#hopefully some of these fics give context for why i write what i write and can get you started with new authors

[independent-variables]

HELLO !!!

Having now finished binging all of your star wars fics, I come here asking for some recs. Just any of your favourites, bonus points if it will cause emotions (and tears).

Also can't stress enough how much I love your writing, it's so so brilliant <3

(this is neptunesenceladus btw, tumblr hates me and won't let me send asks with a side blog so you get this one)

HI!!! Good to see you, good to see you <3 Always happy to provide recs <3 <3 <3

I want you to know I went through my bookmarks and pulled like sixty fics and had a brief moment of panic, so this is not all of my recs just the first... thirty, or so. If none of these are appealing, oh boy, do I have more!

This list is not in any order other than bookmark order, most are on the shorter side, most are Gen and I am pretty sure all are complete. I tried to warn for stuff that could be a squick when I remembered.

False Dichotomy by nsmorig

Starting off strong with my favorite Cody fic of all time. If you read nothing else on this list I encourage you to read this (if the tags are not a squick) because it will re-shape your brain and shatter your heart into tiny pieces. Basic premise is Force Sensitive Cody gets captured by Dooku and survives torture, experimentation, and imprisonment while trying to figure out his relationship to the Force and to his personhood, and the ways those things are connected. 

What's in a Name by Sankt

This is about Fordo post war and it’s phenomenal characterization. 

The Last Poem of Jedha by schweinsty

How Bohdi Rook becomes a rebel and writes a poem. 

you're like a loaded gun by kazhan

Ok this is E and also Underage, so maybe it’s a skip, but it’s teen Boba/Cal trying to navigate sex and love and secret identities and it’s so fucked up and so good. 

chicken, cattle and cat by deniigiq

Obi-Wan and Maul living in domestic dis-harmony on Tatooine. What more could you ask. 

Little things [are the reason to live] by i_will_bite

Clone medics navigating a slightly hostile working environment and trying to make it less hostile T-T

Two brothers (and a kid) by meerlicht

What if. Waxer and Boil just stayed on Ryloth, with Numa. What then? 

with poise, with grace by andeemae

Stone falls through a hole in a roof and falls in love. Beautiful clone/OC romance and very cute kids, doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of being a clone in love with a civilian. Very much an inspiration for me.

second time around by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters

This is another one I wasn’t sure I wanted to put on here because it deals briefly with rape, but it’s such a wonderfully fucked up take on Anakin and Rex’s relationship. Or, how Vader views Rex. 

The Desert Storm by Blue_Sunshine

If you are looking for an epically long series to get invested in I highly recommend checking this one out. This series and its sister-series are some of the best characterization and worldbuilding for Jedi I have ever had the pleasure of reading and it is a fix-it in all the messy, hard, terrible ways people don’t usually write fix-its. 

Shape-Changer by Fialleril

This is a foundational fic for me. Incredible Tatooine worldbuilding. Inspired me to write the way I write. 

The Sun Is Bright, The Sun Is Blue by ambiguously

CUT AND SU ORIGIN STORY!!! 

most things may never happen: this one will by jaigeye

This is brutal but what if you were a droid and you had to dissect a person. 

Bad Deal by FettsOnTop (GTFF)

Boba/Lando my beloved. A brief look into their relationship and into Lando’s thoughts leading up to Han and them’s arrival. 

and the Force is with me by sauntering_down

Rex and Ahsoka and the way the war changed them, and what they can and cannot do in the aftermath. 

Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge by yellow_caballero

The Fox fic of all time. What if you were trapped in a time-loop with a ghost from the future but your life is so monotonous and simultaneously bizarre you don’t even notice. 

Fishhooks by yellow_caballero

The Boba fic of all time. This author does not write much for SW but every time they do it’s iconic. What if you were a teenager running away from home but also a perfect clone of your father created to be him but better but also his because you will never escape his body and his ownership and his love. What then. 

Staring into open flame by SLWalker

This is such a beautiful and heartbreaking read, it’s basically exploring what would have to happen for Maul and Obi-Wan to have a genuinely healthy and happy relationship post murder and bisection. 

Energy Drink Fox by carrinth

The crack comic of all time. What if Fox had space Monster.

lost cause by catboydogma

The foundational Dogma fic. The fic that got me wondering about how clones spend their time on Coruscant. 

the married au by dharmaavocado

Clone rebellion my beloved. Basic premise is the clones took over Kamino and then went out into the galaxy as a mercenary army of sorts. Rex and Cody are finding their place in the world, creating business partnerships, falling in love, manipulating public perception of clones. (Background clonecest, not between Rex and Cody.)

[bloggingboutburgers]

I think everyone will benefit from properly tagging posts. xreader fics abd ship fics ONLY include the relevent _x_ tags but none of the character's name on its own, allowing all the usual fanart, theories and such to stay on the main name tag and not be crowded out by horny fanfiction (I say this as someone who very much enjoys very horny, very smutty xreader fanfictions. I want to be able to search the fics I want directly without having to trawl through headcanon posts, fanart, unrelated ship posts, etc.).

No one really has a tailored experience on the internet (I'm glad tumblr is at least a little more user dictated than advertiser algorithm based), but I do get the frustration and discomfort that comes from the abundant hornyposting feeling inescapable.

It's tempting to take offence to persistent cries against xreader stuff. I like special POV episodes of shows for the same reason I like xreader fics. My favourite characters WERE the company I kept, my only real form of companionship (albeit simulated) for many many years. Not because I am allo, basically. I sought something to meet my social needs growing up where I was unable to find community or companionship in real life.

Unfortunately, because they are usually sexual in nature I just came to associate a need for human connection with sex (so am I allo or just conditioned to blend sexual, platonic and romantic feelings and actions together?). I was just happy to feel like I had someone to hang out with. I knew they weren't real and that I needed to find real people to connect with (not for lack of trying, kids are just cruel. Finally made friends as an adult, yay).

Didn't intend for any of that to be so sad or pathetic, but hopefully it gives context for the prevalence of xreader fics. Alongside the varied reasons people write / read them (no just blind allo horniness), especially in light of the widespread loneliness epidemic over the past decade.

It's still more than ok to not want anything to do with them either (be it due to being aroace or not - I know plenty of allos who find xreader fics cringe).

Something I need to clarify here – we get it. Well, we don't fundamentally get it, but trust me, we've been told time and time again why people would write/draw/be into xreader content (it's all part of the package of "aroaces MUST put themselves in allo people's shoes at all times"), and we know they're perfectly legitimate reasons, and we don't find it sad or pathetic, or cringe. At the very least I don't at all. That's not what it's about. It's not something as surface-level at that.

The thing is... The same kind of understanding effort is VERY rarely put forward in return for us. And the fact that we're perceived as naysayers is symptomatic of this. We're not crying against xreader content. People are free to do whatever they want. We just want it to be tagged to keep ourselves safe, and so we can appreciate some variety and find fandom content we can properly connect with with the identity we have.

The issue isn't that there is xreader content, or heck, that there's lots of it. It's that, as @kaoruko-han put it, "everyone is assumed to be into this", and that you can't express something as simple as "I'd rather read something else" without being finger-pointed as a villain.

Yeah, no one has a tailored experience online, but there's still a very clear lack of balance on what is acceptable to tailor to or not (and for us, that includes tumblr). And trying to find fan-content while being sex-repulsed? Bruh, you'd better pray on your lucky stars and be ready to trudge through an ocean of stuff that's loaded with the very thing that makes you scared, uncomfortable or downright triggers a feeling of sickness in you, because a lot of it ain't tagged. An alarming amount of people don't bother, because why would people like you exist, right? There's only ever them, and puritan bigots. It's that black and white in a lot of people's heads.

Here's the difference though: we, too, want people to be able to vibe to whatever fan content they want. We just wish "people" included us properly in this case. As it stands now, trying to find fan content that won't give you an uncomfortable feeling as a sex-repulsed person feels kinda like this (I'll try to illustrate that to the best of my ability as a vague comparison, please no one take that as a clear parallel, I'm literally just trying to explain how it feels in a way people who have no idea how it feels might understand): you're not into gore at all, you don't wanna look at it, but your streaming platform keeps recommending you those series that are loaded with gore. You try to filter it out, but no matter where you go, you keep being recommended those series. And no one ever gets your discomfort and you're being branded as nothing but a wet blanket for not wanting to see gore. It's kinda like that.

At this point I admire sex-repulsed or romance-repulsed people who still TRY to find anything at all in fandom spaces. I've stopped reading fanfic altogether and I've largely stopped engaging with the large majority of fandom spaces for those reasons. And that wasn't an easy choice, or one that I find fun because it feels incredibly lonely, but it's the result of years of exhaustion and strain on my mental health trying to navigate something that's so hostile to me at its core, even if it's unintentional.

So... Yeah. We know the reasons, just like the content itself, they're kinda impossible to ignore. But we are largely being ignored in this, and it's not just something at an "ick" or "picky" level ; for a sex-repulsed person, being spammed with sex entails much more than that. It's not even frustration anymore at this point, it's downright despair a lot of the time. So... Yeah, like you said, everyone would benefit from stuff being more properly tagged. For us it'd be so huge to know our safety is taken into account – that we're taken into account at all. Thing is, we're not, and we're so invisible in this and most other things that at this point, I don't have much hope. Sex-related controversies allo people can understand would sooner create a change than anything done for our sake.

[kinardsevan]

so my initial theory was that the lightning strike parallel would have Tommy on the crane and that's how we would get some resolution. I really still love that idea (obviously. i wrote it twice.)

however, now (after zooming in on the instagram promo to an obnoxious degree), I'm not as sold on this version. BUT. there's another thing living in my head.

at some point, someone has to ask Buck why they broke up, and we know that we've got him "on a pendulum" with his reaction, and "cracks starting to show".

which brings about my new theory:

I feel like the conversation is ultimately going to happen with Maddie, since she's the Voice of Reason in his life. Maybe it's after he's been baking with Jee-Yun, idk. Anyway, I know the minute he says "I asked him to move in with me", she's gonna have the response of "...and have you figured out if you love him yet? Had you told him that?" which either will bring about his own feelings realization, or (hopefully) he'll have already come to that conclusion. but mostly, I'm imagining Maddie being like "wait, so you told him you wanted to move in together but you hadn't even said I Love You yet?" queue Buck being like "I thought it was in the context" and Maddie going all Big Sister and being like "okay what actually happened?" this then leading to Buck giving her the rundown of what was said, how Tommy told him he would break his heart and Maddie having to be like "well of course he's afraid, blah blah blah" (or some version of that, with the blahs being whatever reason she gives to him that actually makes sense). At which point, we get to the end of this conversation, and Maddie tells him "you need to call him, Evan. you need to be honest about how you really feel."

and what does THAT get us?

see, something occurred to me when I realized this option: the breakup parallels the first date. but the first date isn't the resolution to that episode, nor is it REALLY the start of their relationship. you know what is though?

the coffee date!

which is how we get them back at a cafe, mirroring their conversation about Buck "not being ready" and Tommy telling him he didn't want to pressure him.

To that end, we get the resolutions to those statements in new forms: we get Evan telling Tommy that he's not the guy who didn't know what he was ready for, and that he knows exactly what he wants, which is Tommy. He knows that because he's able to tell him that he's in love with him, flaws, trauma, and all. I think the way you can counterbalance that with the not wanting to pressure, is by Buck rescinding his offer to live together. at that point, we get a reflection of his understanding that Tommy has trauma (maybe Chimney knows the story and shares it during Buck's conversation with Maddie). anyway, he tells him that its his turn to go at Tommy's pace, at which point we can get a "are you sure about this?" "yes, I'm sure", and then Tommy's the one this time that reaches out and lays his hand over Evan's.

that's all. thanks for attending my second TEDtalk of the night. I'll see my way out (and back into the fic I'm trying to write this into).

[thebibutterflyao3]

Someone talk me out of turning a 100% texting fic with multiple POVs into a longer, more developed fic. Why does this one live rent-free in my head? I don’t even know whose POV I would write it in! 🙄

For context:

Simps & Feral Squirrels

Jegulus/Wolfstar/Dorlene/Pandalily/Partyvan

Some of my favourite scenes:

Tigerlily: Alright. Clearly we need a refresher on group chat etiquette.

No spamming. (cc: @ jamie)

No simping/flirting/drooling. (cc: @ jamie)

No threats or violence. (cc: @R.A.B. & @Fuck Off)

No posting after 11pm or before 6am. (cc: @So Sirius and @ jamie)

Be kind or be quiet. (cc: @Fuck Off, @Mmm, @mARS(E) bar, @R.A.B.)

jamie: hey why am i tagged in so many of them? :/

R.A.B.: @ jamie You’re fucking annoying.

jamie: hey! #5

Bartemius: @ jamie That is his “nice.”

Fuck Off: I’ll be quiet. So fucking quiet.

Mmm: kys <affectionately>

mARS(E) bar: kys <I’ll fuck your mum>

——————————

Pete P.: I want Barty and Evan, and they both want me now. How do I make this work?

Mmm: Interesting. I would suggest an open conversation between the three of you. Communication is important.

Pete P.: What if I arranged a threesome and we fucked it out?

Mmm: Another viable option.

——————————

Tigerlily: Help me pick an outfit for today?

Mmm: Event?

Tigerlily: Hopefully running into a girl I met yesterday.

Mmm: In that case, your dark green sundress with sandals. No sweater over the top!

Tigerlily: Oh. That one is so low-cut though.

Mmm: Exactly. If she’s petite, her eye line will be right at your chest. That should answer your question.

Tigerlily: Fine, but I’m wearing the sweater. I’ll just unbutton her if I see it.

Tigerlily: *unbutton it if I see her

Tigerlily: Oh my god. That’s mortifying.

Mmm: Think you had it right the first time, Lils.

——————————

Fuck Off: @So Sirius You have five seconds…5…4…

So Sirius: shite

Mmm: Here lies the dismembered remains of Sirius ‘can’t keep a secret’ Black. He will be forever remembered as the fool who fucked around and found out.

mARS(E) bar: His lasting impressions on this earth were his great hair and the ability to confuse “straight” men. He is survived by a prat of a little brother, a golden retriever pansexual with adhd, Peter, and his murderous boyfriend who will spend all of eternity grinding his teeth in fury.

pan…dora: Amen. Why are we burying Sirius?

——————————

Mmm: What the fuck is going on? Who’s screaming?

pan…dora: Regulus

Mmm: It’s so loud!

pan…dora: He’s panicking.

mARS(E) bar: reg just ran past my window

mARS(E) bar: oh look there’s james too

mARS(E) bar: followed by siri

mARS(E) bar: and now remus

Tigerlily: Where’s the fire?

Mmm: On Regulus’s arse apparently.

——————————

R.A.B.: I’m never coming back to the dorm. I live here now.

pan…dora: Where’s here? Gryffindor?

R.A.B.: By extension, yes.

pan…dora: James’s room?

R.A.B.: Inside of James’s jumper. With him in it.

R.A.B.: That was a nightmare. I can’t do it, Pandora. I can’t go back.

pan…dora: We’ll sort something out, Reg.

R.A.B.: There’s nothing to sort out. He’s mine and I refuse to let him leave me.

Pete P.: That doesn’t sound healthy, mate.

R.A.B.: I don’t give a fuck. You can pry him out of my cold, dead hands.

[yinyuedijun]

so sorry if this is a stupid question but like... how do u age up characters, not like literally but like in a writing sence (cause ur suo fics were honestly amazing)

this isn't a stupid question at all, it's actually something I struggle a lot with LOL and I'm glad to hear that you liked how I handled it in my suo fics - thank you for reading 🥺!

here are the approaches I take to generally ageing people up:

think about their canon characterization - not just their traits and habits, but also their motivations/values and where their character arc is heading

think about what kind of path they'd be heading toward as an adulthood (in material, mundane terms - university, type of work, relationships, major life events, etc). sometimes the series will give you careers they're heading towards, but wherever that's not the case, I usually like to stick to very realistic career paths because it grounds them into a realistic kind of adult context that we would be able to relate to. if they're getting into some kind of exceptional career (like, for instance, yakuza membership lol, but even if I kept them in delinquent groups like shishitoren or roppo-ichiza), then I usually go out of my way to justify it.

now this is the tricky part - think about how the events of their adulthood would affect their motivations/values, traits, habits, and larger character arc. the motivations/values and character arc pieces are very important, because it basically defines the adult characterization. (that's why so much of the suo fic revolves around his master and the effect of losing him, and what it does to his values and character arc!)

I also like to think about how other, normal adults would perceive this new aged-up version of them - the typical salaryman, the typical convenience store worker, etc. I find it helps recontextualize the character away from the canon setting and toward a more realistic, adult context. this is mostly so I'm not viewing the character through rose coloured glasses as I'm writing them lol (eg, someone who may be charming to us because of our attachment to them in canon might in fact be a neurotic loser to the average well-adjusted adult).

sorry I yapped so much rip - hopefully this helps!!!!

[krowsindulgences]

Progress on my Recreyo AU - Recreyo Myths

Okay, so it feels like I haven't updated in a while, but I have. And I want to make an update post or two! I will have a list of what I will talk about here.

Something with the title

The reason why Im not writing another fic

Story Progress

Okay, so first lets talk about the-

1. Title

If you have noticed from my past works on ao3(Just one), you will have seen the title as 'Recreyo Mythology'. I have changed it to just Myths because even though it sounds cool, Mythology means to STUDY myths. I really feel like a said 'woopsie daisy' on that one. So... expect it to be renamed when I post my next fic.

Actually, when am I making my next fic?

Well... not soon. Yep. You want to know why?

Its because we'll be going on number 2 now. Which is-

2. Osha-Rkry Progress

WOO! Yep, Im taking this language stuff seriously. I have long finished the phonology(sounds) of the language, so here are the things I have written in my grammar document at the moment:

Articles

Grammatical Gender

Grammatical Cases

Time Tenses

Numbers

Let's now see the progress.

The ones that are completed are Articles, Grammatical Gender and Cases. Yes, that's not a lot, but I am not including the more basic things about the language which are completed.

For now, I can give a sneak peek of what I have. I dont really know why, but I just dont want to show off everything.

First to show: Grammatical Gender + Pronouns

This is the whole thing, actually. I just dont think people would be able to really read this all at a first glance/dont take their time into it.

I actually do have a list on how some of the characters would refer to themselves.

Ai and Ao / Sasha /sə.ʃə/ - "Nrdw Ghrknyhry" (LIT: Like 1(S.God))

Chilly - "Nrdw Rknyhry" (LIT: Like 1(J.God))

Curt - "Kazhodo nrdw" (LIT: It like (1(?)))

Please remember the context of the structure being Object Verb Subject. 1 in this context refers to a first person pronoun, for example I and Me.

Second to show: Articles

The words are whited out on purpose.

Third to show: Time Tenses System

I think this can also be considered as 'Immortal Time / Mortal Time' too...

Well, thats all I want to show of Osha-Rkry right now! Hopefully you'll see more soon. Now, onto the next!

3. Story Progress

I think this is what most you all are for. Actually, with some help of @turkeyinnovember (Maybe a bit more with a reblog lol) I have done...

The backstories/backgrounds of EVERYONE! Along with a basic story concept.

You can expect 2/3 seperate stories/perspectives in this au. I will be listing the concepts of these plotlines, not the title.

Main Story 1: A girl gets spirited away to a new path in life, which changes her world a lot. The Gods she knows are not what is in front of her. Is she just forced to live a life in a different world? Is it even a different world?

Main Story 2: Did she find him? Or did he find her? No matter, because the Goddess of Knowledge has found a issue she had never faced before: She doesn't know a smidge about him.

Side Story 1: 'To meet a God is a Glory,' they said. One way or another, he finds himself in that exact situation. Is this what he wanted?

Also, the designs are REALLY unfinished. I only have Chillys concept going along, but I appear to be stuck.

Hint: I need ideas for tattoos. Please help me, anyone.

Well, I think thats it! I hope you all will like the AU Im preparing. This is Krow, saying goodbye! Have a wonderful time, folks!

Kra Rkry, its past 10 pm...

[dipplinduo]

So you would want to write more Sweet & Sour? Interesting. Anything you wish you could rewrite in hindsight?

(Context: this ask)

OOH this is a good question! xD 'Cause yeah, there's some things I'd handle differently. I could be knit-picky about a number of things, but these are the main ones tbh:

Make Kieran & Juliana have an even slower burn (like pre first-kiss). I pulled the trigger on making them more romantically involved with each other because I knew I was going in that direction and felt that I would've only written repetitively about their dynamic if I kept things where they were. BECAUSE OF COURSE MORE IDEAS CAME IMMEDIATELY AFTER I PULLED THAT TRIGGER- I am a bigggg enemies/rivals to lovers fan, and I don't like it when the pair gets together too quickly. I honestly wonder what I would think about their development if I was a reader lol. (I will say that keeping the fluidity & tension up after the fact was good, though. A lot of books I read suck at doing that xD) But like, stuff like early Kieran taking care of sick Juliana and having conflicting feelings over it? That felt like a great sweet spot. I'd love to give Juliana a little more reluctance about how she feels about Kieran too; I wanted to show that she's compassionate to a fault (and now y'all may see why xDD), but yeah. I really like the early stages of their feelings, and tbh it was part of why I wrote DIOH. I chuck things in there that I couldn't go back on with S&S D.

More flashbacks, especially for Juliana. Although...:) Chapter 22 and CHAPTER 23.... (that's all I'll say on that because I have a plan to address this LOL).

As much as I dislike it, draw out the E4 battles and whatnot. S&S D is by no means a battle-oriented fic but I 100% shoehorned the challenges in to progress a necessary part of the plot and I'll own that. It's honestly one of the smaller things given that the fic has more of a romance/chain lore/dorming au/some slices of life moments in it, butttttt yeah. xD Essentially I'd have Juliana challenge them in a more gradual way.

Some writing style things. As I've been growing as a casual writer, one thing I caught myself doing - unintentionally - is some bait-and-switch writing at times.

E.g. Applins are missing at the end of one chapter -> Applins are found in the next & the plot point is immediately resolved.

It didn't feel like that to me at the time because I wrote the chapters separately at different times & it does take a whole long ass chapter to get there, buuuuut! Yeah! I could see how this could get a little frustrating as a reader (imo); however, I acknowledge it can also give a (positive) episodic feel.

Since I self-identified this, I'm trying to be mindful about it with endgame stuff. There is something coming up that does dress itself up in a bit of a bait-and-switch manner, and I'm gonna work hard to hopefully demonstrate that this was the plan all along (thank you foreshadowing xD)

Another thing is the way I describe things at times. I can tend to get very descriptive because I want to immerse people, but this in itself can likely get repetitive. I will continue the writing style in S&S D for the most part to keep the cohesion in the story though. :)

[voylitscope]

Eight Stucky Fic Quotes/Lines/Moments That I Cannot Stop Thinking About

A somewhat non-standard rec list.

I've read a lot of brilliant and beautiful fic in this fandom, and a lot of those stories stayed with me long after I read them. There are also some very specific little moments/lines/paragraphs in a handful of fics that are burned into my brain. These are moments that have lived in my head rent-free since I first read them.

Those moments/lines come from the eight fics on this list. These eight fics are also among my very favorite fics. (I can't actually rank my favorites. I have a lot more than eight, and I love them all.) So, I thought this post would be a fun and hopefully interesting way to highlight/celebrate some of the amazing writing in this fandom and to talk about a few fics I love.

All fics on this list are fics I first read at least three months ago, so all these moments are ones I've been thinking about (a lot) for a while.

(Moments are context/spoiler-free for anything that's not already in tags/summaries.)

offer me that deathless death by canistakahari

(Explicit | 10,565 words)

(Fun fact: This is also the first fic about these two that ever made me cry! It still upsets me when I reread it. In the best possible way.)

The moment:

“Nothing. Nothing’s gotten into me,” Bucky says quickly. “Just wanted…” He makes an empty gesture between them. “I just wanted something good.”

Steve’s irritation passes like a cloud over the sun. “Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” says Bucky. “All of it. Not you, though.” He tangles their fingers together. He will remember this, on every single morning that sees fit to reset the universe. He won’t lose the best thing he’s got.

Steve squeezes his hand and sets his jaw. He’s unhappy, still, but he doesn’t give voice to that lingering urge to fuss.

“You’re the only thing that’s right,” says Bucky. “Okay? You are, Steve.”

Lane Lines by Sparkagrace @sparkagrace

(Mature | 132,519 words)

(This fic is a journey and every emotional moment — including the one below — is hard-earned. It's stunningly done and so, so satisfying.)

The moment:

“I’m scared of what’s out there too. I’ll hold your hand, Buck.” He says. “Coney Island, remember?”

Bucky huffs and shakes his head, wiping at his eyes. “Steve, that’s kids stuff. We were drinking.”

Steve holds out his hand in front of them to prove him wrong: palm up and open. Bucky studies his hand, trying to gauge how serious Steve is, before tentatively placing his own in Steve’s. Bucky’s fingers are cold so Steve curls his fingers around the hand, securing them in place.

Steve doesn’t say anything else and the two of them sit in silence for a few minutes, hands clutched. Steve feels the warmth returning to Bucky’s fingers, and his breathing begins to steady and even out. He wonders why they didn’t do this before because even he begins to feel a blanket settling over his own nerves, grounding himself.

Strangers in the Street by Crinklefries

(Teen | 15,304 words)

(How do the rules of time travel/alternate timelines work in the MCU? Does the MCU even know? Does it matter? Not really. What matters is that this fic involves timeline travel, and it's gorgeous. That's all you need to know.)

The moment:

Steve looks sad at that, just hopelessly, interminably sad.

“You know me,” Bucky says, searching Steve’s eyes. He can’t see a lie there; maybe Steve isn’t capable of it, maybe he doesn’t know how to, not to Bucky. Steve nods. “I know you too. How do I know you?”

“I’m Steve and you’re Bucky,” Steve says. “I would know any iteration of you, in any timeline, in any universe.”

Bucky can’t lie either. He doesn’t know why this is true, but he knows that it is.

He twines their fingers together, watches Steve watch him as he brings their hands to his mouth and kisses them.

Calico Skies by musette22 @musette22

(Explicit | 52,618 words)

(This fic just has so much warmth to it. It's comforting and incredibly romantic and I love it so very much. Even thinking about this fic makes me smile.)

The moment:

Their eyes meet, and for a moment, time seems to be suspended. Bucky can see the moment it clicks: Steve’s face goes from blank to shocked in the span of a few seconds, and then his expression crumbles. Bucky’s heart contracts painfully at seeing Steve looking so young, so utterly vulnerable. Before he knows what’s happening, Steve has dropped his bag and is all but running over to him, crossing the landing deck in a few long strides. Bucky feels himself break out into a watery smile. He opens his arms, just in time for Steve to throw his entire 6’4” super body into them.

Bucky lets out an oooff and stumbles backwards, arms wrapping around Steve to hold onto him as tightly as possible. Putting his strength to good use, Steve manages to keep them both from tumbling to the floor, burying his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck as he repeats his name over and over.

“You’re alright,” Bucky tells him, lifting a hand to cup the back of Steve’s head. “You’re okay, Steve.”

Take Your Time Coming Home by odetteandodile

(Explicit | 13,047 words)

(A fic that manages to be both a prewar fic and an AU. There's letter writing! They were roommates! I'm so desperately fond of this one.)

The moment:

He rises that first evening only to shower and eat and read the brief, precious note waiting for him on the kitchen counter. It reads, simply:

Steve, with all my heart I’m glad it was you.—Bucky

Lonesome no more by dharmasharks @dharmasharks

(Explicit | 7,539 words)

(The achingly tender, soft, and beautifully written Wakanda fic we all need in our lives.)

The moment:

“Can we try to do this? Just this?” 

A breath passes between them. Bucky lifts his hand to Steve’s neck. Then he leans in. 

Steve doesn’t really have the most favorable associations with this sort of thing. He remembers being sort of terrified. Or intimidated. Or obligated. 

But kissing Bucky is nothing like that. It’s only soft and warm. And safe. 

He’s still living inside it for a second, after Bucky pulls back. It occurs to him how small a space that was to cross, those few inches between their faces. Why did he convince himself back then, for all those years, that it was an impossible, unreachable distance? 

Targeting by queenmab_scherzo

(Explicit | 149,148 words)

(I'm obsessed with the way this fic manages to so closely parallel canon — while making it about football. Obsessed.)

The moment:

In the ensuing silence, Steve clears his throat and squares his shoulders, bracing himself for the next part.

"Can … Can I still call you Bucky?"

He turns to fully face Steve. There is a small crease between his eyes, the only marker that betrays any emotion in his otherwise neutral mask.

"Yeah," he says. His lips barely move. "What else would you call me."

Steve feels as if an ocean wave has just crashed into his lungs. The bluntness of the statement—what could otherwise come across as curt and standoffish—is actually what makes Steve so happy.

What else would you call me.

Steve shakes his head, opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again, floundering. "I don't know," he admits. He feels like an idiot, but he can't stop grinning. "Yeah. I don't know."

Not Easily Conquered by dropdeaddream, WhatAreFears

(Mature | 117,692 words)

(NEC feels like s very obvious choice for a list like this, and for good reason. I'm ending on a classic. It's often the letters themselves that are quoted/mentioned — also for good reason! And, believe me, those swim in my brain too, they do. But, for me, the thing I'll never stop thinking about? The moment in this fic that moved into my brain? It's this one here.)

The moment:

“How you been?” says a voice, a voice like Brooklyn at sunset; like the curl of cigarette smoke above base camp in France.

“Buck.”

“Don’t hit the light.”

Steve doesn’t, standing with his fist knuckling white around the kitchen countertop. The dark figure stands from the chair Cagney sat in and Bucky walks to him. His face comes into the light from the hallway. He wears a ball cap and a tattered blue surplus coat and his hair hangs lank down to his shoulders. There’s more beard on his face than during the winter of 1944. Steve feels a rushing in his head, and a strange displacement in time. This is because it simply ceases to exist. It’s 1938, or 1941, or 2009; he doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter. There is a dimple in Bucky’s chin. Steve feels a snap inside himself. Bucky is before him. He grabs at Steve’s neck as if to hold him up, as though one of them might fall, and he cups at it roughly, his own mouth twisting.

“Hey, you,” Bucky says, rough.

“God,” Steve gasps, and his knees almost buckle. Bucky’s right hand is big and calloused and familiar, his thick square fingers hot on Steve’s skin. Steve grasps his arm. “Hey. Hey, Buck.”

“That’s me,” Bucky says, and Steve lets out a hysterical, gasping laugh. “Really me. Or mostly me.”

Fic Rec Series

[fitzrove]

Now that I'm talking about history sklslsldldld here's another post...

Historical accuracy in fanworks - why?

A recurring thing w me is that people get annoyed with how obsessed I am with historical accuracy 😭😅 Like people have had to physically restrain me from doing 5 hours of research for a throwaway line in a fanfic, and one friend and I once had an hour long argument about word choice... But unfortunately I am just Like This lmao.

The thing is though, it's not because of any inherent sense of superiority or anything like that lol, I just have preferences. Also, I'm not the kind of person that needs everything to be 100% accurate all the time, I can still have fun JAPFLDPGPF. Basically, for me it comes down to a few things:

1. Suspension of disbelief / immersion

With historical fiction, the "he would not fucking say that" kicks in w dialogue easier than w something set in the modern day. Sometimes it's because of glaringly modern language (a 19th century guy going "sup" or something xD) but other times it's because a character is way too familiar with people of a different class, or acts/dresses/speaks too casually in general.

My hugest pet peeve with this are character names for side characters that the author made up 😭😭😭😭😭 As a non-native English speaker I don't really get the urge to insert random English names into my stories even when the stories are in English, I always look up the historical context and try to use names that a parent would give their child in that context. I'm sorry for naming and shaming but in one tdv fic Alfred's surname was Smith and I had to put down my phone because it broke my immersion so badly xD

2. Enjoyment

Historical accuracy can also be a characterisation thing!!! With crown prince rudolf of austria specifically his whole appeal as a character comes from his neuroses, and his neuroses are the specific way they are because of his specific position and status, and all that those entail in his historical context. It makes a story so much more interesting if these are properly taken into account 👀

3. What's the purpose of fanfic?

To me personally the purpose of writing and posting FANfic, as opposed to writing other stories, is threefold:

Making a point about the original story (is it a fix-it fic? An AU reimagining? A canon-compliant elaboration on something I think could expand upon a character's personality or two characters' relationship? These approaches all comment on the original work and its themes and characters.)

Personal enjoyment/self indulgence (I write what I would like to read)

Hopefully connecting with other fans (persuading them to see my Vision re specific characters/relationships, the setting, or the work as a whole; keeping the fandom alive; inspiring other people to make fanwork; providing entertainment; finding people who are the same kind of insane as you and making friends)

To me, putting historical accuracy into my fic or drawing inspiration from history fulfills all of these goals. With the first one: the original work usually comments on its era in some way as well, so drawing inspiration for the fic from that era complements it and keeps them grounded together. IRL history can also give you fun ideas to put in. W the second one: I love late 19th century history specifically and historical accuracy is my kink KSLFPEPDOFO. W the third one: I like sharing weird/funny/interesting historical facts w people so we can enjoy them together 😌 I also like Informing people of things that happened in history so hopefully they can have as much fun w the knowledge as I do. I try not to do this unsolicitedly and in general try to avoid criticising anyone for historical inaccuracies without being asked to because that's boring, I'm not trying to be cinema sins here

4. Exceptions

Sometimes historical inaccuracy is more fun than historical accuracy, though this is highly personal - you just have to do what you think is best and accept that something you enjoy might be something that breaks another person's suspension of disbelief (and hence makes them not enjoy the story). My personal metrics are roughly:

Sojblfpldlpf fun fact an unnamed person and I had a conversation about rudolf's probably not existing [redacted] register last night and while writing a fic about it would be historically inaccurate, the conclusions we arrived at about it were pretty funmy and interesting. With gay and homosexual implications

One of my favourite pastimes is to comb over crown prince rudolf's life and purposefully misinterpret random things as gay KSOGODPFOTK 😌😌😌 it's a good way to get fic ideas. So um yeah idk where I was going with this post haha

[krystal-maiden]

Sudden midnight fic idea. A wenclair ten things i hate about you au where wednesday is the antisocial kat and enid is patrick. Enid is disowned and lives with her friend (yoko prolly) so she would do anything for some cash. Someone who hates wednesday or the addams family wants to get revenge so they hire enid (someone who is the total opposite of an addams) to woo wednesday and then break her heart. Enid being the sweetheart that she is initially refused but she badly needed funds for some school thing that will hinder something important? Not sure yet, just that she didn't want to but she desperately needed the money so she agrees. It took a lot of time but enid managed to sweep wednesday off her feet. But by then she starts to realize that she likes wednesday. The person who hired her told her to break up with wednesday but she refused so they revealed that enid was paid to date wednesday at prom. Wednesday was furious of course and stormed off. Enid tried to explain and apologize but wednesday ignores her completely so she gives up and is miserable for a few paragraphs. Then wednesday finds out why enid agreed to do that. Someone (yoko prolly) spilled the tea and explained everything (methods unknown). Wednesday, now with full context of what went down, got revenge on the someone that paid enid... the addams way. Then they are in class and she reads her perfectly written poem. (The poem can be altered to suit wednesday's writing but the original is already cool so). Lastly, they make up and hopefully make out.

[sablegear0]

"Why not just write your own stories?"

At time of writing, I am taking an online course about Ethics and Legal Issues in Publishing. I say this as context because the class forum is discussing fan fiction and where it falls in terms of "fair dealing" (the Canadian version of "fair use") and the "moral rights" of a copyright holder to their work (a creator's right to be associated with, and protect the dignity of, their work).

Within this discussion, one of my classmates (who by their own admission is a bit "out of the loop" on this front, they're an older individual who was around before the internet and online fan spaces became a thing) was asking -politely I must note, they were very open to discussion and having their mind changed- about the purpose of fan fiction. They said they don't really understand it. Why write with other people's material? Why not just write your own stories?

To that, I wrote this, which focuses on the why rather than any copyright issues. I just wanted to put out there how I felt about fanfic and the "why" behind it to hopefully show this person where the impulse comes from. What's the purpose of something so legally dubious?

==

I think I might have an answer to "Why not just write your own stories?" and a bit of an explanation of the "purpose" (I guess?) of fanfic from a very fannish angle.

First and foremost: writing is hard. Writing something original is even harder. That's part of why I'm not writing "my own stories" (insofar as original characters and plots, more on that in a moment). Part of the appeal of fanfic is that someone has already done a good chunk of the world building, plot development, characterization, and audience investment for you. It's easy to jump right into the kind of story you want to tell when you're borrowing elements the audience is already familiar with to tell it. It's a bit like playing with toys in that sense; a Barbie's harrowing expedition to the top of bookshelf-Mount-Everest is more compelling because we have a sense of who Barbie is already.

Second, and perhaps most significantly, the vast majority of fan fiction is an expression of love for the original material. Getting to glorify or explore characters you've come to love, giving plot points and characters the time you feel they deserve is satisfying. In this sense, fanfic is often born of a desire for more. And if the fandom can't get more from the source, they'll make their own from scrap. Many fanfic stories fill in what the writer considers "gaps" in the canon, or explore relationships or elements of a character that may be implied (or the fan feels are implied; re-interpretations and "head-canons" abound in fan spaces) but not explicitly explored in canon. Or they can be "fix it" fics, in which nobody dies or tragedies or undone - which may undermine the grand literary intent of some events, but sometimes you just want to see your favourite character get a happy ending because they're your favourite!

Fanfic can also be an exercise in writing techniques and style, which is primarily how I use it (the audience comes free with the territory! The feedback not so much, but not everyone is a literature critic...). After the purpose of general appreciation, I've found the second biggest purpose of fanfic is so the writer can work through something. Try out a style or explore some thought or issue or realization in their own life. They do so through the lens of familiar characterizations but by introducing new themes, new issues, new twists. In this way the fan writers are "writing their own stories". Many of these exploratory pieces can get quite personal! (I have also done this.) They're just using established elements as a kind of shorthand, so the audience understanding is already there when they begin a story exploring something like trauma or identity or grief.

So fan fiction is a lot of things to fans: it's an open forum for discussion, it's a common language, it's a sandbox full of toys, it's an art gallery, it's graffiti on the works in the art gallery, it's a modern retelling of a period piece, it's a historical recasting of a digital-age story, it's a band-aid, it's therapy, it's practice - but most of all, for a lot of us, it's just how we show our love.

[chartreuseian]

1, 14, 43 and 68 for the writers ask;)

Thank youuuuuu ❤️

1. Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

Often daydreaming is how the ideas come! I have a lot of what I call Car Thoughts or Walking Thoughts that I frantically scribble down to be sorted out later on. My notes app is filled with lines and little snippets of scenes, and my notebook is a mess of scribbles and arrows (and sneaky ways to write the dirty words just in case).

Once I have the idea though, I just dive in unless it's looking like it's part of something bigger and more complicated!

14. What is your favorite location and position to write in?

At Tabitha!! Or on my balcony recently. Now that the weather has turned a little cooler, it's a lovely spot to write first thing in the morning.

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

I'd love to do a proper boring human AU. They're one of my favourite things to read, but I've only tried it once and it didn't go well. I think I need to find the write context for it, and then hopefully I'll give it a shot!

68. Are there any fics that influenced you to write the way you do?

Hmmm. Probably not individual fics, but authors certainly inspire me to try new/different things, or make me want to find ways to create a similar effect in my own writing. For example (and I'm gonna tag people because y'all deserve some love), I adore how @ladyelysandra creates these beautiful, floaty scenes where I can't help but slow down and read every word and I've been trying to do the same thing in my writing. @tinknevertalks has some of the best back and forth banter I've ever read and I aspire to be able to have so much going unsaid in my dialogue. And I always find myself wanting to be able to craft chapters like @sarcasticsciencefictionwriter - like each chapter tells its own little story, and even if there's a cliffhanger at the end, there's always a resolution that makes it feels so satisfying to read and I've been trying to do more of that (and there are DOZENS of others, but these are the three that I've read most of lately so that's probably why I'm feeling all gooey and in love right now 😅)

OH! And also I recently read @galactic-pirates Time Will Tell which is making me rethink ALL of my Five fic (in the very best way) because it was so damn good!!

[erwin0859]

Hello there, and welcome! 😊

Link to masterlist

I'm a male alien INFJ (at least, I strongly suspect it) who descended in this mortal realm in the year of 1998. I have a little bit of writing experience, though I wouldn't call it a proper hobby...

After the idea floated around my mind for a while now, I decided to give a try to writing headcanons/short fics, specifically for Genshin Impact (with now a bit of Honkai Star Rail), with a particular focus on comfort/fluff.

I got inspired to do this after seeing how often I would turn to comfort or fluff content on tumblr, as a way to cope with the void of loneliness (sometimes overthinking too). As such, why not add my own contribution... as long as it can, hopefully, provide some relief to one person out there.

Asks are open (anon allowed) for requests and chatting (and DMs for chatting if you feel like it) 👀

Please read all the rules first though!

Universes I can write for

Genshin Impact

Honkai Star Rail

Characters I feel rather confident to write for

Genshin Impact

Kamisato Ayaka

Yae Miko

Fischl

Furina (before or after 4.2 archon quest)

Lumine (with or without Paimon)

Honkai Star Rail

Ruan Mei

Here below, characters I may possibly write for

I'm not as confident regarding them, so "ask at your own risks", I suppose. For those I didn't mention, I'm not against writing for them... Maybe, I can actually write them well, and I just don't know it yet 🙃

Genshin Impact

Zhongli

Neuvillette

Sangonomiya Kokomi

Nahida (strictly platonic and SFW, obviously)

Chiori

Navia

Albedo

Nilou

Charlotte

Yanfei

Amber

Wanderer

Beidou

Lisa

Arataki Itto

Clorinde

Keqing

Shenhe

Honkai Star Rail

Black Swan

Robin

Sparkle

March 7th

Tingyun

What I can write

reader X character (with reader by default as gender neutral for wider audience's sake, unless a request demands a different one)

mainly fluff and comfort (reader comforting, or being comforted by character)

I don't exclude mentions of hurt or angst as context for the above (unless a request specifically demands it), some conditions related to mental health (loneliness, overthinking and its consequences) aren't excluded either

platonic (not entirely confident with romance, see Miscellaneous below), eventually light romance, but nothing intense

headcanons, eventually fics (fics may be included in headcanons if I'm feeling inspired; no guarantees though)

What I would rather not write

Unless you're lucky and your request is within my abilities, just be aware though they're not my preferences (= you would be wise to ask someone who actually writes for those, instead of me)

smut/+18/NSFW/NSFL (not out of dislike/disgust/discomfort, but due to no experience in writing this kind of sensitive stuff)

intense romance & flirting (not really into romance, so, better to be safe than sorry...)

yandere (no experience in this)

genderswap (not really interested...)

character x character (check above, "intense romance & flirting")

Miscellaneous:

By default, the reader will be gender neutral and referred to as S/O (please specify in the request, if you wish for specific nicknames or other pronouns to be used!), I want my blog to be open to everyone 😊

Multiple requests are allowed

I aim to write characters in a realistic manner, meaning I will base myself upon canon actions & voice lines from them

I'm not familiar with everything regarding LGBT+ and the autism spectrum (I'm not against writing about them, it's just that it will be a bit more difficult, and will require some research on my side)

I may not accept every request I receive (I'm no professional writer; plus, everything is done for free, during my free time)

I plan to add a link to ambient music to listen to, for immersion's sake (it may be emotional on purpose, at times), ideally to open in a new tab, so it can keep playing in background as you scroll along

Please don't interact if you don't have a civilized behavior; that is to say, be respectful, no hate, etc...

Headcanons are called headcanons for a reason; it's fine if you don't agree with mine, but that doesn't allow you to consider yours as superior/the only one 😉

If you own a blog which has "men dni" (or "mutuals only" and we aren't)... then what are you still doing here? *vine boom sound effect* Just kidding, I don't mind you interacting (I'm not like other men, and it's not like I could choose my gender at birth anyway; arbitrary discrimination be damned), though be aware this would technically be hypocrisy... so you ought to use anon, for your own public image's sake 🤨

Take care and have a nice day/night 😊

[deliciouskeys]

2, 4 for ZM, 5 for The Selfish Gene, 22 for ZM, and 37 please! :)

(Writers’ ask meme) Thank you for asking! 😊

Answered #2 in another post.

4. What detail in ZM are you really proud of?

What first sprang to mind was the sequence where HL has a breakdown crying on the day of his televised funeral. Idk how readers felt, but I was satisfied with the way the dialogue conveyed the heightened emotional state, and the escalation. His specific stated reasons for the breakdown were irrational and maybe even comical, but Billy (and hopefully the reader to some degree) couldn’t help but feel for him.

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about The Selfish Gene? Answer it now!

Heh, I’ve gotten good questions (and crowdsourced my own questions about certain plot elements). If someone was weird like me and asked “is HL going to go through menopause in the next 5-10 years?” I’d say… YES. His irritable demeanor and hot flashes bouts of panic in S3 (and alleged worrying about his age in S4) in canon are already giving perimenopause vibes 😅. I know some readers wanted them to have a huge family, but I kind of like this being HL sneaking in just under the deadline to have one biological child before fertility plummets. There’s no good reason for such a limitation in what is essentially a sci-fi setting, except for the author being evil and raising the stakes. I mean, HL doesn’t know for sure, and probably hasn’t thought about it. He had a goal he wanted done asap.

Lol @ this paragraph if taken out of context.

22. Who is your favorite character in ZM and why?

Why you gotta do me like that?? I love both mains to pieces. I’ll say Billy just because in that fic more time is spent explicitly in his head and HL happens to be the fetishized exoticized mysterious Other.

But as you know, I’ll read and write HL with a wide array of other characters, but for Billy, I ship him pretty exclusively with HL so… draw your own conclusions 🙂

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

I gave saintmathieublanc an answer, so here’s a different one: Cloth Mother/Sex Doll. I have a fascination with the where-did-it-all-go-wrong backstory fics about Homelander as a child, can you tell. I also quite enjoy writing Jonah Vogelbaum. It’s probably gotten just as much traction as it should have 😂😅

[rollercoasterwords]

ok here's the essay re: "realisitc?? they're literally wizards!!"

upon further reflection (25 min voicenote 2 twin, 1 conversation w 2 friends) i think i have. managed 2 organize + articulate my thoughts.

obligatory disclaimer: this literally does not matter i'm talking about hp fanfiction in 2023 this is not a serious issue beyond being like. kind of annoying. unfortunately i just enjoy writing abt stupid fandom discourse hopefully going back 2 school will cure me of the incessant need 2 write essays for fun but who knows. anyway me writing this essay is not me saying this is a huge or important issue i just like 2 talk <3

anyway! the ~discourse~ i've been noticing in the marauders fandom, which from my pov has had sort of an uptick recently (although who knows if that's objectively true--maybe i've just stumbled across more of it. from where i'm sitting, though, it seems like it's become more of a hot topic in recent months) generally goes as follows:

person a: omg ugh i hate that in [x fic] [x character] has/is/does [x flaw] :(

person b: oh well [x character] having/being/doing [x flaw] makes the story more realistic

person a: UM they're literally wizards at a magic school lol....who cares if it's realistic....

and the reason this both interests + annoys me is that i think. giving person a the benefit of the doubt + assuming they aren't being purposely obtuse (bc in that case we're just talking abt trolls), it demonstrates such a gap in understanding. bc the thing person a is fighting w that response is literally a strawman

the strawman:

saying "um they're literally wizards" is only a "gotcha" moment if it's pointing out an inconsistency in person b's thinking. it is only pointing out an inconsistency if, when person b says "it makes it more realistic," we take that to mean that person b is saying "a story is better if it more closely matches our own reality." in that case, saying "they're wizards!!!" points out an inconsistency, bc obviously characters being wizards does not match reality. gotcha!!!

the problem is that that isn't what person b is saying. so by responding "they're wizards" as if that's some sort of "gotcha" moment, person a is misinterpreting person b's argument, constructing a strawman that nobody is actually arguing, and then tearing down that strawman with a pithy little sarcastic comment that positions them as soooo much more reasonable than person b.

so what is person b actually saying?

the problem is that saying "[x character] having [x flaw] makes a story more realistic" is not an argument about the story being better, it's an explanation for why someone would write the story that way.

another disclaimer - some "person b"s in this situation might, in fact, be using "it's more realistic" to try and argue that a story being more realistic makes the story better; however, that is not a position i'm going to be defending here. i think any argument that roots itself in a so-called "objective" measure of what makes a piece of art better or worse is a non-starter, and in that case i think person b and person a are perhaps both misguided in different ways.

but what's happening from person b's pov is - person a asks "why would anyone write [x character] with [x flaw]?" person b tries to answer that question by explaining: well, it makes the story more realistic. the implication here is -- a story being more realistic is a personal preference that some people are going to prefer; people write + read stories for different reasons. this is the reason that i enjoy the story, personally. that's it!

and the thing is, "realistic" in the context of a fantasy story does not mean "matches real life exactly." in the context of fantasy, "realistic" refers, in my mind, to two things:

1. cohesive internal logic

even within a fantasy universe, there are going to be structured societies, rules, laws of natures, etc. what makes a fantasy story more realistic is not how closely it adheres to real-life structures + rules, but how closely it adheres to its own established structures + rules - its own internal logic.

for example: in my fantasy world, fairies can fly but mermaids can't. then, suddenly, without explanation, i write a scene where a mermaid can fly. this makes the story less realistic, in that it breaks from its own internal logic, and stretches the limits of readers' abilities to suspend their disbelief. like - we've already sort of "agreed" to suspend disbelief about fairies + mermaids existing, because that's just the established norm of the story, but as readers we are still looking to follow some internal logic. oftentimes, when people are complaining about fantasy stories being more or less realistic, they are referring to the story's own internal logic.

this means if someone is writing hp fanfic set in a canon universe, working in the established canon universe where certain biases + flaws exist, it makes the fic more realistic to adhere to that internal logic. obviously, a fic writer can choose to change that internal logic and say, for example, "in my story the wizarding world doesn't have homophobia, and that's an established societal norm that is part of the story's internal logic." that's fine! it's just a matter of personal choice whether that's the story that somebody wants to write or not, y'know?

2. reflection on real life

the other aspect of "realism" that i think people are referring to when they talk about a fantasy story being more or less "realistic" is the ways in which that story does reflect actual reality. like--fantasy stories don't exist in a vaccuum. many writers use fantasy stories to reflect realities from actual life; things like prejudice or oppression or war, etc. placing these real-life issues into a fantastical setting allows a new lens through which to think about them, pushing us to examine them from different angles.

for example - take k.a. applegate's animorphs series. it is, in many ways, completely unrealistic, in that it's about kids who can turn into animals fighting off an alien invasion. but k.a. applegate wrote the books to demonstrate the utter horror and devastation of war, and much of the subject matter reflects real-life wartime situations. a kid who only hears about war through the news or through action movies where there's a clear good guy and bad guy, a clear right and wrong, might find it easy to disregard the horror. but when applegate took those real-life situations and placed them into the fantastical setting of animorphs, she's providing an age-appropriate way for children to understand that no, war is not an action movie, it's a horror story.

this is why "realism" in fantasy matters to people. some writers are using fantasy not as pure escapism, but as a way to explore real-life issues through a different lens, one that may allow people to empathize with an issue in a way they normally don't. obviously, some people are just writing fantasy for fun escapism -- and that's fine! there's space for both types of stories to exist simultaneously; what doesn't make sense is assuming that just because somebody engages with media differently from you, there must be something wrong with it.

anyway. the conclusion to all this i suppose is that i think if you genuinely do not understand why someone would write a character a certain way, rather than assuming the worst or assuming there's no good reason it's generally better to like. actually ask and listen to the answer people are giving u + try to understand where they're coming from. not everyone is going to want to read the same types of stories, and somebody writing a character w certain flaws shouldn't feel like a personal attack, bc fandom is a self-curated experience where u literally don't need 2 read or write anything u don't want to. The End

[pynkhues]

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THOSE ALL SOUND AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU ARE A FOUNTAIN OF BENEFICENCE

LOUIS PHOTOGRPAHING LESTAT how has there not been more fic about this?????? I mean you said Louis directing Lestat's photographer lol so maybe he won't do it himself, but just any fic with them involving Lestat being photographed with Louis in charge, yes please.

REUNION FIC FROM YOU truly the gods are good

I CANNOT WAIT FOR YOUR 1.6 FIC!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe this would be getting into too much detail about the fics in advance, but the thing about at least one of the fics being in the same universe as the other two fics made me think of something I've wondered related to that scene in 1.6--the scene is obviously very consensual sex that Lestat is thrilled to have, so there's no comparison between Louis and Magnus OBVIOUSLY, but I have wondered if the rough sex combined with other physical injures would make Lestat think about Magnus during that at all...I could see it either way, that maybe it would, or that his feelings about it are so so different that it wouldn't (and maybe it occurred to me more because he talked about Magnus AFTER that scene). And if he did think about Magnus at all, would Louis pick up on anything? He wouldn't have any context for it at that point. ANYWAY, whether or not there's any shades of that other stuff in it, a 1.6 fic from you is going to blow my mind with hotness--that whole scene was so brilliantly done and begs for more fic to flesh it out--so I am extremely excited.

(x)

Bahaha, thank you, anon!! The cat's lowkey out of the bag with the photography one now, because an anon did send me a prompt that sort of formed the basis for it (but hopefully they see this and know that I'm working on something too, haha).

The reunion fic is one I'm really, really loving writing now that I've found my own way into it. It kind of feels like it's own beast in so many ways, which I've really enjoyed. I've read so many great reunion fics and didn't want to write something until I felt I had something fresh to give this little fandom space, and this story has just opened up to me in unexpected ways and been a bit of a gift creatively. It's pretty different from what other people have done, so I'm sure some people might not like it, but hopefully it resonates with others.

The structure of it has let me weave basically a bunch of Rue Royale-era fresh memories/mini-fics, practically, into it too, which has made me very happy to write, haha.

And yes, the Magnus question is a really interesting one for 1.06 - I've answered something before that I now can't find, but it is really interesting that the show chose to position Lestat disclosing the cliffnotes of his turning after (very consensual, as you said! but also) clearly rough sex + feeding. Like you said too, Louis has no context at all prior to Lestat's partial disclosure (and one Louis has obviously read into what Lestat both did and didn't say given Claudia and Daniel's reaction, and Louis' own behaviour in Magnus' tower). I tend to view the show linking those scenes as Louis seeing enough mmmm, physical and emotional give, I guess, in Lestat to allow him to come home again after his abhorrent act of violence against Louis, but I also think it's partially this performance of compromise.

Like, gosh, the dynamics at play are even a part of why there's room for Claudia to cast doubts on Lestat's honesty, right? But yes, sorry, more to your point, I don't know! The victim-survivor experience is not a uniform one, and how memories surface is anyone's guess. With my writer hat on, I tend to think the dynamics play out so differently, not just with Lestat and Louis' mutual love for one another, but Louis being a character of such warmth and heat, affection and lust, that it would hopefully be enough of a separation to Magnus that Lestat could ground himself. But yeah - - who knows at this point. I've said it before, but in the books, Lestat's a character who just like - - doesn't deal with enormous trauma, which is a part of why Claudia rightfully haunts his ass, so I'm really curious to see what the show does with that.