#happy fanfic friday laz!!!!!!!!!!!!

[curedeity]

HAPPY FANFIC FRIDAY I’d like to order you all to go read this chapter of Metal Mayhem by @lady-lazagna​ before seeing the art. I mean it I got my eyes on you.

So... as you can tell... this piece is a lot and I have feelings on this- Don’t expect any piece of this quality for fanfic friday again for a while at least.

I’m going to start with a short summary and description of the fic. Metal Mayhem is a multichapter fic about a new world champions. Its also about making Tsubasa the angstiest person imaginable-

It’s as well written (in a technical sense) as any other fic Laz writes. She has a great sense of pacing and dialogue, along with a way of making scenes seem their perfect length. As a fellow writer, I can’t help but appreciate the skill. Not to mention managing to keep distinct and interesting characterization across the board of characters, while also switching POV.

I can’t really talk about the fic as a whole that much, I feel, because that’s not what really interested me. What broke me about this fic was really just it’s treatment of Hikaru.

Chapter 2 (spoilers if you didn’t read the fic like I told you to) features a battle between Tsubasa and Hikaru, where they’re both trying to have fun with battling again, but Kyoya is egging them on and poking at their insecurities. Finally, Tsubasa taps into his dark power and delivers his ultimate move, bringing the battle to a standstill as they both freak out. He and Hikaru get to talking, its a very good conversation, before Kyoya asks them why they don’t get back to battling. Both of them look over to see their beys still spinning, and this, this is the moment I broke (crucify me if I got any detail wrong Laz)

Because Hikaru starts to celebrate, so wholly and freely. She really didn’t think she survived that battle, but she did.

The way Laz writes Hikaru’s celebration is so over the top, a bit manic, and the energy is absolutely perfect. She managed to capture that overwhelming happiness from an outside perspective and it-

Maybe I’m a bit mentally ill about Hikaru with all the fics I write of her, but omg that scene. That scene is probably one of my favorites in any fanfiction I’ve ever read. That is part of the reason why I am so vocal that anyone looking at this art should go read the fanfic first. I know huge swaths of this fandom that don’t touch the fanfic, so, this is your reminder.

Urgh I guess it’s time for me to talk about the art? I dunno if I want to put this on what is normally a more celebratory post (Fanfic Friday for me is about trying to celebrate other creators I enjoy) but given the difference of quality in this work and other fanfic fridays, I feel the need to quickly explain. (skip right here if you dont wanna hear a bit of a rant)

This took me an entire day of constantly drawing to do it, and was my first time trying to draw a three panel comic. I don’t normally try to draw my fanfic fridays in detail because a) I dont know how to draw dynamic poses that well, so leaving them undetailed lets me try to so I can capture the scene of a fic and b) I don’t actually want there to be a skill bar to participate in fanfic friday. Like, I don’t want people to think you got to spend hours and hours on a piece of fanart to participate in fanfic friday.

The reason this drawing is so much more detailed is that I couldn’t justify to myself doing anything that would sell this scene short. It actively made me cry, there were tears in my eyes, and as I was considering drawing this I was like “there are people who are going to see the art without reading the fanfic” and I did not want to give anyone, absolutely anyone, a view that in any way cheapened the amazing scene Laz wrote. Fanfic Friday should just be a small celebration of the fic, but I do struggle to do that sometimes knowing people might not read the fic and wanting to like, yknow, encourage them to.

I think I oughtta stop rambling now. I do wanna say that the quality of this art is in no way a value judgment on the other fics I do. They are all great fics that equally deserve reading, this scene just struck me personally (as the Hikaru Fan tm) really hard. Im probably gonna do more detailed art as I get better at this, but for now, sketches are really what I feel most comfortable with.