respect each other's partners. Hell, they even like the other significant other. Because Andrew and Aaron love each other and after years of therapy and peace they come to terms with the fact that Katelyn and Neil are both there to stay.

Edit: Also, I am not calling Neil weak or saying he needs protection. He can absolutely defend himself but he shouldn’t have to with family. I love Aaron and Neil’s friendship and the fight doesn’t affect their relationship.

[screamingwiththewolves]

I generally don't make posts like this, cause I don't wanna start an argument or disagreement, but I do find the "Is Hyde really a person?" discourse, a bit odd...I know it's a comic, and maybe I'll be proved horribly incorrect but...

Does he have emotions, with personality traits and preferences? Yes.

Does he insist he's a person? Yes.

Then he is, in fact, a person.

[tennessoui]

(cradles your face gently in my hands) your productivity, especially in fandom spaces, is not a reflection of your worth or measure of your talent we should leave those thoughts in 2022

[finalgirlminamurray]

remember when halloween 2018 (or as i like to call it, halloween h40) came out and people were making those flowchart-style diagrams explaining the various halloween timelines? i like when people try to do that for the texas chainsaw massacre series because it is a fool's errand. you cannot divide that series into distinct specific continuities because there aren't any. there's a good argument to be made that every single film in that series takes place in its own completely separate timeline because it so often does not bother to meaningfully connect them beyond the single recurring character of leatherface.

i've mentioned before that tcm2 is my favorite sequel and the only one i actually like and will accept as a canon sequel to the original film, and part of that is because despite the complete 180 in tone it does, it's the only one that bothers at all to be a sequel. i think it's the only one that makes sense as a continuation of the first movie - the only glaring continuity errors are confined to the opening scroll text, which you can take or leave as part of the films' canon. (by this i mean the first movie's opening implies that the sawyers' crimes were discovered after sally's escape, while the second film explicitly says no evidence was found. also it retcons sally's last name to be "hardesty-enright" instead of just making lefty's last name also hardesty, for whatever reason.) there's one newly introduced member of the family but you can infer why he wasn't there in the first movie, and the one who isn't there this time has a good reason to be absent (he's died.) one of the main characters in this movie is a relative of the first film's final girl and his involvement in the plot is explicitly connected to what happened to his niece and nephew. the events of the first movie clearly happened in this universe. low bar, i know.

this could be attributed to this being the only sequel also directed by tobe hooper, although the original film's screenwriter did not return, and him having more of a vested interest in continuing the story of his own work. most of the original film's cast did not return for this one (can't say i blame them), but they work with that pretty well. i do think the film ends in a way that pretty decisively puts the brakes on any possible continuation from there, which could be attributed to hooper not really wanting to do a sequel in the first place and trying not to get asked back for another one. (i agree this was not a film that should ever have had sequels, much less become a full-on franchise. but you can tell that upon having to do it they were just like fuck it, let's have fun. hence the tone.) not that that stopped the studios from valiantly trying again and again to profit off of this title.

which might explain why the later sequels are so particularly weird. they don't really have a lot to go off of, i guess. i think part of the problem is that this is one of the few slasher films where the villain is actually a group of people, not a single recurring killer or identity various killers take up. they do have a silent, masked slasher who can be played by whichever new stunt guy you get for each film, but what about the rest of the family? it's always felt important to me that there isn't anyone outside of this isolated little unit in the first movie, but sequels keep inventing totally new characters out of nowhere with no explanation as to where they've been in previous installments. doesn't matter - we're in a new continuity now. tcm3 does not logically follow in any real way from tcm2 or tcm1. it's not a sequel despite the number in the title. it's a reboot.

(i've kind of come around on tcm4 aka tcm: the next generation. i used to think it was the worst sequel but now i think i get what it's trying to do a little better, although it is a pretty stupid movie in a lot of ways. some people have described tcm2 as a deliberate parody of the first film but i think that applies way better to the next generation, seeing how it follows a lot of the same plot beats but done in a more outlandish and parodic way. also, hey: same screenwriter as the original, returning this time as director.)

then the remake made a shit ton of money and kickstarted a new direction for 2000s horror (great. thanks for that.) and got a prequel that also actually made sense as existing in the same continuity as the film it was a prequel to. (again it probably really helped that they were able to get most of the cast back. no need to invent new family members when you still have all the same people playing them.) then in 2013 we got a sequel that promised to Finally be a Direct sequel to the original movie and...it made no sense as one. they try to pick up right where the original left off but right away there are once again a whole bunch of new characters who definitely weren't there in the first movie suddenly appearing in the house, including a baby whose existence is crucial to the plot.

(i'm sure everyone knows about the bizarre timeline decisions of this one, namely the main character ostensibly having been born in the same year as the events of tcm1 but only being about 18 years old during the main events of texas chainsaw 3d, despite it seeming to take place in the modern day. however there is an explanation for that! originally the film was supposed to take place in the early 90s when a character born in 1973 would have been that age, but studio meddling forced them to reshoot it to be 2013. you might notice that any mention or depiction of the exact year the opening scene takes place seems conveniently obscured in this film, implying that it is yet another alternate timeline where the events of tcm1 occurred sometime in the 1990s. this also serves as further demonstration that 1. studio executives are the dumbest people alive, and 2. people really don't care that much about the first movie. more on that later.)

leatherface 2017 is an attempt at a prequel that also makes little to no sense as a backstory for its titular character; i wouldn't be surprised if it started out as an original screenplay that got retrofitted into a tcm movie. there are no new sawyer relatives invented for this film (i don't think), but it does seem strangely insistent on keeping its leatherface away from the family for as much of the film as possible, making it feel especially like it didn't actually want to be a tcm movie. (the twist of the titular character's identity is clearly meant primarily to be surprising and not to make sense, but i can only say: there's no way that the original film's leatherface grew up apart from his birth family for that long and also used to be a "normal"-by-neurotypical-standards, verbal kid. different continuity.)

then in 2022 we get yet another attempt at No Guys Seriously For Real, This is a Direct Sequel to the First Movie, and i should have known things weren't looking good when it was announced this was actually getting dumped on netflix in february but my expectations plummeted to rock bottom when that teaser came out that thought the most relevant part of the movie to sell to people was a "canceled" joke. jesus. tcm:tng i'm sorry, this is the clear worst sequel. (if it was just that one dumb joke it might not be, but there's so much more that's awful in this movie - whatever.) anyway continuity-wise i guess this isn't completely disconnected, there is clear acknowledgement that the events of the first movie happened, but it's really not relevant to the main plot at all, when you get right down to it. pro tip: if a slasher sequel advertises the return of the original film's final girl, she will most likely not be in the film for more than five minutes. there's some implied backstory about leatherface running away to this neighboring town and being taken in by the lady who runs the orphanage, but honestly this could easily be yet another different continuity where leatherface is the adopted son of a kindly old lady (who still has a confederate flag in her window, jfc, i think this is the first time that imagery has ever been used in this series and it's associated with a character who's supposed to be sympathetic??) who was keeping a lid on his murderous tendencies before she died. points for effort i guess but i don't think it deserves much.

i really don't know why this series in particular is like this. most horror franchises will have their movies clearly follow each other and exist within the same continuity, sometimes with a reboot or two if they've gone on long enough (see: halloween having at least three different timelines, but all clearly branching from the same source.) if it's supposed to be an anthology series, they'll just...say that. i've heard it said that this series works best when viewed as variations on a theme, like the original film's events are an urban legend of sorts being told and retold around the campfire and every version is different because everyone remembers it differently or makes up their own. i do like that and think it makes the franchise make more sense but i know most people watching these movies aren't thinking about it like that, they're thinking of them all as sequels to the same movie, with the remake and its prequel being the only ones clearly existing in their own separate continuity.

it's a little sad to see how no one making official movies in the series seems to really care that much about the ostensible source material. maybe i'm biased because it's the film my brain latched onto the hardest when i started really getting into horror, but i think this movie is so interesting and there's so much there to explore with the little we're given about these characters and their dynamics and what they do and why they do it, and even if you can't really dive into all that in a movie you could at least use what's already there for your sequel and most of them just...don't. like they don't seem to have watched the original movie even before writing a sequel to it, just going off their own vague memories about that one scary movie about a guy with a human skin mask and a chainsaw. i know i shouldn't be expecting any more from a slasher franchise on its 9th installment but...whatever. it is what it is. this was never supposed to be a franchise in the first place. at least i can shout into the void about my thoughts and feelings on here.

(i think i read somewhere that the filmmakers were actually forbidden from referencing cannibalism in the script for texas chainsaw 3d and if that's true...oh boy. talk about missing the point. if you feel like something significant is missing in the later films in this series that's probably part of it.)

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

I just need a piece of media that combines:

The humor and feeling of community we got from S1 of OFMD

The storytelling, world, and humanity behind Disco Elysium

Izzy Hands just for fun

You know?

[realbeefman]

i'm a cis woman, but in the past few years i've developed a habit of headcanoning any male character i relate to as a trans women, beginning a fic trying to explore that, and then miserably falling short as i can never figure out how to end the story. i've recently joined a new fandom and started my most recent attempt at writing this ever-elusive character interpretation i've been trying to explain for years. and it occurs to me that maybe the reason i keep trying to interpret these characters i relate to as women and failing to, is because i'm trying to project the wrong experience. because i think that conclusion i can never fully bring myself to write isn't one about coming to terms with womanhood and embracing that identity, but about coming to terms with being a man.

so tldr im a trans man and this is a coming out post.

[novella-november]

Is this fanfic friendly? I feel like an outlier.

I guess this is my sign it's time to throw together a FAQ post to link to lol.

Yes, every event for this blog is fanfic friendly :D

Though as I mentioned on my Ominous October post, for events that include multiple short stories, I encourage everyone to flex their creativity and take one of their planned short story fanfics, and at least *attempt* to turn one of them into something entirely original; rebuilding a character and story from the ground up to stand on its own two legs is no easy feat, and that is what makes it so fun!

It really gets your creative gears turning, to make an "au of an existing material" to be something entirely original, and you can be pleasantly surprised about the things you come up with!

As a few people say, its not just a matter of "filing the serial numbers off" -- you have to add in just as much *or more* as what you take out when you are turning a fanfiction into something that is original and completely divorced from its original source material / inspiration, and that is a hard, but very rewarding challenge!

Obviously, this is not a requirement (there's no hard requirements for any of the challenges, other than no cheating, including no using AI),

but if you would like an extra challenge for the short story events and you're planning on doing entirely fan-fiction, I highly recommend trying it out at least once, and seeing where it leads you--

you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by what you find down that rabbit hole!

[greatlyblessed]

I'd like to take a moment to say hi to the fandom ghosts.

You guys out there who read fics, look at the pretty arts, watch the fanvids. Don't comment, don't like, don't kudos. Just enjoy.

I for one am glad you're here. I'm glad that you chose to spend your spare time reading the stories I've put out there. It's okay that you don't kudos, or leave a comment. I put my fics out there for anyone who cares to read, and that includes you guys.

I hope you continue to find things that spark joy. Even if we never know about it.

[jackfrostimposter]

genuinely why is there so much misinformation about the guardians of childhood book series?