#fanfic authors- i need you to get on this

[talesfromawannabejournalist]

Venting

@kittenfangirl20

@things-arent-what-they-seem66

@yurnu

@lilacwriter07

@fanofstuff01

Sorry if this might seem like me bitching but I've really needed to bitch lately. I keep thinking about these two fanfics I stopped reading a while ago, it claimed it was adamsapple but all it really is is that Lilith is written like a bitching cunt and yet the authors claim that she is a fucking victim because Adam didn't know how to react when he found out his wife CHEATED on him!!! UGH and then they make Lucifer a fucking dick asshole to Adam EVEN AFTER ALL THE FUCKING SHIT HE DID TO HIM IN THE PAST!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH and then after one fake ass apology all is well and good and apparently, Lucifer is a fucking victim, and we should get on our knees and pray to them like fucking gods even though they fucking allowed sin to enter to the world even though I'm sure they were told numerous times NOT to do it and that there would be DIRE.FUCKING.CONSEQUENCES

Then there is this one person who I feel bad for even getting mad at! Because they seem like they're going through a lot, and they seem like a nice person in real life it's just UGH I HATE HOW THEY FAVOR LILITH!!!!! AFTER EVERYTHING SHE'S DONE AFTER EVER FUCKING THING HOW CAN ANYONE LIKE HER!!!!

OHOHOHO AND THAT'S NOT EVEN MENTIONING THIS ONE LILITH LOVER ON YOUTUBE WHO LITERALLY SINGS LILITH'S PRAISES I AINT GONNA SAY THEIR NAME BUT I THINK WE ALL KNOW WHO IT IS!!!!!

OH, AND BY THE WAY THEY ONCE TECHNICALLY STATED IN A COVER THAT ALL EXORCISTS ARE WORSE THAN A SINNER, WELL GOOD TO KNOW ANGELS ARE APPARENTLY WORSE THAN FUCKING VALENTINO OR A PEDOPHILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOD WHY DON'T THEY ALL JUST GO TAKE LILITH AND LUCIFER AT MAKE-OUT POINT AND TAKE TURNS THREE-WAYING WITH THEM IF THEY LOVE THEM SO MUCH!?!?!?!

OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK OK!!!!

I know I'm bitching and I know I probably sound like a fucking cunt believe me I hear it but I just really, really, really, really, really needed to let that out

Oh, and by the way

NOT ALL SINNERS CAN BE OR EVEN SHOULD REDEEMED, LIKE SAY FOR EXAMPLE I DON'T KNOW MAYBE A FUCKING NAZI!?!?!?!

Yes, there are some down there that can be redeemed, at least in the show, but there are many demons who don't even WANT salvation, not just because they don't think it's possible, but because they don't WANT to change for the better

I just wish these people would understand that, ESPECIALLY since it pertains to real life, there are just some people you can't save

Anyway, glad I finally got this off my chest I've been holding this in

Oh! Also @taradiddled if you're seeing this, I swear to the holy father this post IS IN NO WAY about you or your fic, I actually like it. Sorry if you ever got that conclusion

[steddieunderdogfics]

This week’s writer spotlight feature is:  dartlekey! @dartlekey has 11 fics in the Stranger Things Fandom and 9 of them are in the Steddie tag!.

Our anonymous nominator recommends the following works by @dartlekey:

If you were church (I'd get on my knees)

RUSH! (T4T REMIX)

At a medium pace

With great power

"I read the "with great power" series not long after I got into the Steddie fandom and was instantly like "I need to raid this author's other fics" and subscribed to them. No regrets for that choice!!" -- Anonymous

Below the cut, @dartlekey answered some questions about their writing process and some of their recommended work!

Why do you write Steddie?

For me, Steddie hits that sweet spot of strong characterization but woefully underexplored details, both for the individual characters but also their dynamic with each other in canon. That makes their relationship the ideal writer's sandbox - since they're both so fluid, you can explore the characters through each other, showcasing many different and even conflicting facets of each other while still retaining their original characters and behaviors. Either of them can be rich or poor, famous or an everyguy, Gay or Bisexual, Dom or Sub, Top or Bottom, Trans in any direction - the details are up to you! 

What’s your favorite trope to READ?

I love a good slowburn friends-to-lovers fic. It needs to be a specific kind for me though - I'm not much one for prolonged pining, but I love it when the friendship is explored in such depth that the next step feels like an inevitability. Watching that deep platonic affection turn not-so-platonic, that's the good shit. 

What’s your favorite trope to WRITE?

My specialty as a writer, I think, is crack treated seriously, or crack with a twist. Usually the first question that sparks one of my fics is “If X happened, would that be hilarious or what?” and then the second is “But if it was because of Y, would that be fucked up or what?” I think you can see it best in If you were church I'd get on my knees (what if Steve was a stripper at Eddie's stag party BUT it was actually a social commentary on queerness and sexuality in the face of religious oppression), but it's in At a medium pace too (what if Eddie couldn't move his arms because of injury so Steve “has” to jerk him off, but it's actually about how growing up queer can warp your perspective on healthy sexuality) , or even in Don't look back (What if Eddie had to dom Steve for plot reasons, but it's all body horror and trauma and spiraling codependency). 

What’s your favorite Steddie fic?

I don’t think I could name one all-time favorite, because what I enjoy most about fanfic is that different writers bring different character interpretations, storytelling styles and plot ideas to the table, which I find incomparable. I have enjoyed many of the well-known classics, of course (pukner I owe you my life--), but let me use this chance to give a shout-out to some less well-known masterpieces! My top three underrated fics are Three Days on the Red Planet by CaptainHoney/@grandmastattoo on tumblr (retro scifi, gritty but humorous hopepunk, every single fic of theirs is a certified banger but I love this one the most for some reason!!), Love dirty men alike by wrenowich (chef au, an ode to kitchen culture in all its griminess, I love a detailed backstory plus Steddie being wonderfully weird about each other), and That’s just wasteland, baby! by fastcardotmp3 (post-s4 apocalypse survival, sweet and aching and tired and yet hopeful, made me cry in the best way). 

Is there a trope you’re excited to explore in a future work but haven’t yet?

One that's pretty unique to the steddie fandom, or perhaps general stranger things fandom, is “if canon event x had happened differently/hadn't happened at all/had happened to a different person, how would the rest of canon change?” I still need to work out a lot of details in my head, so that's all I'll say for now, but it's something I'm very interested in exploring.

What is your writing process like?

Much to the horror of fic writers everywhere, I don't do first drafts, I just write out everything in detail, scene by scene in chronological order. I edit as I go, and consider the many-numbered, often unplanned writing breaks an important part of my process - when I let the written portion sit for a while and the unwritten ideas percolate in my brain for a bit, I often end up with new plot points or solutions for problems I've been having! And when that inspiration strikes, I can write anywhere - on the train, during lunch break at work, in the vegetable aisle of the grocery store… I have gdocs on my phone and I use it liberally; I'd say I write at least 80% of any given fic on my phone. 

Do you have any writing quirks?

Apart from the hot mess I just described, I'd say it's that I never use Beta readers. I'll occasionally ask friends to help with specific details if I need an expert on certain subject matter, but I've found I get very grumpy and fussy if someone pokes at my plot (even if or rather especially if they’re right lol), and I don't want to subject anyone to that. 

Do you prefer posting when you’ve finished writing or on a schedule?

For oneshots or series comprised of single-chapter fics I like posting as soon as I'm done, but for multi-chapter works I've recently found that starting to post only after I've finished most (if not all) chapters beforehand improves the quality of the story! Since I tend to integrate new ideas or shift around plot points a lot while writing, I often end up in completely different places than my original concept, so if an early chapter isn't posted yet I can retroactively edit it to add foreshadowing or tone-match the end of the work, remove loose threads and suchlike. Don't look back is a good example of how this has worked out for me; comparatively It don't bite (Yes it do) - which I wrote and posted chapter by chapter - is tonally all over the place. 

Which fic are you most proud of?

Naturally I love all my babies, but I consider Don't look back my magnum opus - both because it is the longest fic I've ever written (13 chapters and 90.000 words in total, that's practically a novel!) and because it's the most plot-rich, labor-intensive, and overall serious in tone. I even worked in subplots about the rest of the cast, so it almost reads like its own season. I wrote it for last year's Steddie Bigbang, which means there's also a gorgeous accompanying artwork by @the-chilly-kat. 

How did you get the idea for With great power?

At the time I'd seen a few marvel AUs floating past me on the tumblr timeline, usually with Steve as Spiderman and Eddie as the human component of Venom, and having just recently seen the Venom movie depicting the rich relationship between Eddie Brock and the symbiote, it surprised me that most left the symbiote as its own character, and not substituted one of the ST main cast. The symbiotic relationship of Stobin immediately came to mind, though I also still loved the idea of Steve as Spidey - then I remembered that in the Toby McGuire movies, the two are not mutually exclusive, and it all spiraled from there. Eddie as Deadpool just made sense - immortal wild-card with a dubious moral code but a heart of gold? Obviously! Plus Spideypool is, of course, a classic ship. 

When writing With great power, what was something you didn’t expect?

I actually got several curious comments about the sex toy Steve uses in Because the night - a grindable or grinder, which is a flat-ish silicone structure, usually ribbed in an interesting way, that one can grind against to get off (as the name suggests). I thought it was pretty common, but apparently it's not very well known!

What inspired  RUSH! (T4T REMIX)?

Oh, it's my time to gush! Because the idea for the first work actually came about from a late night conversation I had with the beautiful, amazing, wonderful @maikaartwork, back when we were, how should I say, in the courting stage? Seeing as we met through the Steddie fandom, I decided to write Baby Said basically to seduce them - and I am happy to say it worked, as we've been dating for over eight months now and are planning to move in together next year! Both works from RUSH! - T4T REMIX (and the secret new WIP, shh) are thus somewhat inspired by our conversations and our t4t relationship, but also by the many interesting and different trans people I've met over the years, and trans solidarity and relationships in general.

What was your favorite part to write from At a medium pace?

The small-talk in between position changes - no, really! I love a mindless marathon-fuck story as much as the next person, but there's something very sweet and intimate about those little breaks in sex, the pass the lube, move your leg a bit, what's for dinner later of it all. That's where you see that emotional connection - there's no admission of crushes or big love confessions in this fic because it's right there in the details.

How do/did you feel writing RUSH! (T4T REMIX)?

Honestly, it's just really really fun and self-indulgent. The Steddie dynamic in it is so bitchy, all the bickering makes me laugh even as I'm writing it. It's also just really fun to write about the trans experience in a way that is curious and loving, and reflects all the very different and yet similar ways people experience living in a body that defies expectation. I've loved all my fellow trans people sounding off in the comments about their own transition experiences, it's wonderful to have such a fantastic community!

What was the most difficult part of writing If you were church (I'd get on my knees)?

Curiously enough, not the many religious trauma bits! Much like Eddie in the fic, I'm only church-freak adjacent - I grew up in a non-religious household but with extended family that were extremely catholic, so the odd juxtaposition of being occasionally close to but definitely not involved in what is pretty much cult behavior inspired much of this fic. The most functionally difficult part to write was actually the wedding - as an aro-spec & trans relationship anarchist, church weddings have never been relevant to me, so I had very little idea what actually goes into one! Very little of the research I conducted on the topic actually made it into the fic, but hey, the more you know. 

Do you have a favorite scene and/or line from any of your fics?

People keep asking me that, and I never know what to answer! If I had to pick one, though, maybe the last few paragraphs of Don't look back - where you can see the tragedy coming, but there's no way of stopping it, because it was always going to end this way. And then Eddie's last words before the end of the fic call back to the title as well as the general theme of the fic - it just all comes together for such a crescendo of an ending. 

Do you have any upcoming projects or fics you’d like to share/promote?

Yes, actually! Coming soon in the SteddieBang'24, me and my lovely artist @hawkinsleather have been working hard on a 20k post-s4 fic called A glimpse of your canvas, which is about closeted transfemme!Eddie, women's solidarity, and Steve's very confusing no-good trip to the gay bar. Both With great power and RUSH! (T4T REMIX) have another WIP pending which I'll eventually finish (I promise, I'm just easily distracted!!), and for those who are still mad about Don't look back’s open ending, I'm almost done with the sequel, which features a lot of bad decisions by all characters involved, the healing power of community, and a bit of accidental child acquisition. 

Outside of these questions, Is there anything YOU would like to add?

Given the chance of this platform, I would like to notify my readers that I'm a terrible procrastinator when it comes to replying to comments, but I read and cherish every one of them - and repeat commenters, I see you, I love you, I am chewing on your arm like a dog with a bone!! I would also like to thank the steddie fandom in general for giving me the hottest partner known to man or God, and for the many friendships I've been so fortunate to build here. Talk about transformative works, am I right? <3 

Thank you to our author, @dartlekey, and our anonymous nominator! See more of dartlekey's works featured on our page throughout the day!

Writer’s Spotlight is every Wednesday! Want to nominate an author? You can nominate them here!

[daficrecs]

Send me your Dragon Age fanfics to read & rec/review!

Hi everyone, and welcome to DAFicRecs! Right now it's just me, Sin, running the show, but over time I hope more people will join this project and help me share the love and joy of DA fanfic. 😁💙

My goal is to support fanfic authors in our community by sharing the works I love (and what I love most about them) with the Dragon Age fandom. I have almost two decades of professional experience reviewing books (fiction and non-fiction), and I'd like to use those skills to support our community.

In the past, I ran a similar blog for the Baldur's Gate 3 fandom, which you can check out here: BG3 Fic Reviews

If you would like me to read your fanfic, please send me an ask (with a link to your work and a short description) and I will add your work to my reading queue. While I do sometimes write "spot recs/reviews" of work I really love, I would prefer that this be a collaborative project with the community and that authors submit their work to me themselves.

Thank you for your support and please keep creating and sharing your incredible work! And readers, please remember to leave kudos on your fav fanfic authors' work!

Below the fold are fic submission guidelines! A master list of all the recs/reviews I've posted will also be there in future!

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to send an ask to DAFicRecs.

Last updated: 18 September 2024.

FIC SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

When you submit your fic, please be sure to include the following:

A link to your work & the pseud/handle you publish under (regardless of platform)

The title of your work

Any tags I should be aware of

A brief summary

Any social media you would like to be tagged in the rec/review when we publish it (please include a link to your profile)

If you have commissioned artwork for your fic, please feel free to let us know! We would be happy to post it with the rec/review of your work (with the artist's permission)

What kind of work can you submit?

Anything and everything. Long fics in progress, short NSFW fics, dark fics, angst fics, fluffy fics. Everything is welcome. If there is something in the tags I really can't handle, I will be in contact with you and let you know. In the rare cases where that does happen, please know it is not a reflection on your work—all it means is that I'll need to hold it until I find a reviewer who is comfortable reading those themes.

To be absolutely clear: this blog is firmly profiction and therefore supports and celebrates creative/artistic freedom in fiction.

You can submit your fic to me through the DAFicRecs asks here. Please note that I won't respond to your ask (unless I need further information) and I will just add it to my queue and will get to reviewing it as soon as I can. Please don't worry when you don't get a response to your ask! Once I have created an AO3 collection for my fic reading queue I will update this post with a link. Then you can check there what's currently in my queue, and whether I have added you.

[gender-luster]

so you're telling me that two of edwin's love interests were a cat and a crow, two creatures famous for bringing their humans little gifts, but not once did either of those bitches try giving edwin like a cool shiney rock, or a dead mouse or something. goddd were they even trying??

[code-dy]

Holy shit i have the capability to draw things for my favourite fanfic authors!!!

Here’s a quick sketch for that lovely author who wrote that absolutely lovely vampire thorin fanfic inspired by wwdits

[starwarjotta]

there’s a special place in hell for people who take the time and go through the effort of leaving negative comments on fanfics, like-- what is wrong with you, what is LEGITIMATELY wrong with you? I’m so angry and so devastated on behalf of everyone who has been harrassed like this and who is going through something like this right now. There’s no excuse for shitty behavior - if you intentionally leave a hurtful comment on something someone created and put out there for other people’s enjoyement, for free, after spending probably HOURS if not WEEKS or MONTHS or longer on it, you’re an incredibly shitty, disgusting, miserable waste of space of a person be better

[danzainosolitude]

Once again I read fanfiction that seems to have been precisely written to deal psychic damage to me.

[aqueerchronicle]

Turns out if you squint hard enough nearly every song on 1989 TV is actually inspired by Supercorp!

[muchmossymess]

Hey guys

I need you all to drop everything and go read this

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42899181/chapters/107774583

The fic is no one ever mentions fear by HopeStoryteller on ao3

Revalink fic where the champions have undied but whoops revalis an idiot and gets his memorys knocked tf out of his head and wanders off so now the rest of his friends can't find him and come infuriatingly close multiple times. But don't worry it gets worse

*slaps roof of this fic* this baby can fit so much plot and lore and love and care for its story and the characters and the world in it

It has ANGST it has FLUFF it has GAYS it has FEELS it has FOUND FAMILY it has COMPELLING CHARACTERS it has HUMOUR (that may or may not have made my family exile me from communal spaces for how often I was cackling madly) and IT IS COMPLETED!!!

Nearly 200,000 words spread over 32 beautiful chapters and it has not NEARLY as much attention as it deserves SO COME ON

GO READ IT

[unexpectedgeese]

I love you kudos I love you second kudos I love you keysmash comments I love you ‘<3’ I love you guest accounts I love you worldbuilding questions I love you comment spam from new readers I love you bookmarks with summaries of the plot I love you ‘to read’ I love you ‘fave’ I love you Artists who draw scenes from the fic I love you discord proofreaders I love you beta readers I love you Inbox (1)!!!!! You are the beating heart of the Ao3 community and the world is better with you in it!!!

[idontevenknowhowtolife]

So fics about Rhaenyra being a good sister and going a little feral over how they have been mistreated have become my new obsession so here they are.

W.T.F - Gwayne Hightower becomes aware of the whole “Rhaenyra is going to kill us” thing and goes to her and is like “thats fucked up could you not” while shes just like “what”. Consequences (assumably) ensue. 

Riding Another Man's Dragon by @raybyanothername - Jace and Aegon centered but also has a couple of scenes between Rhaenyra and her siblings as well as her yelling at her dad bc hes a shit parent. Also theres a lot of dragon scenes which automatically makes any fic a thousand times better. Overall just a really good fic and the author has some other really good ones. 

why are you shaking (we are a dynasty) - Rhaenyra finds Aemond after his attempt at bonding with Dreamfyre and the realisation that he could have died without her ever really knowing him makes her determined to step up as a sister. (Theres a good scene of her just storming through the castle to find her siblings when she figures out what Otto Hightowers done). One of the most well written fics I’ve seen in the fandom. 

The Dragons and Their Sun - Rhaenyra takes care of Aegon while hes sick and slowly starts adopting her siblings as well as a surprise family member. It also involves a lot of Rhaenys and Corlys looking at kids and going “mine”. 

Waiting on a Miracle - Rhaenyra just up and takes her siblings, kids and Daemons kids (along with Daemon) after Laenas funeral but before Aemond claiming Vhagar. This has some really good Aegon and Rhaenyra and Helaena and Rhaenyra. (+ Bonus Daemon and Aemond). Its following a kinda Bridgerton style format. 

her brown-eyed boys - Rhaenyra shocks Viserys into growing some balls and betroths Jace and Helaena. Theres a lot of her bonding with Aemond and Helaena as well as a scene of her going off at Otto in defense of Aegon. Its an amazing fic and also does some really insightful deep dives into the thoughts and actions of characters such as Alicent, Otto, Viserys and Daemon. Rhaenyras the main POV. 

[majorproblems77]

🎱🥤

🎱

Alright!

I've not checked these in a while when did I get near to 50k hits?!

🥤

I've been scrolling through my bookmarks and I found My first LOZ LU fanfic bookmark.

Authenticity - Chapter 1 - Arecaceae - The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms [Archive of Our Own]

By the beloved (/pl) @arecaceae175

There's a reason I go back to this one every few weeks or so and just reread all of it. It's because it's so amazingly written and I love how Ace writes generally, but especially with this Fic cause there are aspects where I read it and am like omg it's me. it's wonderful and will continue to make me smile every time I read it.

[hexjulia]

trained to write historical fiction through hard labour in the canonically accurate silmarillion fanfiction mines

[writinandcrying]

Me engaging author mode: Alright this fics needs more actual lines between the characters, this can’t be hard, right? you have conversations in English all the time this is gonna be super easy

Brain: *absolutely forgets how ppl have normal conversations, specially siblings teasing each other *

[chibipandaao3]

My hope, is to post the second chapter of Forest through the Trees AND another fic between now and Sunday!

I’d say Saturday 😂 but I have a five hour tattoo appointment and my sister wants to play Balder’s Gate so — I mean, I might get writing done during the appointment, though I normally just end up reading.

Anyway, I digress. The additional fic will either be poor Charlie getting his powers back post series and cracking OR poor Charlie having to deal with Way (or Way’s actions - not sure which will be ready).

[dragongirluvula]

just found out about the hdg and I definitely don't vibe with it. It almost captures my interest but the hard stance opposition towards exploring the implications that come with a self designated benevolent empire that can solve the inherent problems that come from cultures who are supposedly inferior in some way by nature really like, both rubs me the wrong way and feels like a disservice to the setting itself.

idk just looking at every empire in history it's like, that's literally what they all say and how they justify colonizing others. It's kinda really fucking hard to just take at face value. If imperialist colonizers who just happen to be legimately nicies to the people they colonize is like, ur thing then absolutely jack off to it I'm not here to judge that, just like, own that I guess? But if your argument for them is just that narratively speaking it's just true then my interest in your setting, horny or otherwise just does not exist.

The contradiction of the setting also bothers me, 25-45% of any given species will be domesticated on average but the space between that and rebellion just doesn't seem to be accounted for in the wiki, what is the life of someone not opposed to the empire but also who doesn't volunteer for domestication? How much of their own cultures are retained within the empire? It really seems like the only option for any autonomy in the setting is rebellion but that's also only ever seen as a bad thing.

I just get caught on the whole "affini are imperial" and "affini are benevolent" thing in the axioms section of the hdg wiki. My mixed race ass cannot really look at an invading empire calling itself the good guys without my own personal baggage about it weighing in, ya'feel?