#edit i just checked and it's on the first page if you sort by kudos

[phaedo]

there are so many bad takes about wicked on this website and i truly cannot invest the time and energy to return to my 14-year-old self and talk about it in more detail

[genavere]

Hi there, Genavere speaking to you about Flame's Desire, a Fairy Tail fanfic set in an AU world with dark themes and a slower-than-lava-on-a-flat-surface slow burn.

What can help grab your attention to it? One, have you heard of @theguildawards? A blog that helps show case Fairy Tail content twice a year by holding nominations and voting for fanfictions and fanart. This story has won the Guild Awards 2022, Term One: Best Dark Fiction Award. Lucy knew she was going to die. - First sentence of the first paragraph of the first chapter. Why does she think that will happen? Guess you will need to read it to find out!

Here are some stats for you: Chapters: 28/Ongoing Upload rate: Currently scheduled to update twice a month! The latest chapter just dropped! Word Count: 150,229 - Nice, big, sexy number that will only get BIGGER! If you do the math, this fic is now over 600 pages in a novel! Rating: M for Mature - You have blood and violence, dark fantasy topics, epic battles, and a well developed story that builds on itself and the characters. Have I mentioned how slow of the slow burn it is? Those who love to read 200k+ fics where the love interests just touch hands will think this is too fast! As someone who adores established relationships in my stories, this is killing me Ships to Look for: Nalu, some Mira/Laxus, Jellal/Erza Troupes: Reincarnation, Sun/Moon, Nomadic Culture represented, Draconic people, Found Family, Protective Natsu, Protective Lucy

What others say about this story: Wow, this is really good. I can't wait for more. I love the world you've set up, it's rugged and beautiful. =D You write the characters very well, too. I'd love to see more from you! - GentleTouchGinger What a rip roaring start. I forgot how intense it was. Don't mind me while I reread this - alainehope EEP! I absolutely LOVE this story! I haven't come across a fairy tail story anything like it, and it's absolutely amazing! I cannot wait for the 5th chapter to come out! Everything about it is wonderful, minimal grammar/spelling mistakes, great story concept, and everyone's personalities match up with the fairy tail versions. anyway, keep up the good work and i will make sure to keep checking in on this story :) - Ellie Oh my gosh please continue this story, I love how you don’t portray Natsu as TOO dense and innocent as some other stories. - Kotorro I'm so glad they finally sorted things out! I'm foaming at the mouth waiting for the courting dances though - and wishing Lucy was wearing the garland Natsu made for her! Wonderful chapter! <3 - SleeplessSagittarius Oh my gosh I'm SCREAMING this is just so full of suspense and you're descriptions of everyone's magic are beautiful! - smol_warrior_1258 What an exhilarating chapter! Loved it! - ottermadness

In the end, only YOU can allow yourself to read an amazing story that is full of heart, characterization, great story points, and depth. Only YOU can allow yourself a simple click and check out one of the best stories in the fandom (in my opinion). This story is Written, Edited by @kiliinstinct, then Beta'ed by @phoenix-before-the-flame, gone over again by Kili, and then posted for our enjoyment... ...and all for free. Don't be a smuck and ask, "wHy sHouLd i?" Just allow yourself the awesomeness and free entertainment.

And don't forget to leave a Kudo and a comment!

do i really wanna read it tho? U beta'd it but whats so good about it? I wanna know

I have good taste in things. Ask any of my online comrades, i scarcely reccomend bad things.

Good characterization all around for both major and minor characters. I'm particularly fond of how Natsu is written in the fic.

Ever expanding lore. The world in the storys constantly bein built and expounded on.

Good pacing. Lives up to the slow burn tag (though im evil and think it could be slower, but alas, Rougie thinks thatd be too evil to do.)

Great action. Might be graphic to some but its an M rated fic for a reason.

Theres romance there but it isnt slapped on, its actually something that progresses and slowly grows instead of bein like, speedran.

I did another post here before on this a while back

You won't know if you'll like it if you don't give it a shot for yourself :]

[masteryaddleisagilf]

I got curious, so I did a bit of “research”

The most popular fic in English is an NSFW (incredibly raunchy, wow) Guardians of the Galaxy fic with 128.179 kudos.

In Mandarin, it is a mature RPF fic of the actors from The Untamed that resulted in AO3 being blocked in Mainland China. It currently has 26.916 kudos

For Spanish, the prize goes to an explicit omegaverse & mpreg The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System fic with  3.245 kudos

Indonesian gives us a BTS college AU with 1.569 kudos and French stays on the bandom vibes by giving us an explicit One Direction dystopian story. But the band rpf award goes to Tagalog* ***, with their first page (sorted by kudos) being all Kpop (ENHYPEN, EXO & SEVENTEEN) and no-fandom.

(For those curious, Korean has a low amount of Kpop rpf on their first page. I assume they publish it somewhere else)

Egyptian Hieroglyphics (which, yes, is an option on AO3) gives us a beautiful song translation with an impressive 495 kudos. I really recommend everyone check it out; it is incredible. Welsh** (160) and Old English (222)  also had their most popular work have an English translation. Latin (124), on the other hand, is just fully in Latin. There are a few translations, but they are provided by other people and not the original author.

Greek has a lot of Greek political RPF. Like, a lot. 

I was incredibly surprised by the fact that you can write fanfiction in Quebecois sign language. I was not surprised at all by the fact that Sindarin was an option.

.

A few of the languages had their most popular stories not be in that language and just be a case of mislabelling (or, in some cases, people using less-used languages on AO3 as dumping grounds for tests or personal notes.) Also, there were a couple of languages with no stories at all. 

If you have been thinking about writing fic in a language other than English, take this as a call for action. There are a lot of people out there reading in all sorts of languages. Even in languages with only a couple kudos, those are a couple of people who are incredibly happy to find a story of a media they love in a language they love too.

. Edits from 7/12/2022:

* Filipino*** is the standardized version of Tagalog and the way Ao3 refers to the language, which is why that is the word used instead of Tagalog. Feel free to reach out if there is a better way to word that sentence. 

** Welsh was included next to Old English as they both had English translations, and not as an implication that it is a dead language. Welsh is a living, thriving language with more than half a million speakers.

.

Edits from 26/12/2022:

*** More Tagalog speakers reached out asking me to change the language name to Tagalog. I did. The original note is left for those looking at the notes/asks and wondering what is going on. 

[thelucyverse]

Fic writer/reader ask

(particularly for ao3, as I don't think all other sites have the same stats page)

WRITER QUESTIONS

I tried not to add any jealousy or anxiety inducing ones about kudos and those kinds of stats, and keep this fun for everyone with interesting questions!

1. Top 3 fandoms written for (dash - fandoms)

2. Fandom you have most WIPs for

3. Do you have any abandoned works?

4. Are your comment threads (stats-totals) more or less than half of your inbox total?

5. Do you have more works or more bookmarks?

6. Without checking - which tags do you think you've used most?

7. Top 3 tags (works - filters - additional tags)

8. Ever written something inspired by other fanworks?

9. Ever done a collab with another writer or artist?

10. Most used rating (works - filters - ratings)

11. Ever used the 'inspired by' ao3 function?

12. One-shots or multichapters?

13. Most productive year (stats - years -wordcount)?

14. Ever written smut?

15. Do you reply to all comments?

16. Ever had someone make fanart, edits, podfic to your fic?

17. Do you accept (constructive) criticism in the comments?

18. Favorite kinds of comments?

19. Ever had someone write something inspired by your fic?

20. Are any of your stories translated into another language?

21. Do you write in your first or a second language?

22. First fandom you've written for?

23. Any tumblr tags to check if someone wants to find more about your writing?

24. Ever written a translation of your own or someone else's fic?

26. Last sentence you've written

27. Favorite quote from one of your fics

28. Still remember a favorite comment?

29. Ever made a collection and/or series?

30. Do you like writing for prompts, challenges etc?

31. Beta or no beta? What do you ask betas to look for?

32. Written any drabbles (100 word fics) or other exact wordcount challenges?

33. Most used warning, if any? (works - filters - warnings)

34. Ever check your Statistics, if yes what did you look for?

35. What fic or series of yours has the most/longest tags?

36. Standard author's note?

37. Standard end note?

38. Do you cross-post your works on several sites? Where?

39. Do you promote your works other than just posting them? How/why/why not?

40. Favorite story you've written? (in general or for a specific fandom)

READER QUESTIONS

A) Ever tried to leave kudos twice?

B) Ever managed! (through an old glitch) to leave kudos more than once?

C) Favorite writers? Feel free to @ if they're on tumblr & you want to make them smile!

D) Ever read on sites other than ao3?

E) Favorite fandom to read fic for

F) Favorite trope(s)

G) Pwp or gen fic?

H) Joined any author's mailing lists?

I) Ever read fic for a fandom without knowing the canon?

J) Shippy fics or character studies?

K) Do you listen to podfic?

L) What's your standard comment?

M) Do you have comfort fics you can re-read again and again?

N) Best fic you've read this week

O) A tag you always click 'exclude' on

P) Do you use author's bookmarks to find more fic you might like?

Q) Latest fic in your search history?

R) Bookmark, subscribe, mark for later or open tabs?

S) Are custom layouts and skins nice or annoying?

T) Sort by date posted, kudos, something else?

U) Check out author's pages or go back to tag search after reading a good fic?

V) ever use the bookmark search instead of the work search?

W) Oldest fic in your search history? (history - scroll down to bottom - click last page)

X) Ever made a fic-rec list?

Y) Any peeves that immediately make you click back out of a fic?

Z) Long fics or short fics? / Favorite fic length?

#) Ever had someone gift a fic to you?

§) A fandom or ship you wish had more fic for you to read

%) A feature you wish ao3 had

Because apparently this needs to be spelled out: as by the title, this is an ask meme! Send asks, not replies, not reblog additions tagging people! Asks!

[gerec]

This might be a weird question, but what’s your approach to reading/searching for fics? As in, do you read based on most recently posted, most comments/kudos, etc? I’ve been relying on tumblr rec lists for cherik content so far but am getting through most of them hehe, so will probably be searching on ao3 myself more

Actually, I check the Erik/Charles and XMFC tags on ao3 every few days, to see if any new/recently posted fics catch my eye based on the summary/author. But that's mostly because I've been in this fandom so long that I really do feel like I've read everything - certainly I've read most/all the usual suspects that tend to grace every fic rec list. :D If you've only been reading based on rec lists so far I think you should definitely start doing searches directly on ao3.

The easiest/fastest way to find stuff to read is to just sort by kudos and/or hits based on your pairing or fandom. That's going to immediately bring up the most popular fics. The next step is to filter by adding an existing tag that interests you. Do you like alpha/omega? Regency aus? Coffee shop aus? High School aus? Canon fics? Mpreg? Boom - top x type fics in the fandom sorted by kudos or hits.

The next step after THAT is to use the 'search within results' field, specifically if you're looking for something that might not necessarily show up as a tag. For instance, if you're interested in fics dealing with art or artists, you might type those key words into the field which will pull up a bunch of fics that mention them in the fic title, tags or summary. You might get some stuff that's not 100% relevant but you will definitely find stuff that does apply. Ao3's search function is incredibly robust; you don't know how often I've been able to find a specific fic for someone just from messing around with the tags and filters :D

By the way, if you haven't heard of it you should definitely check out the old X-Men First Class Fic Rec Blog. It'll mostly be older fics in the fandom (the blog is on indefinite hiatus) but definitely still an excellent resource!

Edited to add: If you read a fic and enjoyed it, hit up the author's ao3 page and read everything they wrote for the fandom! It's a GREAT way to find new stuff to read :D

Hope this helps!

[aprillikesthings]

I'm so envious of people who write fast and write easily. I can often picture scenes but then I go to describe them and there's just no way they'd work that way, or once it's in words it looks fucking dumb, or I can't find the words to describe the things I can feel and see in my head, and there are days it's like this monumental effort to get down ANYTHING.

But also: up until l literally 2016 I had convinced myself I couldn't write fiction at all! So part of me still believes it's all been a fluke and I will once again be unable to write fiction any day now. Which isn't true??? That's. Not how it works.

I only started writing because I'd fallen hard for Amethyst/Peridot in SU, and there was a tiny handful of fics in the tag. I wrote down a silly headcanon in narrative form and posted it before I could change my mind--and people liked it!

And then I had an idea for a story, and then another story, and then another one--and people liked them! I was writing for a tiny corner of the fandom, but anything new I posted got about 100-150 hits and a few dozen kudos in the first 24-48 hours, because that was the number of people obsessively checking the ship's tag and attempting to read everything.

(It's still funny to think about, but I wrote, like, a double-digit percentage of the explicit Amedot fics out there; which means that anyone who liked smutty stories of those two had likely at least attempted to read my stories!)

And then like a week after the first K/DA video came out, I managed to post the first explicit Akali/Evelynn K/DA fic, and shit blew up from there. I will never forget the :O of watching my hit count climb to 1000 in a single day. I kept refreshing the fic over and over and realizing: dozens of people are reading this. Right this second. While I sit here in my pj's. WHAT. THE FUCK.

For a few months? I think?, that first K/DA fic of mine was the third most kudos'ed fic for the entire League of Legends fandom tag!

(If you sort for the pairing/explicit/by kudos, I'm still on the first page; but definitely not top five, lol.)

I still think my K/DA fics are some of my best writing, but a huge reason for it was being in a very active server (...which I started) and constantly bumping ideas off of each other. Also if you're writing all the time you just get better at it!

I wrote a few things for Arcane, and what's wild is that one of them is my most popular fic by FAR, but so many people were reading Arcane (...okay, specifically CaitVi) fics that that one is nowhere near the top for that fandom, by any way of measuring things.

ANYWAY. I've said all this before.

But I'm hella out of practice writing fic. I mostly yell into the void here when I'm stuck on something, though I've been doing that less lately.

But I've never been a fast writer! There's been a handful of times I've managed more than a thousand words in a single day, and I know people who can do like 4k words per day on the regular, no problem.

And even the stuff I do write, these days I want to edit like fifty times before posting them. Mostly because my ability to spot issues in my writing is sharper than my ability to fix them, I guess? But also because I constantly change my mind on things.

I'm not going to lie: I knew I wouldn't get a lot of readers, I'm writing an au a lot of people don't care about four years after the end of the show. But it still sucks to see how slowly any of my numbers increase. I got hella spoiled back in the day; I took a screenshot of the kudos email after I posted the one explicit CaitVi fic I wrote because it was BANANAS. (And posted it to facebook to brag lol.)

But dammit, I want to tell this fucking story. I haven't even gotten to the good fun stuff yet; the stuff I'm really excited about that I've seen in my head a thousand times.

I keep refusing to let myself write it, out of fear I won't write the stuff in between, but I think I might sketch out some of my ideas anyway, just to help push me to write the stuff between now and then.

ugghghgh it's been nearly a week since I managed to write anything on my au fic but I got some words down finally

Dunno if they're any good but it's something

Writing them being apart, meeting new friends; all that shit--it's difficult!

But also once again I ended up googling shit like "what were school lunches like in the 1960's" (bad, but mostly bad in the same way home cooking was at the time--nothing fresh, lots of meatloaf and canned green beans and pints of milk)

[its-afucking-mess]

A little guide on ao3 (by an ao3 user and writer)

Friendly reminder for mobile users! Ao3 is a website. It doesn't have (as far as im concerned) an official app for mobile, so better get comfy with using crome on your phone.

Some video links ill leave for people who prefer video and audio:

- navigating the fanfiction sites

- popular fandom terminology part 1 and part 2

- shipping etiquette

i really reccomend coley's videos if you want to get to know more fandoms, or get an inside look to how some stuff works. There also might be more vids about fandom's and fan works, so don't hesitate to look through some of her stuff!

the explaining under the 'read more' ao mutuals wont kill me :)

(also tagging @ethanesimp since they asked for this advice )

So, what is Ao3 really?

Ao3 is a website made by fans for fans. There are no ads, and all content is free on Ao3. Anyone can post (with some age restrictions) and they can post anything.

How can I browse Ao3?

Ao3 does not require an account to view stories. You can easily browse as an anonymous user. You just are not able to view certain works, as creators have the ability to show their works to registered users only. Some cases, commenting is possible while anonymous, but again, it's up to the creator of the work.

If you want to be a creator and share works, you need an account.

An account also gives you the ability to bookmark works, so you can re-visit them, mark works for later, keeps a history of the works you've visited and allows you to favourite tags.

How do I get an Ao3 account?

When you first open the site, it gives you the option to "Get Invited". An invitation will be sent to your email anywhere from 24hrs later to a week later, depending on the amount of people in the automated queue.

After the invitation, you are able to set up your account like any other social media account. Pick a username, pseuds (name), description and bio. You can have a profile picture as well.

How do I navigate the site?

There are few ways to do so efficiently, but there's countless of ways you can experiment with to find which is more comfortable.

1st option: As the website loads, you can go to the 'Fandoms' tag.

Then, after clicking on it, this column appears. Through there, you can pick which media your fandom is from and from there, browse the huge list of different fandoms until you spot your own.

The list is in alphabetical order, so if your fandom begins with an "C", it shouldn't be too far down.

2nd option: At the top right, under your profile, and the options 'Post' and 'Log Out' should be a white oval search bar.

(im using my own account for demonstration)

When searching, there are many ways to work around it.

Personally, I press search as it is. It will lead you to a page where all the fanworks of the site are listed. (i believe its easiest, but always feel free to experiment)

From there, you press the 'Edit Your Search' button, located near the top right.

It will then lead you to a page with multiple fields.

Don't panic when you see all the fields. Only half those are of interest when you want to browse works for a fandom.

The most important ones are those under the Field name 'Work Tags'

Whatever you select under this field will be included in the works the site presents you with.

What are the work tags? What do they do?

Lets go through the options.

Fandom(s): when typing on this option, multiple fandom names will autofill in a list under the white space. If your fandom shows up, you can just click on it.

example:

From there, you can select the fandom you want to see works from. If your fandom doesn't show up, it can mean one of two things:

-there are no works for it

-it isn't popular enough to be picked up by the algorithm

After selecting one fandom, you can select another fandom, or more, to see works that are crossovers over universes.

Ratings: Ratings are selected by author. It defines the level of maturity it has in the work

- General audiences is the tag you want to use when nothing bad happens in the work. No swearing, no sexual activities, no violence or gore. It wont contain scenes that minors are not allowed to see.

- Teen and up audiences is the tag used for most works on the site. It is what would be used when you have mentions of/vague sexual content or violence. Normally, the most extreme stuff on there is excessive swearing, heavy angst and hurt/comfort with no excessive details

- Mature is the tag that is for 18+. It is mostly filled with one of following : Violence, Sexual Content, Ab*se, R@pe, Death and SH.

Reader descretion is advised by looking at the additional tags the author has provided, especially for those with triggers.

- Explicit is like Mature, but contains more graphic content. Works rated explicit mostly fall under the 'Graphic depictions of sexual content', 'Graphic depictions of Violence and Gore' or 'Graphic depictions of Ab*se, R@pe, or Self H*rm

Reader descretion is advised, stronger than mature, since it can be much more triggering. The works are scarily detailed sometimes.

- Not rated: the author has not given this work a rating because none of the other ratings fit the work. Pay special attention to the tags.

Warnings: Also known as Archive warnings by older users. The trigger warnings of Ao3. There are 6 archive warnings:

-Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings: The author didn't use the warnings, either because none of them fit the work's theme and warnings, or to avoid spoiling the story. Pay attention to the tags for any warnings.

-Graphic Depictions Of Violence: It is pretty self explanatory. Can contain any sort of violence, from wars, to simple fights, to ab*se of any kind. Can and often contain death. The type of violence is in the tags.

-Major Character Death: A main character in the story will die in this work. Pay attention to the tags always. The name of the character will be mentioned, as well as the way they die.

-No Archive Warnings Apply: None of the warnings apply. It is most times a perfectly safe work. Check the tags to make sure though!

-R@pe/Non-Con: The work contains non-consensual activities. Ranges from non-consensua sex to non-consensual use and ab*se of substances. Very close attention to the tags!

-Underage: The main character(s) in this work are underage/minors. This is normally tagged along sexual content so be aware and pay close attention to the tags!

Categories: This regards the relationships in the work:

- M/M, or better known as mlm or a relationship between two non-woment (men mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- M/F, a heterosexual relationship (is inclusive of trans characters too!)

- F/F, or wlw, or a relationship between two non-men (women mostly, can include characters under the non-binary umbrella)

- Gen, no sexual or romantic relationships are in this work, or if there are any, they arent of main focus.

- Multi: Polyamorous relationships, or multiple relationships are included in this work (this is also where threesomes+ are tagged in sometimes)

- Other relationships: One of the two people in the relationship is non-human (mostly), or the relationships are platonic/family.

Characters: The characters you want to be included in the story. This works just like the 'Fandom' filter, so the same things apply. You can tag as many characters as desirable.

Relationships: The relationships that you want present in the work. This includes both major and minor relationships. It can also include ended relationships (tagged Past x/y) and implied/referenced relationships. This works just like the Characters and Fandom filter.

Additional Tags: These are things the author has included to give potential readers an insight to the story. 'Angst', 'Fluff' and 'Smut' are additional tags. Works like the Relationships filter, so all same applies.

Is there anything I have to avoid/ I should avoid?

There is this very infamous tag, 'Dead Dove: Do not eat.' This tag is a warining to readers that the things in the work are really messed up, and can include anything illegal in it. PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE REST OF THE TAGS IF YOU STILL ARE INTERESTED.

How else can I filter works?

You can choose how they are:

sorted (Titles, Authors, Hits, Kudos, Comments, Bookmarks, and Best Match)

the word count (from 1 word to millions)

the language (most are on there)

the amount of chapters

if the work is complete of not

when it last updated/when was posted

and if there are crossovers.

These are all options that author has to include, and therefore you can sort freely. Most are bulletin options you can click on.

What if I want to find a specific work?

If you happen to know one of these: Author, Title, Fandom or Rating, you will find it. If you were reccomended one, it's better to ask for the author or the title, to make looking for it easier.

Can I find a specific author/ user?

People search is for finding users on the site

Bookmark search helps you look through other people's public bookmarks. Not really used.

Tag search finds works that include this specific tag you searched. Also not used a lot.

People can see my bookmarks?

When bookmarking a work, you are able to do a lot.

if you do not want your bookmarks to be visible to the public, make sure to check off the Private bookmark box at the bottom left.

Common terms thrown around by Ao3 users:

-tags: the additional tags of the work

-kudos: liking a story

-bookmarks: saving/saved stories. makes it easy to revist. you can see your bookmarks from your profile

-hits: the amount of people that have clicked on a story. Isn't necessary they liked it, but they did click on it.

And those are the basics! If you had to take one thing only, its ALWAYS READ TAGS

I hope this helped the clueless souls even a bit :)

Im open to reply to any other questions, and you can send me them in my asks, messages or comments of this post

[dotsayers]

20 Questions: Writer’s Edition

tagged by the beloved @myrmidryad 

this is a LONG one so here’s a cut to avoid do you love the colour of the sky syndrome

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

101 after a recent purge... no one may know about my Past

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

329004! used to be about 350k but again... purge

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on ao3 i’ve written for (chronologically) doctor who, skyfall, discworld, les mis, star trek, lord peter wimsey, marvel (various), in the flesh, red vs blue, roosterteeth rpf, check please, hockey rpf, star wars, daredevil, rivers of london, dishonored, emmerdale, dirk gently, holby city, hot fuzz, kj charles, guardian, the covert captain, taskmaster rpf, good omens, ghosts, roswell new mexico, leverage, schitt’s creek, the magicians, 9-1-1, it chapter two, the magnus archives, the old guard, the mandalorian, the ritual, the locked tomb

way back on the pit of voles i wrote for twilight, harry potter, hetalia and xmen first class. and on the newsround chatrooms i wrote exclusively harry potter fic about my oc neville and luna’s daughter

as you can tell i am not prone to staying in one fandom writing wise, i tend to end up with one complete fic and seven abandoned wips concealed deep in my google drive

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

finally see what it means to be living (captain marvel, carol/maria, i really hit the zeitgeist with this one i think i was something like the fifth fic in the ship tag)

do whatever you think (the magnus archives, this series is actually #2-7, then #8 #9 and #11 for me so i’m going to cheat a bit)

standing in a world of my own (daredevil, matt/foggy/karen, another zeitgeist hit! really miss writing for daredevil actually... it’s a perennial fave)

a winding road that stretches towards the truth (iron man, tony/rhodey, i STILL don’t know when this got so many kudos. i swear i looked away when it was at 100 and suddenly it ended up here)

where the long shadows grow (star trek aos, kirk prime/spock prime, thank god some people are checking the prime kirkspock tag is all i’m saying!)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i don’t really Do angsty endings... possibly a blanket of stars just because i ended it on something of a cliffhanger and then completely zoned out of rnm for long enough that i forgot where i was going with it. there was definitely the intention of fixing things but then i just... did not do that. and now the show is on s3 and i’m over a season behind! life comes at you fast

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

where the long shadows grow, because it reunited kirk prime and spock prime and they DESERVE TO BE HAPPYYYY. i’m a complete sucker for presumed dead/back from the dead stories, actually, so on a similar theme i have two (TWO) daredevil fics which follow the trope, one about ray coming back post-s2 (might never be normal again) and one about foggy and matt reuniting post-endgame (in the corner, taking up space). this is the only time i will ever acknowledge endgame ever again

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

i do write crossovers! in fact i am often roundly mocked by my friends for the increasingly esoteric nature of my crossovers. way back in secondary i wrote a twilight/labyrinth crossover where angela was sarah and jareth’s daughter  because i had a massive crush on a girl who liked both twilight and labyrinth. however, since that has been comprehensively scrubbed from the internet, i think my craziest crossover is probably part three of ‘traced upon the skies’, already an esoteric crossover of rivers of london and hot fuzz, when i added in a crossover with the horror movie ‘the ritual’ just because i wanted rafe spall’s character to be happy 

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

EXTREMELY rarely and only with extreme embarrassment. i will not be any more specific than that

9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i used to really struggle with doing this, to the point that i had over 300 comments just. lingering in my inbox unanswered. so i decided to give those up and just commit to answering them from then on, which has been working fairly well for about a year and a half now. i love getting comments but i get overwhelmed really easily and struggle with replying in a way which feels meaningful without getting in my head about it! 

10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yes lmao it was for a harry potter fic on ff.net where harry got sorted into hufflepuff instead of gryffindor. it wasn’t a very good fic but i think the fact it was clearly written by an 11 year old should have scared off at least some of the less flattering comments.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don’t... think so? i don’t know how i’d find out to be honest, my vanity googling is rarely very effective

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! as bronze may be much beautified (skyfall, mallory/bond) got translated into chinese, i was extremely pleased. i think it’s mandarin but the ao3 page for the translation doesn’t say and my mandarin is.................. extremely poor

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

also yes! me and jess little-smartass have written a lot together, although only our star trek/les mis series has been published, more’s the pity. we spent a lot of les mis fandom time workshopping aus and we were always extremely correct about all of it, imo

14. What’s your all time favourite ship to write for?

oh god. i think probably kirk/spock, although there’s some recency bias to that since i reread space manhattans recently and was reminded of my love for them. i really like writing jon/martin but i’ve mostly done that from outsider pov which is a bit different to writing shipfic, i think. joe/nicky from tog was also something i really liked writing but i struggle with plotting longer fic with them

15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

i recently went through my abandoned fic folder so i actually have a few options for this. the obvious choice would be ‘any of the hockey ones’ but i did delete most of those just for my sanity. more recently i started writing a vaguely smutty pre-the thing mac/fuchs fic for alex @milkdrinker5000 which i really WANT to finish but am struggling with. most obscure answer (even beyond the thing) and most likely to remain unfinished is the insanely in depth post-tog booker/copley fic i had planned out back in about october. i wrote a good 6-7k of that one and then i realised it was going to be, like, difficult, and decided if i was going to put that much work into something it may as well be the novel im meant to be writing

16. What are your writing strengths?

once a friend told me i had an excellent facility for dialogue and ive thought about it every time i write ever since. i love writing dialogue and i think i’m good at knowing what sounds ic and what is right out. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

one of the things i struggled with for a really long time, and honestly still have trouble with, is depicting action in words. once i wrote a hockey fic which featured multiple hockey games and i spent probably four times as much effort editing those to make sense and be interesting that i’ve ever done on a talkier scene.

18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

i’ve done it but only when i knew more or less what i was talking about - i did italian at school so i felt confident using it for nicky in something particular and real. i try not to italicise when i drop in words from other languages, which is what i usually do when i’m using a language i haven’t studied in depth (for example, joe’s use of arabic in some of my fic), and to only use words which i’ve heard used by native speakers in that context. i think if you don’t feel confident using another language, generally speaking, you shouldn’t do it. and for god’s sake don’t use google translate for a full sentence

19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

harry potter on the newsround chatboards. ariana lovegood-longbottom my sweet child

20. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

this used to be an easy question because hands down the fic i was proudest of on posting it was i’ll be seeing you. i spent a year and a half on research and writing! but these days i do cringe a little at my hockey fic, and i think i’m prouder of some of my shorter works. let’s do a curveball and say layer on layer, down on down, which is my favourite of my rnm fics and the one i like most from a narrative voice perspective. getting michael right was stressful and i’m still proud i got it down for a TIME LOOP FIC, my absolute favourite trope

tagging @little-smartass and @leescoresbies just in case they want to try this

[sarkywoman]

Writing Asks

Tagged by @under-the-shady-tree, thanks!

20 questions, writer’s edition, let’s go!!

How many works do you have on AO3? 85

What’s your total AO3 word count? 712708

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Oof, uh... since like, 1999? Um, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Andromeda, Supernatural, Heroes, NCIS, DC, Marvel, The Umbrella Academy, Kingsmen, ASoIaF/Game of Thrones, Borderlands, Community, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, Doctor Who/Torchwood, Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, Misfits, I think I’ve forgotten some...

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Noble Blood (Game of Thrones, ASoIaF - GRRM)  A Song of Bastards and Wards (ASoIaF - GRRM, Game of Thrones)  Young God (Borderlands)  Story and Sorcery (Loki: Agent of Asgard, Marvel)  My Shame is True (The Umbrella Academy (TV))

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? I try to! Comments are so important in the fanfic community and I know how hard it is to think of something to say about a story, even when you’ve loved it to bits, so I don’t want people to feel ignored. Especially because I appreciate comments so, so much! I will say though, I have lapses, often when my mental health isn’t good, where I simply don’t know how to respond to people and then months go by and I feel weird about replying... so sorry if you’ve ever commented on one of my stories and got silence - it was me not you!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? The Aimless One (Misfits (TV 2009)) Straight up the saddest story I’ve written, no question. Normally writing sad stuff doesn’t make me sad but I had to take a break in the middle of this to just try and grapple with the idea I’d had because it tapped into a lot of depressing thoughts I have about life and death in general. The comments were all complimentary but so upset that at first I was like ‘hooray, it had the desired impact’, then after a while I started to think ‘why did I want to hurt people like this?’

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? Probably  Realising All You Ever Wanted, a Hobbs/Dirk fic for the Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency fandom. There’s such minor conflict in that one that the sugary sweet ending isn’t out of place. 

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written? Well. I have some fandoms that are sort of crossovers already, things like Marvel where you have comic versions and movie versions and it doesn’t really feel like a crossover to be picking and choosing. Same with a Dirk Gently/Thor fic I did, because Thor cameos in the DG canon, but not this Thor. I think the most ambitious crossover I’ve worked on was a collaborative chatfic with @freshgratednutmeg that we’re never likely to post, where the need for more background characters in an Umbrella Academy A/o fic led to it being crossed over with Marvel and Brooklyn 99. (Leading to such amusements as Diego sparring with Rosa, and Five competing with Shuri in class.)

Have you ever received hate on a fic? Yeah, but it’s never been very well-reasoned so it’s been fairly easy to dismiss. Some people expect everyone to share their own perspective of the characters and it’s weird.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? Not really. I can go there and have done on occasion, but it doesn’t interest me very much. I think I did it more when I was younger because I felt like it was a necessary aspect of grown-up fanfic writing (when I started I was a teenager amongst mostly adults... or other people lying about their age too lol). These days I’m more likely to fade to black or allude to the acts. But I’m not averse to writing it or anything, but it’s never the focus of my story.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Only in the sense that I see them on other sites I didn’t upload to, sometimes in other languages, sometimes not. They normally say my name somewhere on them so they’re not stolen as such, but it’s still uncomfortable to see my work circulated to other sites without my permission.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Not with my permission, but yeah. I don’t know how to feel about translations. Obviously I want people of other languages to be able to read my work, but at the same time I’m not fluent enough to be able to check the translator’s work, so I won’t know if they’ve done any better than google. Word choice is pretty important in fiction. A bad translation can totally warp a text.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not for posting or sharing, but me and @freshgratednutmeg cowrite all the time.

What’s your all time favorite ship? All time?! That’s impossible to answer. I’m a multi-shipper for starters, in pretty much every fandom I’ve been in. When I find a ship I love, I love it intensely above all others for the duration of the fixation. Then eventually it gets set aside when I find a new fandom. I’m also indecisive enough to not really have an all-time favourite anything. 

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? A Song of Bastards and Wards (ASoIaF - GRRM, Game of Thrones). I can’t begin to describe the pages of notes I have for this beast. Unless I threw them out, which... scanning my room... is a distinct possibility. Ouch. I’d hoped to parallel the books for a long time with this one, but the amount of work for a project like that is too much when you’re no longer as passionate about the source fandom. I suspect what I might do is scenes with interconnecting notes, just so people get some sense of closure.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue, baybee! Kinda makes me want to be a scriptwriter. People are always telling me that the characters ‘sound like’ them. I think it’s from reading voraciously from when I was young and being quite a social child, that moving speech patterns and quirks into writing is something that comes very naturally to me. Too natural, in fact, because IRL I write how I speak and that’s not always suited to the situation.

What are your writing weaknesses? Most things other than dialogue. Even thought processes are an internal dialogue, so they’re okay, but then like... a fight scene? A sex scene? Just even... what are their hands doing while they’re talking? How are these people physically present? Where are they? Are they inside, outside, is the building on fire? My descriptive skills are lacking, to say the least. It’s something I’m working on.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? I’m not quite sure what’s meant by this. I’m not fluent in anything other than English so I don’t see that would work well for me. I know a few phrases in German/French/Welsh/Latin/Spanish but nothing useful for conversation. Dropping in words can work, if it’s the same way the speaker would use them amidst their English. Most of the time the characters I’m writing wouldn’t be speaking in another language anyway. We can blame the tag-team of English colonialism and American media for that one I think. I think that sometimes authors utilise a character’s language in a way that just exposes how little the author actually knows of the language and that’s a bit cringe for me.

What was the first fandom you wrote for? Buffy the Vampire Slayer. None of those are online atm because they’re so so bad XD I should post them just so people can see improvement but... I can’t even read them, they’re hilarious. The most gratuitous self-inserts, the most ludicrous arguments, the most out-of-character romantic declarations.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written? Hmm, that’s a quandary. I think I’ll differentiate between favourite to write, and favourite end product. Favourite to write was probably  Noble Blood (Game of Thrones, ASoIaF - GRRM) because it was just a romp through my favourite themes. Given it’s one of my most popular stories, I’d say that just proves you should write what you want! I was going to quickly say  Young God (Borderlands) is my favourite fic for quality of the finished product, because I pretty much just sat down one evening and spilled it into a word doc then reread it back and thought ‘huh, did I write that? Awesome’. But I’m happy with a couple of more recent things I’ve done for The Umbrella Academy fandom, notably  The Price of Parenthood, which is very different to what I usually write and is a look at the life of one of the mothers who gave up her child to Reginald. Also The Water Calls, which was the only thing I managed to write for the recent MerMay event. It took me a little while to puzzle out how it all fit together, then once I had it worked out it came together wonderfully and I was very happy with the tone of it. 

Tagging anyone who fancies doing it.

[much-brighter-ink]

farrah and “how did you fail a survey?”

This is months late, but it’s finally here! Keep in mind that this was written at 1 AM over the weekend and is completely unedited, because if I try to edit it I’ll leave it for later and never actually post. 

598 words, Clark’s POV, only TWs are cursing and a very brief reference to alcohol - enjoy my shitty writing! 

“Yeah, there were two, the Blood cast and the Axe cast- Eliza, no!” Farrah interrupted herself as the tiny curly puppy dove into a pile of mail by the front door, a clasp envelope clutched between her tiny teeth. 

Clark bent down, stroking Eliza’s ears and prying out the envelope. He skimmed the label. “Do you need this?” 

“Addressed to Annleigh O’Daniel and Farrah Torres. I have no idea what the fuck this is, I doubt it’s schedules- oh, shit, Clark, look at this.” 

He glanced over her shoulder at the page. “GCHS Tigers 2017-18 Pre-Season Survey”, the title read, to the left of a huge letter F, circled in orange gel pen. 

“Riley.” 

“How… how did you fail a survey?” Clark muttered, bewildered. “They’re not supposed to be graded, that doesn’t even seem like something Giles Corey would send out-” 

Farrah groaned. “Riley again. I have very little memory of taking this, but here, look at the questions if you’d like.” 

“Mind if I read them aloud?” 

“Be my guest.” 

“Question one. Full name. ‘My name is on the envelope, bitch, smiley face, my middle name is Annleigh’s sixth middle name’-” he turned his focus over to Farrah again. “Do you recall these answers at all?” 

They let out a sigh and an eye roll. “Considering how thrilled I was about cheer this year, how shitfaced I probably was when filling this out, it’s not a surprise that I don’t - though the last one is true, kudos to me for remembering that.” 

“Question two. Pronouns, height and weight, cheer position, date of birth. ‘She/they and I appreciate the woke points’, ‘short enough to kick your ass, maybe ask Chess how much I weigh because apparently she can’t hold that heft’, ‘Flyer,’, ‘July 28, 2002’.” 

Farrah seemed to be in an okay mood, so Clark didn’t bring up the second question again, since she’d stiffened at the mention of Chess in most other contexts. 

Next question. He stared at the paper, trying to make sense of what the survey was asking. 

“Question three. ‘Please check off a personality type, based on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and add T (turbulent) or A (assertive) after the dash at the end of the letter sequence and proceed to question thirty-nine. If you have not yet been typed, please fill out the following quiz and I will send back your type with your score. If you are between types, please write your type(s) in the blank below with an x for a letter you’re stuck between.’ And ‘XXXX-x, first you ask for my birthday and then try to fucking psychoanalyze me? Guess again, loser’… okay, I sort of understand your answer to that. Keywords: sort of.” Clark sat down. “Question thirty-nine. Multiple choice, again. ‘We are: a) the soul of the school, b) the pride in the name, c) the heart and the flame, d) all of the above.’”

Farrah rubbed her temples. “What’d I say?” 

“That you were cheerleaders. I mean… valid? True?” He really didn’t get this, but he doubted they did either. 

“Let’s see the last one.” 

Clark cleared his throat. “Alright - question forty. ‘How do you think we’ll place in competition this year?’ You said, I quote, ‘you tell me, captain, I just got here, parentheses, please don’t @ me’,” he finished. “Any constructive criticism for your past self?” 

Farrah snorted. “More like… literally no captain does this except Riley, she’s way overthinking this.” 

“Fair.” 

“And I’m glad this isn’t part of my transcript, unless she’s managed to hack into my report card.” 

Clark chuckled. “Also fair.” 

[inevitably-johnlocked]

I’m sort of new to AO3 and have a question. I know stories can be reposted on AO3 by changing the date but rarely see it done. Does it violate some hidden expectation of the community if someone reposts without any changes, just for more kudos? Reblogging is literally what tumblr is for. Its a social network, people promote their stories here. But AO3 is not a social network. You're a kind person who knows this community. Pls tell me if I'm out of line thinking this is not acceptable.

Hey Nonny!

Ahhh, as far as I’ve ever seen, the only time I’ve seen a fic “reposted” on Ao3 is if it was either:

Posted originally on FFNet and they’re reposting it to Ao3 because FFNet is essentially dead and terrible;

Someone deleted their story for whatever reason, and decided they erred and wanted it back up; or

They want it under a new pseud, so they repost it and remove the old one.

I’ve never seen it as the one you suggested, but as far as I know, it is a violation to multi-post the same story.

EDIT: Ah yep, it is, under the Spam section:

B. Spam and commercial promotion

Promotion of commercial products or activities is not allowed. Repeated identical or nearly identical posts in multiple places, e.g., a large number of identical comments promoting a website, will also be considered spam regardless of commercial content.

So yeah, Nonny, if you’re seeing it, you should flag it with the Abuse team so they can check it out.

But as I said, usually reposts are one of the three reasons I listed, so give the author a chance first.

EDIT 2: OOF.

HOWEVER.

I just legit re-read your ask again and I apologize, I misunderstood... as far as I know, there’s no TOS against changing the pub date on a fic, but again, I’ve never seen this happen... A fic does get auto-updated every time someone makes a small edit to it, so it MIGHT be a back-end thing that makes the fic bump to the top of the newest-fics thing when an author updates it. I’m not 100 on this, as I don’t publish very many fics. Perhaps someone can let me know the proper etiquette for this practice. Seems... wrong to me, but I’ve old-assed fics no one reads anyway, LOL.

But you ARE right, Ao3 isn’t a social media site. If an author wants people to read their older stories, they should promote them elsewhere, like twitter, or other fic blogs to ask if they can promote them. 

I didn’t know you could change pub dates this outside of drafting the pre-post. I DO believe that it DOES edit the “updated on” part if you make a small change to the fic, which THEN bumps a fic up to the top of the newest page. AGAIN, not sure on that. It seems a bit... improper... to do either of those things, to be frank. I’ve never seen either of these happen here, but I’m just someone who recs stuff people tell me too, LOL.

[theothersarshi]

I’m doing NaNo and thinking. I’ve written a lot of fanfic over the years. 

I started writing fanfic when I was... 13? I think? My first fic contained a Mary Sue, go figure. It was also in the Harry Potter fandom, where I’d landed by desperately searching for this one story I downloaded from a pre-torrent filesharing thing once.

I used to write for favorites and comments back in the good ol’ days of ff.net. I would be so excited to see those, and to have people interact! Any comment was a celebration! I wanted to become POPULAR!

(I was also the sort of kid who was constantly pushed to excel in everything, and who was told/implied she should be one of the top performers in Important Stuff in my region. It’s just a few years ago that I realized I’m allowed to pursue hobbies that I’m not good at; I’m in my thirties now, lol. I like life a lot more now. Go figure.)

I think I tried to follow popular trends and imitate works I enjoyed. It never worked out. 

As time passed and I made an effort to improve my style, things happened. I became more and more pleased with my work; I started editing my own works, and being more careful about what I put on the page. I no longer cringed to reopen old files. And, slowly, I got those kudos and hits and what-have-yous that young me craved, but I think I started liking my stories more than the enthusiasm hit of feedback.

I never achieved the thousands-of-kudos sort of recognition that was my Absolute Goal when I was a teen. But I no longer care so much. I write things, and then I forget about them. And when I come back, it can be a bit of a pleasant shock.

Mangaka (Bleach, Ichigo/Gin) is a story I wrote when I was trying to be more poetic, sort of. I really liked the result, and some other people did, too. I remembered it as being sort of popular. You know. A few dozen kudos.

I checked the stats recently and it doesn’t have “a few dozen” kudos. It has 432 kudos, and 110 bookmarks. This is nuts. It’s one of the most popular fics in the pairing on Ao3. It blows my mind.

The Affair of Loki and Darcy (MCU, sort of Darcy/Loki) is a cheerful crack fic I wrote one evening and which just... blew up. It was among the first fics for the pairing (first 50, anyway). 

I checked it, too. 415 kudos, what the heck?!

Yachiru Knows (Bleach) is one I wrote... and forgot about. Entirely. The memory of it was erased from my mind. I assume I just got a plot bunny and got it out of my system? Probably?

This is hilarious, because it turns out it’s my most popular fic. 493 kudos. I can’t even begin to explain how much I went “what. What. WHAT.” at the screen when I sorted my fics by kudos and saw this one. After forgetting it existed.

But I’m really happy about my recent stuff.

Aimless (Harry Potter, Hermione/Snape) is a story about feeling adrift, empty and depressed and trying to find meaning in life after doing amazing things in one’s youth, while your relationships are falling apart and you don’t know how to fix them. I wrote it over four years, usually when kind of depressed myself, and I was surprised to see it resonated with many more people than I was expecting. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s not insanely popular, but I wasn’t expecting it to be read much at all.) 

But the one I’m weirdly the proudest of is...

A Fair Trade (MCU, Mission: Impossible, Loki/Benji Dunn). 

It’s not the best fic I’ve ever written. It’s not the deepest, or the most thought out. It was written in a frenzy after watching Mission: Impossible and seeing the actor who played MCU’s Hawkeye had a role in a M:I movie or two. I had a plot bunny which was supposed to be pure smut, but it ended up going on for 30,000 words. 

I’m very proud of it because it has 23 kudos. And it is the only fic in this pairing. I have dragged 23 people into this ship that should have never been, and I don’t even know how I did it, but they seemed to like it. 

[ageless-aislynn]

My 2020 Fanworks Year In Review

Let’s start off by saying 2020 was... a year. :S But it was a weirdly productive year for me when it came to writing. I also learned how to do a better job in making GIFs (I think I’m doing better, anyway ;) ) and I made a few vids along the way. So, how about a recap? ;)

VIDS

A little bit of a light year when it comes to vidding. I made 6 vids. All of the Flash vids can be found gathered here as their own chapters, linking back to their Tumblr post or Youtube page. ;)

1. “Stay” (Harry/Caitlin | SnowHarry, The Flash) 2. “Mine” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseFrost, The Flash) 3. “Strict Machine” (Harrison Wells doppelgangers & Eobard, The Flash) 4. “I Know You” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow, The Flash) 5. “I Just Want You Back” (Eobard/Caitlin | Snowthawne, The Flash) 6. “Storm” (Evelyn/Lee, A Quiet Place) (Secret Santa gift for Kat/littletonpace)

GIFs

I’d made a few GIFs before in the past but it was a sort of laborious process using Paintshop and Animation Shop. Now that neither of those work on my current computer, I’ve been looking for new ways to do graphics. After trying out a few free options, I’ve found a method that let’s me combine my vidding skills with GIFmaking and I’m having so much fun! :D Right now, I’m just focusing on trying to make clean GIFs with the occasional hopefully funny caption.

One of the first GIFs made this year:

The last made this year:

Winner of the “I also made a couple of GIFs for something other than the Flash, I promise” Award: ;)

;)

FICS

Yeah, this was the “Go big or... go bigger” year for me when it comes to fics. I wrote what could conservatively be called “a crap-ton” ;) number of fics, all for some variation of Snowells or another... except for the final one. *dramatic music* ;) A previous “big” year for me was 2016 with... 6 fics written. o_O

Cut because there are 50 titles incoming. O_O ;) Please check the ratings/warnings at AO3 for each fic, though I’ll go ahead and warn here for the most explicit. ;) 

1. “The Thousandth and the First” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow/Snowthawne) Chapter 1 was written in 2019, ch 2-10 came in Feb/March of 2020. This is still currently the longest multi-chaptered fic I’ve done. (Note: rated NC17 (E), though a PG13 edited version is available on my Livejournal comm - collected as part 1 and part 2) 2. “Equal Opportunity” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow, Frost/Nash) (Note: rated R (M), PG13 edited version available on my Livejournal comm) 3. “Elevated” (Eobard/Killer Frost | Frostthawne) (Note: rated NC17 (E) The Frostthawne Escapades fics are all higher rated, either for explicitness or being slightly more potty-mouthed than the rest. *looks at Frost* Frost:  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )  4. “First Date Second” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 5. “Star-Marked” (Frost/Nash) 6. “First” (Frost/Nash) 7. “Batman Vs The Robot Flea And The Ninja Hedgehog” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 8. “Fair Play” (Killer Frost/Eobard | ReverseFrost) 9. “Crazy For You” (Frost/Nash) 10. “Breakfast” (Frost/Nash) 11. “Unrequited” (Sherloque/Caitlin | Snowloque) (Chapter 1 of 4, WIP) 12. “Granted” (Caitlin/Harry, SnowHarry) 13. “Caught” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 14. “Five Times Eobard Came To Caitlin’s Rescue (And The One Time She Came To His)” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 15. “What Love Is” (Frost/Nash, Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 16. “Would You Be Mine (And Would You Ask If He’d Be Hers, Too)?”  (Frost/Nash, Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 17. “Getting To Know You” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 18. “Cupid’s Kiss” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow)  (Chapter 1 of 3, WIP) (Note: rated NC17 (E)) 19. “Kidding Around” (Eobard & Caitlin) 20. “Good Evening” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 21. “*With Benefits” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry)  22. “Haunted” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow, Frost/Nash) (Chapter 1 of 5, WIP) 23. “Good Night” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 24. “Melt” (Frost/Nash) 25. “Broken” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 26. “Goodbye/Hello” (Caitlin/Harry, SnowHarry) 27. “Scandal, Us?” (Frost/Nash) 28. “Distraction Techniques” (Caitlin/Harry, SnowHarry) 29. “I Know” (Caitlin/Harry, SnowHarry) 30. “Kitty Cait” (Flashpoint Caitlin/HR, Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 31. “Fire and Frost” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 32. “Somnambulist” (Frost/Nash) 33. “In Need of Rescue” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 34. “Maybe” (Earth-2 Killer Frost/Harry) 35. “Dark/Light” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 36. “Refuge” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 37. “One Day” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 38. “...And Make It Better” (Frost/Nash) 39. “Rhyme Time” (Caitlin/HR) 40. “True Enough” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 41. “Forgiveness” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 42. “More Than Anything” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 43. “Nefarious Business” (Eobard/Killer Frost | Frostthawne) (Note: Part of The Frostthawne Escapades .) 44. “Quitters Never” (Killer Frost/Eobard | ReverseFrost) 45. “Back” (Caitlin/Harry | SnowHarry) 46. “Frostbite” (Killer Frost/HR) 47. “Inevitable” (Eobard/Caitlin | ReverseSnow) 48. “Just Your Average Wednesday”  (Eobard/Killer Frost | Frostthawne) (Note: Part of The Frostthawne Escapades .) 49. “Confession” (Eobard/Caitlin | Snowthawne) 50. “Cold Hands” (Jordan Mahkent/Caitlin Snow, Stargirl, The Flash)

50 exactly, no way! :D My writing muse was on 🔥 fiiiYAH 🔥 this year, lol! ;)

FANWORKS GOALS FOR 2021

Naturally, I hope I can keep improving when it comes to fics, vids and graphics. I have several vid ideas in progress for a couple different fandoms. Hopefully at least a few of them will eventually get done. ;) 

I’m hoping to finish the last of my Snowells Kisses prompts in January, which includes “Unrequited” ch 2-4 (2 and 3 are done), “The Ice Dragon and the Winter Fox” (WIP) and the final prompt, hopefully fittingly titled “Epilogue.” I’m really excited for all of them and I hope anybody who reads will enjoy them. I’ve put a lot of thought and planning into each of them, so... *fingers crossed* that it shows! ;)

“Cupid’s Kiss” ch 2 is done, ch3 is in progress. “Haunted” ch 2- 5 is finished, the sequel “Split” is in progress (probably will be 4-5 chapters). They’ll both be finished before I start posting “Haunted” since it has an “Empire Strikes Back”-style ending. ;) 

I really enjoyed dipping my toe into the Stargirl world and I have several more ideas in store for Jordan and Caitlin but want to finish everything else first. ;) 

The Big Beast of ReverseSnowThawne aka “Try” aka the biggest fic I’ve ever written with the smallest title, lol, is still in progress. If it goes as projected, it might be 25 chapters? :S I’m not sure anybody is here for that but darn it, I still would like to get it done anyway! ;) It’s continuing to lumber along at the rear of the pack. Hopefully it will rumble across the finish line one of these days. ;) (These particular versions of Eowells, Caitlin and Mattobard exist very vividly to me, I don’t even know why. Mattobard!Eobard is a different version than any I’ve written so far and I really want y’all to get to meet him. :D )

Anyway, if you read all of this, thank you. You are a super star! :D Many, many, many thanks to everybody who’s taking time to read, watch, like, kudos but especially to reblog and comment, it means A TON, I cannot even tell you how much. *big, smishy hugs*

Here’s to a 2021 that brings us a much better RL and many more fanworks to enjoy! 

Love to you all! 

♥♥♥

[isidar-mithrim]

Tag game

Thank you for the tag @fightfortherightsofhouseelves and @clarensjoy!! 

Also, I’ll take this opportunity to apologize for all the tag-chain/game I ignored lately! I’m quite busy this period and while I do still check tumblr almost daily – especially now that I can’t wait for new @giblimort‘s amazing portraits *_* – it’s more like a few-minute scroll in the homepage and maybe read the occasional ficlet so I might miss the tags or more probably I might be lazy about answering them ^^’ But it always makes me smile that someone thought of me, so be aware that it’s appreciated and it makes my day lighter <3 @narukoibito @sybill-the-seer @ballerinaroy and I’m surely forgetting someone ^^’

Fandoms: Harry Potter, the one and only ;)

Where you post: Tumblr and Ao3, but I also have an account on the italian fan fiction page EFP (but my last stories are missing and most of the old ones that I’ve translated needs to be changed/edited, so I would kinda beg any passing italians to read them in English or ask me what version I would suggest XD). And one on Wattpad that I haven’t updated in a long while...

Most popular one-shot: Well I’m not sure what defines “popular” here, so I’ll kinda cheat and check the Ao3 stats I think for the first time ever and give you:

one for “most hits”: Fantasies [NSFW and basically Hinny PWP, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised it’s the one with most hits XD]

one for “most kudos”: Standing on tiptoe [whoa, hadn’t seen it coming!]

one for “most bookmarks”: Letters for beyond (featuring the Potters)

one for “most comment threads”: so there are 4 with the same number, two of them are the two above, and between the remaining two I’ll pick A new beginning, a post-war chat between Harry and Neville ^^

Most popular multi-chapter: among my only two proper multi chapters, of which one is incomplete so far and with just 2 chapter and the other is complete with just 3 short chapter (what an achievement XD), Better than fireworks  is the one among all of my stories, including one shots, with “most bookmark”, “most subscriptions” (by far) and also “most comments threads”: [all this support is absolutely amazing, but I admit also kinda make me feel guilty because it’s almost been a year since I posted it and promised to finish it, ups ^^’ And the ironic thing is that I still plan too. One day. Maybe XD]

But I’ll also cheat a little bit again, naming a4 one-shots series, “Have a biscuit”. If you like Neville and McGonagall, I’ll be honored if you’d give it a try ^^

Favourite story written so far: Ahhh that’s a tough one, I tend to be quite fond of my stories (yay for the modesty, lol – I swear that when I’m not that thrilled I always admit it, though XD)... Let’s say “As though by a mother” but I might give a different answer in a week XD

Fic you were nervous to post: I’m not sure I’m never actually “nervous” before posting (more like, afraid that the story won’t appreciated as a I hope/that it won’t interest people), but I guess I must have been a bit nervous before posting my first ever pic translated in English, which also happens to have a not-so-usual writing style: And yet it tastes good

How you choose your titles: Ahhhh, good question. I guess it depends. Tbh I’m not that good at titles, or sometime I have a (supposedly) great one in Italian that doesn’t really translate (or isn’t that good) in English or viceversa. [Example: the “Have a biscuit” serie has English titles that I like way better than the italians, but a story like “Souls of Ink”, while having a good ring in English, to me it’s way more powerful and poetic in Italian, “Anime d’inchiostro”].

Sometimes I don’t have a title until the end and I kinda throw something there, sometimes I have the title from the very beginning and it could be a big part in inspiring the story. I tend to use title that are neither too short nor too long, and I don’t usually use songs quotes or the like. Plus, I’m very happy if the words/phrasing of the title recur literally or metaphorically in the story! I also try to match the “feeling” of the title (and the summary) with the “feeling” of the story. Like, I’d go for a more poetic/dramatic one for an angst story, and for a more comedic-like one for something more fluffy or silly.

Complete: Well, that’s easy, since I mostly stay away from multi-chapters XD (and for good reasons – see above XD) All my one shots, and most of my “closed” series, as in, series that I imagined with a beginning and an end or something like that (so, series like “Next Generation” don’t really have a complete/incomplete status) 

In progress: Again “Better than Fireworks”, and I’ve also just realised that I’ve yet to finish translating (despite being at a decent point) the second and last chapter of “Of Matilda, war and Peace” [speaking about being bad a title, lol XD] Ups ^^’

Coming soon/Not yet started: ahhh coming soon probably nothing, ehm, but I’ve at least 4 one shots in the making and that I want to finish one day (most of them started months if not a years ago... I’ll list them below), plus the draft for the rest of Better than Fireworks, plus several random missing-moments or AUs ideas and a long Hinny post-war story started few years ago in Italian (roughly 100.000 written) that needs to be heavily rewritten, translated and possibly finished ^^ Same for a shorter bit of a Jily seventh-year story, if we have to say it all...

“Ghost of the past”, a Hinny one shot from Ginny’s pov with a difficult conversation – I’m very fond of this one, but I have to work on the second part/end. The first/main part is finished and even betaed by the amazing @narukoibito! <3

“Of those who stayed”, a silver trio one shot – again from Ginny’s pov – during DH, when they try to steal the sword. I’ve the first (long) chapter done and again, even betaed by the wonderful @floreatcastellumposts but knowing myself I want to finish it first. I might decide that it’s okay like this (in Italian I’ve already posted it a one shot), but since I had a sort of sequel in mind for now it’ll stay in my drafts ;)

“The man who lived” – This one is all in just Italian so far (I’m rewriting an old piece – I’d probably restart it directly in English now); again Ginny’s pov (wow, hadn’t realised it!), again DH, this time since she (in my head canon) realise Harry might have gone to Voldemort during the battle, until the end of the battle

A one shot that’s it’s a series of Hinny snippets about James Sirius Potter coming to life (from the very start). Old one written in Italian and never posted, that a again needs to be finished. Same for a collection of snippets around Hinny’s wedding (but this is “draftier”)

A one shot of Harry and the Potters waling Teddy at King Cross; I’ve just a very little bit of it written + most of the draft, and it would be the sequel of the one shot “What parents would want”

The random Missing Moments that I’ve have in mind are: a conversation between Bill and Ginny in the hospital wing in HBP, plus maybe a bit more from Ginny’s pov in that period (like going back home from Hogwarts); a conversation between Bill and Ron in DH, not sure if during Ron’s first or second stay and Shell Cottage; Hermione finding out about Arthur’s attack; Dumbledore taking Slughorn’s memory (when it happened, how he found out... I’ve several head canon about it!)

The random AUs moments (and I say moments just because I wouldn’t really be interested in writing a whole story, I only imagine few moments of it): Hermione brining Harry at the Burrow at Christmas after Godric’s Hollow, with is locket attached to his chest (I think I stole the idea from Flo’s!); the trio finding Ginny in the cell in Malfoy Manor as well; and some dumb “Lily and James are resurrected post DH” trash XD Oh, also a real muggle AU with Harry as a self-defence coach and Ginny as trainee!

Do you accept prompts? As you can imagine especially in this period I’m not very good at commitment ^^’, but if you have a specific idea and want to give it a try (maybe during the winter holidays?) I’d be honored, if not able to make any promises!

Upcoming works you’re most excited about: definitely “Ghost of the past”!

I’m tagging @ballerinaroy again, @remedial-potions, @thedistantdusk, @thebiwholived and whoever wants to join ^^

EDIT: Ehm I got caught up with the stats when I wrote this and without realizing it I put a multi chapter in the “Most popular one shot” section, lol XD Problem fixed ;)

[rwrbreversebang]

Rules

First and foremost, because this is a general event meant to celebrate the novel in all its entirety, all ships—or lack thereof—are welcome in the fan works created. And below we will describe the rules of participation.

Propriety 

Though there is a screen between us, please do remember that all participants and we Mods are all humans. Always remember to speak with respect and kindness.

A huge part of this event is collaborative, so all participants must be mindful and respect one another’s squicks and no gos within the artist/writer teams.

General Requirements

Do not post the entirety of your works to any social media until your assigned posting date, however teasers are permitted to an extent. If you have a question about whether or not your teaser is too revealing, please ask us, that’s why we’re here.

You must comply with mandatory deadlines and check-ins; failure to do so will result in ineligibility to participate in the bang. This will make your art invalid to claim or require a pinch hitter to write the story in your stead. Though, we understand emergencies and life issues can get in the way, just please be open and honest with your Mods.

Artist Requirements

All art pieces must be created for this specific event by your own two hands, you cannot turn in an already published piece or anything of the like.

You cannot claim your own art if you decide to also participate as an author.

I know you’ve read this a thousand times over, but this is a—let’s say it together now—collaborative event! So you are highly (HIGHLY) suggested to be in contact with your author and to communicate with them through the process. Due to this, please give each other up-to-date contact information whether through Tumblr, Discord, Twitter, or email when you begin communicating. 

Artist Specifics 

Digital traditional art: Your final piece must be no smaller than 800x600 pixels, and the idea of a completed art piece is up to uour  discretion, what you would ordinarily post on ur own blog. You are permitted to create more pieces to accompany the story if you so wish once you and your author begin collaborating (but this is completely optional).

Comics must be at least one full page.

Playlist entries should have at least 12 tracks in the queue, with a completed front and back cover, and a accessible link.

Graphic edits should include a coherent story arc, while adhering to Tumblr sizing limitations.

For any other inquiries, please message us through the ask box or email.

Author Specifics 

You cannot claim your own work if you also signed up as an artist.

The minimum word count is five thousand (5,000) words and absolutely no maximum, but do take caution that your fic must be completed and beta’d by the final submission date.

All writing pieces must be beta read before publication. You may use your own beta or request a beta through the bang.

Again, this event hinges on the fact that it is CALLABORTIVE! This means means that you are highly (HIGHLY) suggested to get in contact and stay in contact with your artists as you create your project with one another.

As authors, you are required to take into consideration your artist’s squicks, no gos, triggers and etc. You want to stay respectful and thoughtful to your partner.

Please! Please! Do NOT claim a NSFW artwork unless you are 18+, we know that this is mainly based off of trust, but if you do lie about this and we somehow figure it out, you will be removed from the event and prevented from participating in any future events.

How To Sign Up

The sign up date and check in date are all published in our schedule.

Signups for the event will be through a google forms link, but for now we want to simply get a head count of how many people are interested and or excited to participate.

All forms—amidst the four separate ones for artists, authors, pinch hitters, and betas—will ask for your name, contact email, and one reliable social media contact (tumblr, twitter, instagram, discord) which are all required. If you agree to be a pinch hitter as an author in your form, you will not have to fill out the pinch hitter form separately. Beta forms have slightly different questions asking on their strengths and preferences for what to beta.

The discord link will be sent in the confirmation email once you’ve signed up.

Once Artists Complete Their Works 

One of the most important rules we hold is that when an artist completes their piece for the claiming rounds, that you do NOT include a watermark or signature for the preview page. We want folks to choose anonymously to try and make this as much of a fair playing field as possible.

We know art theft is a concern, but we promise that the preview page is simply a google doc with limited permissions, with the art works all shown in a column and it will not expand from that private viewing.

The preview will only be open to participants of the event, and we ask kindly for no one to share the link anywhere to anyone.

The only information in the preview page is simply the art piece, with a number indicating it for claims. The NSFW work will be divided with a distinct warning. But that is all, anything else the artist wishes to clarify to their author will be discussed once we pair everyone up.

You will be able to edit your artwork as much as you please once linked up with your artist, but it must be recognizable from your original submission.

Look above for the mandatory aspects of your art medium.

No artworks or artists can be accepted once the previews are opened to the authors.

Claiming 

Artworks are anonymous, without any watermarks or signatures by the artist. So they will be claimed based off the artwork and that is all.

All art pieces will be given a number to make claiming run smoothly.

All claims, once submitted to us, are final. So please authors be careful in choosing artworks you can and are excited to write for.

Take your time with claims, they are not done on a first come/first serve basis. But we will do our best to match everyone up with their preferred choices.

Authors should not choose an art piece with a possible trigger/squick already in mind before they even speak to the author.

Check-ins

All check-ins are mandatory. You will receive the check-in forms through a link via email and posted on the discord server. We really hope everyone is honest and consistent with communication.

All check-in dates are already scheduled and you can see them on our schedule post, though if you have a conflict on any of those dates, please communicate that to us before hand.

When you sign up for the event, you are required to give us an email that you check regularly and can communicate easily through.

You are only “required” to communicate with your artist/author directly after claiming and directly before posting begins. But again, we highly suggest you communicate throughout.

Always stay as kind as possible to one another.

How To Contact The Mods In Order Of Preference

Email  »  RWRBREVERSEBANG@GMAIL.COM 

Discord DM

Tumblr Inbox 

Tumblr DM

Instagram DM

Posting

Posting is obviously the final part of this event, please as stated above, do not post your works anywhere publicly before hand, besides small teasers that shouldn’t give much of anything away.

Your posting dates will be assigned by your Mods, but if there is any sort of conflict just message us ASAP.

There are no requirements for actual posting, besides the fact that the artist/author duo discuss with one another when they’d like to publish, and tag this blog on the post for round up.

There will be an AO3 collection that you can opt into joining, whether through the link or search box. It will be revealed and not-anonymous from the start.

There is also no posting standard, but in your posts we do ask that you both link to one another’s pieces so to help the folks consuming your works understand the full picture.

Because tumblr is unreliable, we ask you to both tag the blog, RWRBREVERSEBANG, and also send us the links through the submissions form.

If you miss your posting date, please contact us and speak with us to figure out when and how you can publish your work.

All stories and art works will be included in daily roundup posts, and a final master list of works.

Feedback

Please, whether participating as an author, artist, beta, pinch hitter, or simply enjoying the works, let’s spread love to one another’s creations. Reblogging means so much more than just a like on tumblr, and kudos are sweet, but comments are a God send. I promise that literally anything you say in the comments will make the creator feel like there is a legion of birds fluttering around in their heart.

And of course, if you have any feedback for the Mods or the blog in general, our ask box is wide open!

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: Seto Kaiba's First Kidnapping

It’s Christmas vacation, I have Mannheim Steamroller on repeat, so much chocolate just an arms reach away from me. And I have purposely given myself nothing to do as an attempt to teach myself to do nothing.

So lets watch something weird and revisit Zero.

For those new here, I have been also reviewing most of Season Zero. If you don’t know what that is, you can my recaps in order by clicking this link here.

And like last time, I am not actually affiliated with Team Millennium, and I hope they don’t mind that I am capping their episode. You can find them on Youtube where they are slowly redubbing this season into English, and um--this next episode is the last episode they have! So I don’t know how I’m going to recap the rest?

Probably the same way I did in the first episode where it’s a lot less dialogue and more just...my reaction to it.

And, as always, my disclaimer for the new people that this was made in the 90′s and based off of the OG manga and it is...not the same show. It’s problematic. Why wouldn’t it be? It’s a counter-culture anime from the 90′s. Though this episode is pretty tame, honestly. Weird, but tame.

So, we start off the episode with a very lovingly drawn sky, not sure why it’s on THIS show but it’s here. This post apocalyptic sunset.

And staring directly into this sun going supernova is Seto Kaiba in his green hair, just brooding...

Not sure how he has this view from his Pemberly style mansion, but I dunno, maybe the city is visible from the backyard, or Seto just has really good vision. Either way don’t worry about it, we see Seto vibe out and visualize weird stuff all the time.

So, spurned by his hate for his classmate that beat him in cards once, Seto decides it’s time to enact his revenge by...what sounds a lot like some weird Lord of the Rings Lore and I dunno if it’s a bad translation or I just don’t really know what the hell he’s going off about because I never read the Yugioh version of the Silmarillion. Probably both.

See, while the first couple episodes of this show have different variations on Youtube, this one really only had the Team Millennium version in English (which is fine, there’s just some confusing things) and then the other version I saw skipped half of the episode because I guess they decided this part was boring or something. So forgive the fact that I’m flying on the seat of my pants here and I assume y’all will know all the deets I don’t know. For once, my contribution will be...kind of a lot less words.

So lets get right to it.

(read more under the cut)

Seto, who is in so much denial from Seasons 1-4, that I’ve headcanoned is actually cursed to never admit magic is real, has decided to call upon the (checks notes)

4 Game Masters

Yeah, that’s a new mechanic, these are a thing now. Don’t worry if you never heard of them before, I’ve been capping this show and I also have never heard of the legendary 4 magical Game Masters either.

So at this point these statues start glowing all creepy, and because it’s Yugioh I just kinda assumed...they’d do something.

I’m starting to think that maybe that was supposed to be symbolic, actually. Maybe there was never actually magic in the statues. Maybe it’s part of Seto hallucinating, as always. This whole show kind of runs on being a sort of metal fever dream whenever people get intense about games, so I’m probably not supposed to align it with any established magic laws anyway. It’s just I never know when things are real or just aesthetics, which I enjoy, quite a bit, that it’s open ended--but still it’s somewhat confusing as to if these gargoyles are...a thing now or were just always set dressing to kind of remind us of the cards that come later in the episode.

But, remember the spooky indoor gargoyles in your mind, keep it there, these menacing gargoyles over a fiery sunset...

OK now lets meet the real villain.

There he is. Our villain. And his name? Ripley Sheldon.

MAN to go from spooky gargoyles to Ripley Sheldon. There’s a name. That’s a name all right. I’ve only seen one episode of Big Bang Theory but Sheldon is a name forever ruined for me.

So--sidestory--this one time, my friend was at a wedding in Santa Cruz, which is a pretty beachy hippie town that always smelled like weed before it was legal, and there was just...a doll at the wedding. My friend was seated at a dinner party table just right next to this doll, and the family was like “Ah yes, this is the doll, you have to speak to her. She’s a member of the family.” and my friend had to suffer roleplaying with this doll for hours.

So before you’re like...there’s no way grown ass adults are this weird with dolls in public.

Yes. It happens.

Ah, and it’s the first instances of the Kaiba Corp logo and it’s the same. Complete with helicopter, because that Logo is never done until it’s surrounded by a fast military vehicle of some sort.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh great.

Yo remember that one episode where Yugi almost got his legs chopped off by Arcana and Arcana’s wife was being held behind a curtain, and at the end of the episode Arcana pulls back the curtain and his wife was a manikin the whole time and her head fell off?

Getting those vibes.

Back at school, Miho is busy being the most manipulative human being, this time with losing at cards. Like y’all I am TRYING to give Miho the benefit of a doubt here, but it seems even the translators hated Miho so much they had her refer to herself in the 3rd person. I am trying, really I am, sorry to everyone who loves Miho, I will leave that door open as I watch these--that maybe Miho will...grow on me.

But not this episode.

And then this happened. I guess from the breeze of Honda leaning over too far.

Believe it or not, Yuugi’s vertigo will come back later in this very episode. This whole bizarre scenario was just foreshadowing.

But for reals, Yuugi is so FRAIL in Season Zero. While I appreciate the contrast between Yuugi and Yami Yuugi, I gotta recognize how much Yugi has evolved over 4+ seasons because Yuugi is just...eggshells. Every part of him is polite little eggshells.

But in contrast, you have Anzu who is ready to fight in every single scene she’s in and I’m OK with that.

That and the very clear romantic direction that is just...simple. It’s very simple in Season Zero. That’s nice.

Anzu isn’t even possessed by two ghosts. In fact, between Anzu and Yuugi right now, there are 0 ghosts. So weird. So kosher.

Speaking of weird,

Y’all, I have no explanation for this. I only know so much Kanji.

The translation I watched tried so very hard to do what they could with this, and kudos to them, but...this is what happens with translation, it’s just a very hard job sometimes. So I get how they decided to form this joke into English, but if anyone is like a Japanese speaker and gets the pun that was clearly happening here, feel free to youknow, share the knowledge.

Unfortunately the undubbed episode that exists on Youtube that I found edited out this part so they didn’t have to try and translate it, lol. Either way, I appreciate Orange Jounouchi a lot, as well as the background squids on Squid Jounouchi.

Can you imagine just being in high school, and you get summoned to the Nurses Office? Can you even imagine what rumors would start from that? Like I know Seto wants revenge against Yuugi through cards, but I think he just did. I think he did like maybe one of the worst things you can do to a High Schooler just now. May as well page over the intercom that Yuugi has to pick up his yeast infection ointment.

And this is where we meet...a ridiculous satire. This 30 year old beautiful woman flirting with a child disaster who cannot balance while seated on a low chair.

And predictably, Yuugi lost because things just got THAT weird and awkward. Dunno if the translators put that in there for fun, or if that’s honestly how it was in the original. My bet it was probably exactly that weird in the original. Mostly because this show has a lot of “stranger danger” set ups to teach little children to never trust bad adults and this just seemed like exactly that type of set-up. Don’t trust the overly nice nurse or she’ll steal your cards in a game, kids.

After this really awkward card game (and I’m not going to bother to dive into it because I don’t talk about the card mechanics here), we find out...that Seto’s just been staring at them...the entire time.

Like it has such a voyeuristic vibe to it, it really makes you wonder about Seto’s whole deal just an awful lot. Like Season 1-4 doesn’t really ship Yugi/Kaiba, in my opinion (and just my opinion, I know how y’all feel about the ship and that is a-ok, all ships are welcome here)...but Season Zero ships A LOT. It’s not a serious ship by any means, it’s clearly a crack ship, but they...very clearly know what they’re doing with Seto being this obsessed with Yuugi in this way, omg. It just sounds like a kink to me.

So, ways to beat Yuugi Muto:

steal his stuff halfway through the game, try to kill yourself, rock paper scissors, try to kill Joey Wheeler, or dress up a sex doll like a nurse and have a gross old man have it play cards while he makes a sexy lady voiceover.

(Y’all I’ve been to my share of arcades in my life and I think I’ve only seen like 6 pinball tables total. Do good arcades only exist on TV? I think it’s all a lie.)

Then, because I guess this episode wasn’t going anywhere, Yuugi goes to the arcade to play some video games. The video game is unimportant, and it’s never been brought up before, but he’s dead set on finding it. Because unlike Yugi, Yuugi just doesn’t really have a goal in this series so he just kind of flutters around until someone tells him what to do.

TBH that’s a pretty 90′s thing for a show or a movie to do. To have characters just exist and have things happen to them, but in all, they’re just...wandering. So it’s not so much a knock on the show, it’s just that sometimes it’s a little of a transition to go from a goal being something physical, like finding the lost city of Atlantis before every human’s soul is absorbed into the great Leviathan, to the goal being more of a mental acceptance--Yuugi just learning to accept this curse he doesn’t even know he has yet, and trying to find acceptance in his group of friends.

With Yuugi, we’re kind of just watching his daily life, which is mostly watching him try and sneak games into every spare moment that his local adult has turned around. It has a very slice of life feel to it, but minus the near constant innuendo slice of life tends to have (at least the ones that have been recommended to me)

Now, because this is a show about people getting a real EXTREME comeuppance every time they break the law, what will happen to Yuugi for ignoring his Grandpa’s wishes and going to the arcade before going home?

First, we meet this mushroom haired person.

That’s right kids, NEVER stop by the arcade on the way home from school--1.) The local arcades are almost always 90% boring racing games and busted shooters that came out on the Nintendo 64 when I was a child and 2.) You will get abducted.

And then we get this face swap.

Kaiba just really loves dress-up. No wonder he was hanging out with a guy super into dolls. And like, I went into before how Seto Kaiba is always doused in facsimile energy. He loves faking it up, and apparently that’s been true since Zero.

He introduces that he will have four challenges from four Game Masters and uh so welcome to the...I don’t where this is, but a weird place full of dolls that must exist somewhere in Domino.

I guess this is to make it seem like they have an audience to watch Yuugi fail but even still...what?

So we get kind of a mirror to the scene at the beginning with Miho crying and Honda telling Yuugi to apologize for beating her, except replace Miho with Seto and Honda with this guy who really likes dolls (and Miho is a lot like a cursed doll). Like, if there were a theme to this episode it’s “grow up and stop apologizing when you beat someone in a card game” which isn’t a terrible theme, especially in this show that is about Yuugi learning how to adult.

In fact the “grow the hell up” theme is so strong we have a villain who is just...a big baby who carries dolls around. Kinda makes you wonder if the show would have eventually had Yuugi just...grow out of toys and games completely for the finale. Like in the Yugioh we have now, he can’t, because first off they licensed a hell ton of toys, but also because Yugi does games for his actual job. Even if Pharaoh was gone, Yugi still has to play games all the time. In this case, he could just...be using the games to learn how to do adult things, which is actually why we give kids games in the first place.

But, speculation aside, it’s at this point that a card play knocks Yuugi off of his chair and he passes out. Despite the fact that this isn’t a Shadow game and there...shouldn’t be any magic present. In fact, I don’t think any part of this game in this episode required opening the door of darkness. When he switches to Yami shortly after falling off of his own chair he’s like...yeah this is fine. Seems all above board. No need to kill anybody

And then apparently there’s a type of Dual Monster’s card I was unaware of.

A doll-type.

So I looked it up, is there a doll type card in Yugioh?

And it seems like there’s a lot of dolls, but not like...a type, as far as I can tell. Again, I don’t play this game, I’m only here for the plot and this one just seemed like they really had to reach for Yuugi to have just the right type of card to play.

And again, because this wasn’t a Shadow Duel, our loser just kind of walks away...all the way back to Britain, I guess.

And Seto just stands there behind a window in a rainstorm to allude to his many unshed salty tears, and it cuts to Miho who I guess has learned not to cry when she loses to Yuugi now.

And then she pulls out an absolutely winning tactic. This would win, actually. It’s actually genius.

And that is a very strong

From me. Wow. No thanks. I actually don’t want to see Yuugi do a kissy face ever again, thank you.

Half of you loved that though. This is fine. We’re all different.

Anyway, I assume the game was never played, or Miho won and the show just decided not to show it. If Season Zero Yuugi is a Yuugi that makes out then...that is...shocking. Then again, we’re only like...a third of the way through? I think?

Anyway, it’s...after Christmas because I went out of town for a spell, but I’ll just...post this now. Last post before the new year.

I’ll see y’all in 2020!