#i was writing a fic that essentially starts with that premise. and then becomes a lot more. that's the 20k words i wrote about eclipse.

[asairayn]

OKAY HERE'S THE ANALYSIS OF ORIGINAL ECLIPSE

I LOVE THIS. such good interpretations of every version of eclipse.

I do want to talk about the original Eclipse, though, because I have a lot of thoughts on him and his motivation and his issues- I might be a little bit biased towards him (I wrote over 20k words about him over about eight months and wasn't even CLOSE to done).

So! Trying to analyze Eclipse at the very start is kind of difficult because... so much has been retconned, or forgotten about, or turned out to be just Not True- remember when Eclipse said he caused July 16th? Hard to tell whether that was him lying or something that got retconned as soon as they realized they needed a second villain.

But! from the best I can gather, largely from much later episodes that talk about the beginning, the original Eclipse was actually very heavily motivated by feeling betrayed. He actually said it himself

The original Eclipse was Moon. He started out as Moon, he had all the same memories... and then he was abandoned. Fully. Before he even existed. And then he was left in Sun's head for... an indeterminably long time (has the timeline been cleared up yet? how goddamn long before the show starts did july 16th happen?? because he was conscious in Sun's head for long enough before that to create Bloodmoon.), where he was able to hear and maybe see what was going on around Sun... but not do anything. Solitary confinement will get to anyone!

(He actually talked about that as a betrayal and how much it Sucked to be stuck in Sun's head in this clip (well. the reincarnation did. but good fucking luck finding the original eclipse talking about feelings.))

So he was Moon, and then he came to consciousness stuck in Sun's head with Moon's memories still thinking he was Moon, and then was stuck there for... a long time. He created Bloodmoon fairly early... and then was immediately abandoned again. Somehow, in however long he spent in the void in Sun's head (I have a lot of thoughts on that void, but they're not technically canon), he managed to craft himself a new identity. Because he was Moon!

And then he watched Sun and Moon get to exist and have a life while he was stuck for a long time in what was essentially solitary confinement. He hated them- he hated them a lot. It's mentioned many times, especially in the first few episodes with teaps Sun and Moon (i'm at that point in trying to catch up, so. i don't know whatever's happened beyond that), that Eclipse fucking hated being stuck in Sun's head- he hated loss of control, he hated having to watch.

And it shows in what he was trying to do! He hated Moon for abandoning him, and he hated Sun for not letting him have control... so he tortured Moon and completely revoked all control from Sun. Technically his goal in that era is to get the star, to... erase the world and make it better, or something, but. To me, that doesn't show at all- he doesn't act like that's his goal, he mostly acts like that's a fun pastime while he tries to lock Sun and Moon away permanently.

That all doesn't work, evidently. Lunar betrays him, which everybody but him expected, and lets Moon help Sun figure out what the hell to do, and eventually Eclipse gets killed/expelled from Sun's head. Goodbye to the original Eclipse, sucks to suck loser, shouldn't have abused your brother.

But the original Eclipse, at his core, hated Moon for abandoning him but hated Sun for locking him away.

He was mostly motivated by hatred- he'd had a long time to stew in it. He had a lot of abandonment issues and a lot of spite.

Quite literally, at that time, the only way that he could have any kind of control was by shoving Sun into his own head... which made both Sun and Moon hate him more. There wasn't actually any way he could take control without pissing them off- excluding maybe communication, but it's Eclipse. and he'd have to be communicating with Moon (notoriously bad at communication). He also had zero communication skills- he was Moon and then spent a long time unable to talk to anyone.

BUT THE JULY 16TH THING THAT I MENTIONED EARLIER IS IMPORTANT. I forgot I was going to talk about that.

So! The biggest thing that made Sun and Moon hate Eclipse from the beginning was that he claimed he was the one who took over Sun's body and killed a bunch of children on July 16th. Well, technically, he may have just said that he caused it and let Sun and Moon come to their own conclusions about how- but in the beginning, he was definitely saying that he was the one who killed people on July 16th.

And... that was a lie. Or retconned. Hard to say. You could technically say that he did still cause July 16th by creating Bloodmoon, but that's still a different thing. He didn't take control and murder children with his own hands- he created a person who got bored and took control to murder children.

But that means that Sun and Moon originally hated him for something he didn't do. They had other reasons to dislike him, sure, and he certainly gave them more reasons, but. The original thing wasn't actually him.

That has very little actual bearing on anything. They don't bring that up- it's not a Thing. but. it means something to me, I suppose. When Eclipse first showed up, the only Bad Thing™ that he'd done directly was take control by force. He portrayed himself from the beginning as the Big Bad, but he hadn't really done anything yet. I'm sure at least part of that was because- at least from what I can tell- they didn't actually have any plans for Bloodmoon yet so at that point he was the July 16th killer, but retcons just mean more fun for me.

Eclipse intentionally showed himself as the Bad Guy. He hated Moon for abandoning him, hated Sun because he was stuck in his head, and everything he did for the first few months was just... based in the kill code. He basically just did violence, until he started fucking with Sun and Moon, at which point he was filled with so much spite he couldn't be convinced to do anything else- and they didn't try.

Eclipse threatened Sun- the only person who Moon cared about ("Hi, I'm Moondrop, I don't care about anybody aside from my brother."). No matter what, Moon was going to hate him from that point on. Eclipse started by doing the one thing that Moon would not tolerate.

And then Eclipse created Lunar, for... somewhat vague reasons. And was awful to him, somewhat unsurprisingly. And, because he was horrible to Lunar, he would NEVER be forgiven (Until he came back from the third time, and was enough of a new person for Earth- who also Wasn't There- to not care).

I'm... very clearly biased towards the original Eclipse. I hate him so much and I've written so much about him and everything I wrote keeps being proven correct EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY TALK ABOUT THE ORIGINAL ECLIPSE.

Um. I'll be honest I don't actually know where the fuck I was going with this and I maybe just wanted an excuse to scream about Eclipse. And accidentally wrote over a thousand words of it.

Is there a certain way you go about the characterizations of the different incarnations of Eclipse?

Their motivations!

So at his core, Eclipse is an angry, paranoid, spiteful, arrogant, lonely, possessive, socially-inept person who can't communicate to save his own life. No matter where in his life you're writing him from, these traits persist.

The differences come in what his goal is, and which of his core traits are being amplified because of it.

I've written the Original Eclipse the least, mostly because I actually got interested in the show following his death 8'D. This Eclipse is the most closed off of all of them, the least likely to change his mind, the angriest and most vindictive. He hasn't been betrayed yet, he hasn't really failed yet, so his arrogance is at an all time high.

On the flip side, after his defeat and expulsion from Sun's head, this is also the rawest point in Eclipse's life. There's a lot of good fics about scraping his broken ass out of the woods and patching him up, and for good reason. Strip his arrogance away with his loss, and he has nothing.

My favorite is the Backup Eclipse. Eclipse 2.0, my beloved! Still arrogant, still angry, but spite is his strongest trait. He was defeated and he knows it, and he's learned that he needs to be a bit smarter in manipulating those around him. By escalating the game to the next level when he amplified Moon's kill code (giving us the guy, Kill Code), Eclipse started a chain reaction that is STILL going on in current canon.

The Backup is my favorite because his characterization runs from one end of the spectrum to the other. He comes back as a bedraggled version of himself, forced to deal with basically being Bloodmoon's prisoner while also getting them to work for him. He manages to enact one victory after another, culminating in him actually gaining the star. He did it, he won!

And then he fucking crashes.

Possession and loneliness are his strongest traits in the second half of his arc, and he picks up depression as well. Spite has become bitterness. Eclipse was never supposed to win, and he knows it. The star was only ever a means to an end, a way to get Moon's attention. And when Moon resets himself... Eclipse doesn't know what to do. He attempts to respark that rivalry, but New Moon isn't interested.

With no goal to latch on to, Eclipse crumples under his own misery and lack of purpose. On his way to winning, he destroyed everything that made his life interesting.

And then he got space lasered.

And then finally Eclipse 3.0, the Recreated Eclipse. I don't make a distinction between who he was before Lunar blew up his body and after, though I know some folks do.

Eclipse 3.0 starts off with anger, of course, and a lot of confusion and desperation. For a good amount of time in there he was p much feral. This one is mired in self-pity, and lashes out because of it.

Because that's what makes this one really interesting. He's picking up from where the Backup left off-- he has no purpose. I think he sunk his claws into the goal of 'find my creator' just to HAVE a goal. He's also interacting regularly with other people for the first time in his life(s), even if he does spend a lot of time taunting Moon for stuff that neither of them were personally there for.

Two things, I think, really helped Eclipse start stabilizing. The first was, uh. Solar's death 8'D More specifically, it was Puppet giving him an impossible task to focus on, and Eclipse always needs a goal. The second was Earth started socializing him. Which I love-- hell, I wrote that myself back in Sunk Cost. Earth always had the advantage of not being personally victimized by Eclipse like her siblings were, which let her be more tolerant of him.

Eclipse in his current state is still arrogant and possessive, and his people skills still suck. He's 'better' as a kind of side effect to Puppet's request; bringing Solar back, doing this Super Important Thing That Even Moon Failed At? Was a major ego boost. Eclipse learned a very important lesson:

Doing good things gets you attention and praise.

Which is why I think he had such a rocky start with the new dimension Sun and Moon 8'D He was chasing the high of being the hero, at the cost of actually paying attention to what was going on. He knew how things were supposed to go, that made him The Smartest. He's a good guy for extremely selfish reasons XD

But he's also finally made it to where a lot of fanfic authors have gotten him. A little less lonely, a few wounds healed. He does have people he cares about, without any intent for manipulation involved.

So yeah. I guess in summary:

Original Eclipse (Upright): Vindictive, angry. Would bite your hand off rather than take it Original Eclipse (Reversed): Lost, bewildered. A feral animal, but one that can be tamed.

Backup Eclipse (Upright): Spiteful, serious. Lost the game once already, has no intention of losing again. Backup Eclipse (Reversed): Bitter, desolate. An Eclipse without a purpose, can be coaxed onto new paths. Still will probably bite you a few times first. Recreated Eclipse (Upright): Arrogant, possessive. The end goal of many a fanfic, actually able to get along as a functional member of society... mostly. Recreated Eclipse (Reversed): Feral, desperate. Clinging onto what fragments he has in a life he didn't ask for, and hating every second of it.

Idk if that was useful but there you go!!!

[senblades]

Hi :)

I love your art and your writing, and you have such a great grasp of these characters that I was wondering if you have any fic recs? Rating doesn't matter ;)

boy do I! (and ty for the compliment <3 <3 <3)

[cracks knuckles] alrighty:

The Dissapearence of Goro Akechi by Kupowonders - Probably my favourite fic ever, honestly- it's like. derailing the plot of persona 5 post-medjed thanks to the persona 4 accomplice ending years prior. (So, spoilers for p4 in that, too) it's. very good.

Marigolds by Colbub - Akechi gets ng+'ed to right when he started working for Shido, and has to take a good look at the future to come and be like "Aight how the fuck do I fix this". Fun times!

Daredevil, You've hit the wall by ez_cookie. Essentially, p5 Strikers but Sumire and Goro get to be in on the fun, too. And, there's a direct sequel currently being updated that's a similar premise for p5 Tactica. very very good stuff

A Tale of Two Tricksters by Zoe2k8 - Murder boyfriends! ...sort of? Angst! Angst and murder boyfriends! An oversimplification, obviously, but I'm not kidding when I say this fic is amazing and is also over a million words holy shit-

Throw away your mask by MollyPollyKinz - Another ng+ situation for Akechi, but this time the poor guy gets thrown all the way to 2009. You can imagine how well that goes (For the audience, less so for Akechi himself.)

The Crow Cries at Midnight by Dorked. hehe this one is very fun. Basically, a series of coincedencs causes Akechi to get thrown into the plot of persona 4. No time travel here! Just a grumpy 12/13 year-old Akechi trying to solve a murder mystery

The entire Tales of Chaos series by Eternalmomentss (The first one is called Like sand between your fingers) Very very good stuff! Something of a character study, I would say, of Ren and Goro. Plus, all the funky plot stuff that comes from trickster-typical bad luck and poor descision making. I really love this series hehe

uhh this post is getting very long I need to make this less wordy- lightning round?

Hunger for a life by Leonawriter - do you like vampires? I sure do! Mix that and the p5 plot and you get shenanigins. [evil laughter] a lot of shenanigins

Fishbowl by KivaEmber - Akechi has a terrible time in Maruki's reality. And I mean a terrible time

You have a beautiful smile underneath that mask by Saposaki - Akechi has a crush on Akira and Joker has a crush on Crow. No one is aware of the other's secret identity. Dramatic irony and hilarity ensues.

MASTERMiND by StumblingBlock - No Metaverse au where Akira really doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of his crime family, and fails miserably

Rose and Rot by SixteenJuniper - Read this!! I'm serious!! "A fun fantasy adventure" don't listen to Juniper. You'll be in tears by chapter two. (/pos, of course) (Seriously this fic is incredible)

Redressing the Balance by Convocated - ...almost a ng+? Ng+, in the sense that shuake are getting funky visions that are very quickly derailing the standard plot of p5r. This causes problems of the "Someone get the popcorn and maybe the tissues" variety

She's got a heartbeat full of lead (And she's aiming straight for the head) by Dots - This fic haunts me, often. In the best way possible, of course; but seriously, read it

Cracked into by SydneyHorses - Ren makes bad descisions and it becomes Akechi's problem. 2/2 timeloop, perhaps most notably featuring HaruGoro friendship! Love love love this fic

Okay that wasn't as "less wordy" as I intended but it'll do

Aaaand that's a wrap! Sorry for the long post.. and this is by no means all of the fics that I've ever loved (nor are the ones here in any particular order) but I swear we'll be here all week if I keep going HAHA

ty for the ask (and again for the kind words), anon! Hope this was helpful and to your tastes! (I... hope you like Shuake HAHA it's present in most of these- I assume you do, since you came to me (points at literally everything shuake I've made) of all people, but uh. Some of these fics are gen if it's not to your liking?)

[kibblbread]

TRANSFORMERS ONE FANFIC IDEA INCOMING!

Yeah it’s optimus x megatron, sorry not sorry i want to explore their relationship as lovers instead of friends/brothers because I’m a hopeless romantic although i may or may not do that eventually too???

Anyway this fic is being dubbed the Transformers one alternate timeline fic! You can look at the basic premise by clicking the embed link 🔗

You can call it whatever you want the nickname is mostly for me lol

Anyway here is more headcanons and basic outlining for my writing if anyone is interested. I know what its like to be in a small fandom with hardly any fic content for your personal otp 🙃 cries in redhood fandom

So lowkey I want there to be roles within the relationship, I just don’t want to type cast or define either Megatron or Optimus by assigning Top & Bottom. Like people they’re complex and often switch in accordance to what the other needs.

I noticed D16 throughout the movie was a bit more easily stressed and anxious while Orion usually tried to stay more level and optimistic. Pax truly is a good leader. However D16 definitely is also very capable of taking charge, especially when he starts getting fed up with a specific circumstance cough, cough. D16 is very emotional though, and allows that to fuel his motivation and in turn his actions as well.

In my fic I plan to make alt Megatron emotional too! He’s protective and a bit impatient but he’s happy with routine and the mundane of everyday. Also still a nerd and is actually very kind/gentle to not only Optimus but the citizens! Well, outside of the gladiator ring at least.. Megatron never truly gets used to younger bots idolizing him like he does a past Prime. Yes he does become a gladiator, kinda like in the tfp continuity but in this timeline he is still leader of the high-guard as it operates under Optimus Prime’s will. Think basically Cybertron’s army for lack of better terms!

Optimus does his best to be hands on as possible but thats kinda difficult as he is essentially Cybertrons assigned leader and protector. Most operations under his own orders go without the bot ever truly getting to be involved. However, he still takes just about any scrap of time he can to spend with Megatron. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that sees them interact that they’re whipped for one another lol.

Some kinda pivotal moments (spoilers ig??? They’re not too bad though i hope) 🤞🏾

A proposal from Optimus to alt Megatron. It’s pretty early in the fic, and will probably be after I’ve set the stage and done some world building.

Alt Megatron taking on an aircraft form for his transformation! It was just easier for him while leading High-Guard operations but his size, lol, the difference between them is so cute. I’m gonna have so much fun writing

Sentinel being marched through the mines like Megatron originally set out to do. Optimus wasn’t exactly happy about it but never questioned or interfered despite Sentinel’s pleading

Both Megatron’s being partial to holding grudges and indulging in rage. Although alt Megatron has trouble controlling other emotions as well, his mood is contagious for better and worse tbh. Both versions of their auras are captivating and fill any room no matter how big.

Canon Megatron trying to kill alt Optimus on sight because that boy ready to square up 🤭

Shockwave figuring out the switch situation and switching things back without even consulting anyone, spoiler alert — he fucks up

Megatron being disgustingly cute with either Optimus in either timeline because he’s dangerously persuasive and sincere

Yeah that’s really all i got for now. It’s very otp centric but obviously Ill flesh out the others to an extent later.. or not idk if I’ll complete this project or not. But it’s maybe gonna be around 10-15 chapters???

Wish me luck and we’ll see how it goes 😝

[perexcri]

fic recs!!

i woke up to being on a couple of fic rec lists and really appreciated it, so i wanted to capitalize on the nice energy and make a list of some of my own favs that i've read recently that i didn't necessarily see on the other lists :D check these out because they have some of the best prose/plots/characterization that i've read in the fandom :] 💜

one soft infested summer (M, 18k+, 3/7 ongoing) by @wheelersboy - this one is perfect for all the highler fans out there! it's got stoner byler of course, a music festival, lots out camping, and some really amazing writing! i started it just for the fun stoner vibes because Why Not, but i'm staying for the beautiful writing and the really complex and delicate relationship mike and will have in this one

Light Sleepers (T, 15k+, 2/6 ongoing) by @helioleti - WillEl-centric fic set during the time gap between the end of s3 and the beginning of s4 that explores their dynamic and their respective problems with mike, all while trying to cope with moving across the country from everything they know. each chapter is meant to reflect a certain stage of grief, which fits so well with all the complicated emotions everyone is going through!

drank my poison all alone (T, 4k, one-shot) by silverluminoqity - mike gets vecna'd and has to face his past self who's ashamed of who he's grown up to be, and my dudes the writing goes SO HARD. by far one of the best mike gets vecna'd fics i've read with such a good take on his character

star eater (T, >1k, one-shot) by @lowlightt - another fic where the writing does not play. honestly if you have a few minutes, READ THIS FIC. it's mostly just a confrontation between will and vecna, but it's so so powerful and impactful. and again, i cannot state it enough: the writing is AMAZING

tell me again (you said yes) (M, 32k, 3/3 complete) by @willow-lark - hey remember when cleradin was like a Thing for a brief second a few months ago? well if you miss those vibes, or if you just like great writing and some of the best weaving of canon into a fantasy au i've ever read, please look no further than this fic (and it's first part, fireball him! (cast protection)). i love this one dearly and enjoyed the wonderful ways Lark wove canon (specifically s1) into such a different setting, plus it was nice to see many of the other characters play a role in the events. beautiful, astounding, heart-wrenching - and did i mention there's an elopement 👀

In Undertow (M, 17k+, 3/6 on-going) by @souverian-are-we - this and one soft infested summer have become my summer byler reads~ when i say i love this fic, i mean you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands 🥰 we've got estranged byler, jancy engagement with some stoncy going on in the background, and most of the characters still reeling from the consequences of their final battle with the upside down. it's all set at a lake house, which provides some breathtaking/atmospheric writing that this author uses to their advantage. it has some of my favorite scenes i've ever read in fic too, ones that have literally taken my breath away

california show your teeth (T, 77k+, 10/19 on-going) by @fireflywitch - what if the Byers and Hopper families were from Lenora and moved to Hawkins? this fic takes this one simple premise and turns it into one of my favorite fics i've ever had the pleasure of following along with. it essentially functions as a retelling of s1 and s2, gives almost every main character that's been featured in the show thus far a lot of time and space for their own plots, all while culminating into one larger story underneath. i don't think i've read a fic quite like this one in terms of its scope, plotting, and characterization, because there are a lot of moving parts, but this author goes above and beyond. i cannot recommend it enough

all i know is pouring rain (and everything has changed) (T, 3k, one-shot) by @willelfanpage - i think i read this one at the beginning of my workday while i was running some report on my computer and had to go about the rest of my day as if everything was fine ahah :'D seriously though, it's 3k words that pack an emotional punch all while examining will's relationship to rain. the writing is just gorgeous, and it's a character study that i haven't really seen done before, which was quite enjoyable~

Chasing Heartlines by (T, 7k+, 1/2 on-going) @cherryisgone - if you liked Tip-Toeing on Lilypads then may i direct you to its sequel, which features so much pining mike that he might as well be a tree? again, if you like cleradin/fantasy aus, then Cherry my beloved has you covered 💜 it fits so neatly with Lilypads and provides some fun contrast between will and mike~

Touch Me Like You Know Me (M, 15k, 4/4 complete) by @starsarefire824 - this exists in the rare pantheon of fics that actually made me cry. imagine an estranged byler reunion with all the emotions turned up to an eleven, and lots of lingering on lost time and how life sometimes takes us places we never thought we'd go. it's absolutely beautiful and is a classic to me :]

come back to me and forgive everything (T, 78k, 18/18 complete) by @howtobecomeadragon - i saw a lot about this one when it was on-going but am only just now getting around to reading it, and all i can say is why did it take me so long to get to it :') this author does such a good job of writing will and mike's relationship with a lot of nuance and complexity while still managing to make them feel like the teenagers they are. basically, will has to spend every july at lonnie's house in indianapolis, and for this summer in particular, the event is a lot more emotionally impactful for both mike and will. there's lots of emotional depth, the complexities of coming out and/or realizing you're queer, and, at the heart of it, how two friends try to mend things between each other. it's so soft and sweet

that's all i've got for now!! i'm quickly running out of time on my lunch break :'D also haven't been writing as much, but it's been fun to read more and relax a bit. hope you guys enjoy these because they're genuinely some of the best stuff i've had the pleasure to read in a while 💜💜💜

[askyourwritergrandma]

Hello there. I have a bit of a difficult question in the sense that I don't know who to ask about it. You seemed to be arguably the wisest source to consult on the matter, so I'm taking a chance.

I had an idea for a fic that I wanted to write and I was actually in the process of writing it for a bit. It was for a small fandom event in which I signed up for. I was almost done with it and was in the finishing stages of them when I was obstructed by people and circumstances that really ought not to have ever been and as such, I was never able to fully publish it. Ever since then, I have resented the people who did this as I not only failed to deliver the final product I was supposed to, but I also looked like a fool. I hated everyone and myself for this entire thing as this is not the first time I had been stopped from doing something that I chose outside of everyone else's jurisdiction. To an effect, I still do.

As a more notable effect, looking at the document in which all of my hard work sat made me physically ill and enraged. I had also stopped writing completely because of how strongly I felt (and still feel) about this entire situation. Soon after the fact, I also essentially erased myself from the online space for a month because I didn't want anyone to question nor point out that I hadn't done it as I did not want to explain why and doing so would have me spiral out of control and simply delete my social media as I would not be able to live with it. I have only come back recently because I was sick of being socially isolated and alone. You would think that this would be the end of it, but there's one thing that for some reason sticks around.

I still want to write this story.

Yes, I know I essentially left them high and dry but this premise and what I had been working on captivated me to such a degree that I'm still thinking about it when my mind wanders on its own. But I still get sick thinking about my circumstances that I can't change nor budge and as such, I still can't stand looking at the document nor the outline. I desperately want to get to work on it again, but there's so much negative emotional attachment to it that I can't bring myself to do it because I wonder why I ever bothered with it in the first place if everyone and everything in my life keeps stopping me from doing it.

I've tried to write other things in the meantime, but they too are suppressed as I am constantly reminded of my failure and my circumstances that are not only unfair but ridiculous as this is the only outlet I really have and to see it limited to such a degree is sickening and still makes my blood boil.

I love writing things and I love exploring these things, but I don't even know how to do it when all of it is accompanied by rage, despair, inferiority, and pure unadulterated hatred directed at myself as well as others.

So I suppose that my question really is this:

How do I bring myself to write when my entire being hates me for even trying, knowing that I'll never finish what I start because something will stop me?

Oh friend, this is just some shit right here.

Ok so important disclaimer is that I am not a mental health professional. Anything I say is based on personal experience or accumulated knowledge from the internet.

Its important that you know, and really properly internalize, that you did not fail. In fact my first thing directly related to writing that I would advise you to do, when you start to feel this way, is to say 'I did not fail' to yourself. Sometimes things happen that can't control and they affect us in very serious ways that takes time to get over.

Certainly it sounds like what you were working on was important to you and the circumstances that interrupted it were very upsetting. There's no surprise that your story has becoming a focal point for those feelings. Untangling how they are connected is something that you can only do with time and trying.

If you have a safe place where you can externalize those feelings, either through talking to someone, keeping a journal or writing the events but fictionalized I would suggest those things. Sometimes just being able to put it all out there and know that its safe helps you move on from it.

As far as people on the internet questioning you about where you've been, I can't say that wouldn't have happened or that it won't happen in the future, but as a general rule good, decent people extend you grace. Everyone has a life outside of this anonymous mosh pit we call the internet and most people are capable of understanding that. You don't need to compound these feelings of failure with any additional shame from anonymous strangers. Would they have loved to read your story? Yes of course they would have. If you were to finish it they would still want to read it. But they aren't angry or upset with you.

As you try to write, remind yourself that you have not failed. Imagine yourself as a professional athlete who has suffered a serious knee injury. You had to take time away but you're back on your feet now and you're working towards getting back on the field. Every time you sit and try to write, remind yourself that you have no failed, that you are recovering and that you will get better. Writing will get easier.

Send me as many asks as you want, if they help, I'll do my best to answer them promptly.

Good luck anon and take care of yourself.

[jestbee]

Fic Graveyard Tag

So @scoops404 asked me to list the fics in my "fic Graveyard" aka the fics in my google docs that I started but will probably not continue, and I decided to make it a tag for all my writer friends to do. List all the fics you started writing but probably won't continue and then tag some friends to do the same: For my version of this I've only included fics where I have over a couple thousand words because I have lots of docs with like 200/300 words in and that would be a really long list. Honourable mentions at the end! Working title/doc title: From whence you came Premise: Fae!George and Knight!Dream dsmp fic Pairing: dnf with side karlnap Word count: 7,602 Reason you stopped writing it: I'm not really a fantasy writer I just got the idea in my head and wrote a bunch of it. The karlnap dynamic in this of like himbo sapnap and mage!karl lives in my head rent free though

Working title/doc title: Shiny Things/You Earned It Premise: Sugar Baby AU Pairing: dnf Word count: 2,627 Reason you stopped writing it: I struggled with the initial way in to this as I didn't want to do it entirely AU but they both have a lot of their own money irl and although George likes when ppl pay for things the initial way into the arrangement didn't work for me. It kept coming out a bit more findom. I have extensive notes on it though and I may return to something similar at some point

Working title/doc title: the porn star au that Dream asked for Premise: They're porn stars, Dream is faceless and does amateur solo stuff on OnlyFans but is really successful, George does studio movies and is popular in his own right. Dream wants to transition to movie work for the money and requests to work with George, but no one is actually sure if he's gay or just gay for pay. This was based on Dream's tweet about "in an alternate universe I'm a gay porn star are still get cancelled for queerbaiting" or whatever it was he said. Anyway, every time I read my notes for this I love it a bit more Pairing: dnf Word count: 2,749 Reason you stopped writing it: Honestly, I liked the premise so much I worried about not doing it justice and now I get scared every time I try

Working title/doc title: Tricksy Dreamon times Premise: dsmp fic where DreamXD keep taunting George in the wake of Dream being locked in prison but then Dream escapes and shows up on George's doorstep all traumatised and in need of care. Essentially just some angsty hurt/comfort Pairing: dnf Word count: 4,327 Reason you stopped writing it: Again, I'm not really a fantasy writer or dsmp writer, my friend Charlotte just loved some fics like this and so I wanted to write her one but it's not really in my wheelhouse and so I'll leave her to read the actual good ones

Working title/doc title: the royalty au dream wants but that I didn't think I'd ever write Premise: George is a rebellious prince sleeping with a knight called Dream he doesn't really get along with but then he becomes King unexpectedly due to the death of his father and is faced with the perils of trying to govern a country. He's expected to marry the prince of a nearby kingdom in order to solidify their alliance, but he just can't seem to shake Dream, who has some very strong opinions about how George could be running things instead Pairing: dnf Word count: 1,804 Reason you stopped writing it: Again, not really my usual kind of thing. I'm a contemporary romance write - I don't know why I keep starting these things

Honourable mentions (fics that are a couple hundred words): Werewolf!Dream au - again, not my thing Spanking fic - There are already so many good ones and anything I could have put in this will probably be in a future longer fic of mine Living like you said - a fic with the summary "As YouTube falls apart, Dream and George fall together" about them contemplating quitting while getting together - idk why I gave this up except I didn't have a clear outline for it How to deal with alpha roommates - I so badly want to write more Beta!George like in my fic That's How We Play It (please read, it's my baby) and I started with a premise but again didn't have a clear outline, just a desire for Beta!George fake snf for the bet - what it says on the tin, really. abandoned because I lost enthusiasm for it (Sapnap probably pissed me off that day) Fertitlity stuff - occasionally I start fic to exorcise some personal demons and this was an mpreg one where they faced fertility issues and then split up only to get back together later on but then - well, my own life happened and it made this a bit impossible to continue. This is just the DNF, if you wanna see the Phan list, let me know!! I'm tagging: @scoops404 @czargasm @alittledizzy to do this too fi they want but also if they don't that's cool too :)

[missingn000]

Omg you're officially starting an ace seraphim project.. Wishing you strength and inspiration!!! I remember you vaguely mentioning an idea along these lines in your tags a month or two ago? and it was like an epiphany in my brain and I was patiently waiting to see if you'd ever post more about it so really excited now (but also no pressure at all!) :))

yeah, i am!! ahh that's so sweet that you remembered :')) it's something i've been planning since like…early april lol, but i took about a month away from it to write my sanji vs king fic and now that it's finished, i'm back babey. i too was super compelled by the fandom's collective idea of seraphim ace, and since no long fic exists exploring what a trainwreck this little angel has the potential to be, i decided to take it upon myself. i'm honestly really excited too :D and PLEASE pressure me lmao i gotta get out of my own head and start writing this monstrosity

since you reached out (tysm for doing so <3) i'll give you (and anyone else reading this) the elevator pitch i've given my friends when i first introduce this fic idea to them!

elevator pitch below cut :)

alright. the general premise of the seraphim ace fic is that vegapunk created seraphim ace (s-flame) in secret with the aim of him being like -- a safety measure, made to stop the other seraphim if necessary. since vegapunk can't produce logias, s-flame has charlotte oven's devil fruit: the heat-heat fruit, where he is able to superheat his body with virtually no upper limit due to his increased lunarian & pacifista durability. this gives him an advantage over all the other seraphim, because his fire is exponentially hotter than theirs.

the whole thing is....extremely poetic in a twisted way. vegapunk knows that hotter fire can beat less hot fire because akainu's magma is what killed ace. so he created s-flame to stop his own brothers & sister in the very same way the person he was made from was murdered.

eventually, s-flame meets luffy and the SHs when they arrive in egghead, and learns even more about the original ace. he's always been a lonely, angry kid like ace, but now he has even more turmoil towards his own existence. essentially: he doesn't want to be ace, but he knows that if he isn't ace, he isn't loved. everyone he meets mourns him and he's not even dead. he has the same relationship with ace that ace had with roger: he resents and blames ace for the way the world feels about his existence. so the more he rejects ace, the more he becomes ace.

the whole thing is one very long existential crisis about individuality, the interconnectedness of healing and grief, and s-flame reverse-engineering why ace was loved through learning about his interactions with others. it's a struggle between wanting to live up to ace's memory while also separating himself from ace's identity itself. he wants to be loved for himself, not who he's made from, so it's his journey discovering who he is, who ace was, and where to draw the line between them while forging new bonds along the way.

i'm really looking forward to this project, so thanks for the encouragement!! <333

[applesap-fics]

famous anonymous author!bruno idea? 👀

👀 i already wrote about this a little bit during encantober (for the gift prompt), featuring Osvaldo

The premise is that Bruno wrote a LOT of romantic/smutty fiction during his time in the walls. His sisters/the guys find these, like it, and encourage him to sell the stories as books. Bruno agrees, but wants to do this anonymously. His relationship with the Encantonians still feels a little awkward. He becomes immensely popular however and is the Encanto's number one romance novelist!

additional notes:

gay Bruno, like always.

he uses a pseudonym which vaguely references the miracle. I was thinking something along the lines of "Estrella del Milagro"/"Estrella Milagrosa", but time has passed and it sounds a little dorky/off to me now, haha.

the stories are so dramatic. and so trashy. exactly how people like it.

they start out as little secrets (mostly) women pass around but prove hugely popular.

in that encantober fic I linked I made alma the cover artist. I like the headcanon that she's an artist (opposite Pedro the poet) and that she painted at least a few of the paintings in Casita, such as the one Bruno hides behind.

Alternatively: she has no idea this is Bruno. She loves the more romance-focused novels/novellas to death.

I'm not sure how active the Encanto's book publishing market is. I think they mostly rotate through old books and (especially at the start) don't have the resources to publish books. And because they're a social community they wouldn't have use for a newspaper since all of their news happens via word of mouth. Maybe there's a guy from the original refugees who had notes on printing, lol. Argh, the Encanto needs an archivist!

On that note, I can see Mariano putting out little poetry collections. (He's not so popular. Sorry!)

Osvaldo is involved because they need non-madrigal distributor. Secrecy is sworn. The truth may eventually come out though...

The identity of the author is speculated for years! A few Madrigals are considered~

Pepa also writes one short story after reading a really bad concept Bruno wrote in the walls about…rat babies…that she sees potential in (but needs a feminine, motherly touch). It's still published under the "Estrella" pseudonym but is revealed being hers years later. A bunch of people win the betting pool.

Bruno loves crazy passionate female main characters. The 'lore' is that it's always "Estrella" in different universes, though. Kinda like Barbie, if I had to give an example.

He needs an editor. I vote the most passionate of Madrigal men, Félix, and maybe Agustín. Osvaldo was briefly considered since he's already a middleman and essentially his partner, but he has unreasonable opinions on the sexual workings of women.

Bruno mostly wrote these stories in the walls for his own pleasure (literally. a lot are smut stories), and were ultimately about gay men having sex with each other, or other passionate and complex relationships. Even after editing for the general public, some of his work uses very ambiguous language for the main characters. They are presumed to be women, but if you read through the lines it's easy to read the mc as a man, making his novels gay romance fiction.

Encanto's gay population feel vindicated when the truth reveals itself. As do the 1950s slash shippers.

Years later, after "Estrella" reveals her identity, which probably involved an impatient and overly excited/smug Osvaldo and a Bruno who said "Oh, fuck it, fine. It was me. I'm your favorite author", Bruno publishes an omnibus/collection for the novels' anniversary in which he has a chapter on his identity. He talks about being gay and adresses the speculation that the mc could have been gay all this time, just like its author. All is interpretable, though. Bruno has never had a relationship, but Estrella has been in hundreds. Everyone is allowed to see themselves in the characters, man or woman, or enjoy the stories for what they are. He just hopes people will be open to the idea, will respect it and maybe consider it. He ends the chapter by thanking the Encanto for welcoming him back, as both "Estrella" and Bruno.

There's a q&a that basically boils down to: Q: Why did you decide to write [controversial plotpoint people loved but fundamentally made no damn sense]? B: Oh, I wrote that when I was hiding in the walls. I was a little crazy. Q: But how did you come up with the idea? B: I can't say I understand anything I did when I was in the walls.

[lady-of-the-spirit]

☔ (for wip ask game)

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

I have Several fics I'm not sure I'll ever write on rotation in my mind. But there's this Doctor Who fic idea I've had for ages now. And the premise is essentially that NONE of the Doctor's modern companions are human. or at least not like, human in the way the Doctor thinks they are. And the Doctor never realizes it until the companion actually tells them or they find out through other circumstances. (rest under the cut because I got very ranty.)

For instance, Rose is (obviously) a werewolf. She gets the werewolf gene from her dad, who was also a werewolf. She's had it drilled into her head by Jackie (understandably protective of her daughter) that she can't tell people, so she doesn't tell the Doctor. Rose starts to figure out how the werewolf and full moon thing works when she's in space and once she's got it all worked out, she figures out how to keep track of the days and keep herself hidden in the TARDIS or at home until it's over. The Bad Wolf symbols have even more meaning to her. Until, of course, the Tooth and Claw episode, where things go a little better because the werewolf alien has a real life werewolf to play with/fight.

Martha is an actual star - a star that fell to earth and gained human form, like in Stardust. She finds herself with a family on earth and since she has no idea how to get back to the sky, she's content - sort of - with making a life on earth. But there's still that yearning for home, for her sisters in the sky. When the Doctor - and she's heard his name, heard his song in the universe since time began - offers to take her through time and space, she agrees, figuring this will be the closest she can get to returning home. everything goes as normal, the Doctor doesn't know, until episode 42 - when she can hear the screams of her sister star, can speak to the host inside the human bodies without burning, and figures out what's happening much sooner than the Doctor does.

Donna was a normal human - in Ancient Britain, before the Romans invaded. At some point, she was in an accident - she got killed. And then came back to life, no longer able to age or die. Since then, well, her life's been a long, long series of events. A few generations ago, she had a son, who gave her a grandson she adores, who had a daughter, and no matter how critical her great-granddaughter is, she loves Sylvia as much as she loves Wilf, and she's willing to put on a charade of the annoying daughter to stick around them for a while longer. Of course she's heard of the Doctor, although she's never met him her other immortal friends have, but becoming besties with him and traveling to the stars was not expected. But traveling to the stars - she's felt like she's seen it all, but there's suddenly more to see? Sign her up! The Doctor thinks she's just weirdly passionate about obscure historical details and a little spacey on modern things, and things don't get revealed until the metacrisis - when instead of her brain exploding, it heals on its own, though it does take a little more time than normal because it's such a weird situation for her human body. The Doctor is freaking the fuck out the whole time.

Companions past 10's are when it gets a little more vague because I know less about it. Someone in the Donna/Doctor discord suggested Amy's a fae - the importance of names and all of that - and I like the idea. Rory is another immortal like Donna, although a little more timey-wimey. He gets killed like in canon, on his adventures with Amy and the Doctor. But he gets thrown into the vortex back to Roman times, and wakes up to find himself immortal. From there he's following mostly canon events, with some tweaks. He definitely meets Donna, and they're immortal besties. I don' t know at all about Clara or Bill, or 13's companions.

So yeah as you can see from the above 4 whole paragraphs of text I've thought about this plenty. I don't know what'll ever happen to it. But it's on my mind.

wip ask game!

[allthecastlesonclouds]

castles pls ramble about your wips /is there anything you're working on and/or excited to share????

omgggg yes i have been STRUGGLING this past two weeks because i. uh. sprained my right wrist (my dominant hand) and doing Anything At All hurts so i have SO MANY thoughts in my head and nothing's going to come out of it until i'm healed

fight or flight has been a really interesting fic for me to write specifically bc i. didn't grow up religious? my mom's atheist and my dad's catholic and i've never gone to church, but religion is really interesting to me, and the topic of fate and God is really intriguing. i like looking into faith and fate and learning about the different ways people see things, and i wanted to write a fic that felt. A Lot. like my dad's Catholic Childhood ExperienceTM and where he and his siblings are now in life, since all of them fell to different religions different ways and still keep in contact. i also wanted to touch on suburban family relationships in general bc goddamn those are fucked up.

fight or flight was originally going to be a lot more Kristen Vs Mac and Donna– the document title's still a pun based on that– but the more i thought about it the little it fit with her character: as much as kristen is bold, she's much more of a say something and run character– she doesn't quite know what'll happen after she says anything, does she? and she doesn't think before she speaks, so if anything goes wrong, she's likely to flee.

i've also started revamping my Coffe AU! it was, essentially, a modern coffeeshop au where different characters were in slightly different scenarios and the bad kids didn't quite become a friendgroup until after college, where adaine and ayda ran a coffee shop and the sig figs were Vibing and riz? worked five million jobs? and aelwyn actually gets therapy. the pacing of the fic was bad, though, and it was overall unrealistic, so i'm planning out a slightly different fic– they're all going to the same excessively large college, and keep meeting up at the coffee shop Ayda and Adaine run for said college. goldenhoard was the main villain in the first one; kalina was fully a housecat; cass didn't even EXIST because i wrote it before i got a dropout account and i only could watch up to ep3 of sophomore year! that's all changing, though; the gukgaks still have a cat named kalina but she Is Named After Someone

the "fic", if i ever get around to writing it, would be an actual longfic, written from one person's perspective, and a series of oneshots for a buncha other characters. the longfic was originally from adaine's perspective, but i might go fig this time around bc my girl adaine is Hard and i want the challenge of writing from the perspective of someone who isn't the Main Character of the story.

(also. coffe!aelwyn my beloved. she's trying so hard.)

i had a riz + mordred fic in the works, but since it seems mordred is going to be in jy a lot, that one's on hold until the season goes. i wanted to write it because the premise made me laugh: it was riz really sweetly bonding with different members of mordred and then him and zayn. awkwardly staring at each other as they realize their adaine's-best-friend title will never belong to either of them again and will forever be ayda's.

i wrote a drawtectives fic recently, which i know you're not in the fanbase for but i started a second one, from york's perspective, which cycles around rosé going back to college and york learning how The City is different and what family is to him (and also learning to cook bc grandma is the Only Competent One) AND i want to round out the trio, since the first was a rosé fic and this ones a york and so the third would be a grendan one, which is about getting york to his fashion shoots, i think? that one's a lot more up in the air, because. i want them to be Mostly Separate and so i want to see where york takes me.

and, in the drawtectives vein, i'm working on episode transcripts! pre-sprain, i could do 10 pages per hour, but now i'm down to 4-6, depending on the complexity. it's the only thing i don't struggle to do bc it's mostly writing names and correcting (or messing up) some grammar. i finished s1 on the... 18th? 19th? and i'm about 25 minutes into s2ep1 so. it's gonna take a while. but GOD i'm becoming a lore keeper for this. and also my vocal recognition for These Four People Specifically is. so good now. i can recognize their hums, it's insane.

and my friend (the most lovely and also basically inactive @mug-fullof-roses) and i are making plushies! just four drawtectives (the guys and also eugene), and we're still in the fabric buying but i think i'm going to try to find some good patterns over break because. clothing??? help??

and!! bringing it around again!! i've sketched out the dumbest comic for dance au bc something happened in my dance class that had me going "bad kids right here" the entire week. my hiphop teacher started playing that billie eilish song from the barbie movie, stared at the computer for a solid five seconds, then went 'sorry this isn't it' and tapped the computer once to change it to whatcha know bout me by nicki minaj. god. wild. love her dearly.

i have So Many Quotes from dance i might just make a danceau incorrect quotes post bc. we wild.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

HEY BESTIE WHATS INNOCENCE AND SILENCE?

YO OK SO. Innocence and Sadness. my beloved fic WIP. basically, Battinson adopts Dick Grayson. it's like... partially plot, partially character study, VERY heavy on Themes and Meta. especially name meta, because one of the big themes is about Battinson trying to figure out the balance between Bruce and the Batman. also there's hugs.

because the entire premise that got me started on what is now becoming a slight monstrosity of a oneshot was this idea of like... Bruce learning how to reach out. he has such a heart for children (he's constantly trying to retroactively help the broken, grieving child he was) but he's so painfully awkward. but (there's a lot of buts here) he TRIES.

so, the original premise that has sent me off onto an over two-month SPIRAL of emotions while writing this fic was essentially: two times Bruce hugged Dick, once as himself and once as the Batman. amusingly, the concept has expanded, like, A LOT, since then and now has a lot of character study in it and also Jim Gordon (comfort character....) has ended up being in it a lot, but the basic point is the same. it's split into two scenes: the first the night Dick's parents die and B instinctively tries to comfort him and then decides to take him in, and then a few weeks later, the night Dick sneaks out to try and enact his own vengeance on the man who killed his parents and is stopped by none other than Batman.

a core part of this fic is Bruce trying to figure out his identity, because he's put all of himself into the figure of the Batman for so long that he's still a little bit in the process of learning how to just be Bruce Wayne. there's some funky stuff with names here that I don't think I ever explicitly lay out in the fic itself but the balance between Batman and Bruce ends up being these moments where he just starts to think of himself as "B". and that, you might say, is the happy medium between the solemn, protective figure of Batman and the much softer (or at least trying to be) man himself. and it also is, as a great many things will end up being, all for Dick.

because B looks at this hurting, scared, lonely and angry kid who doesn't know how to handle his grief and he thinks that's me. and he doesn't even really know how to handle it either but he's willing to try and he can't leave that little boy on his knees crying, so. whatever it takes, right? he's willing.

[ghost-proofbaby]

I would love to know your process/how you plan stories. I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say in 24 hours "this changes nothing" going to "this changes everything" was planned out? Would love to know, I've been trying to learn how to plan ahead in my own fics!!

oh gosh okay. i’ve let this one sit in the inbox for a while, because my honest answer is: chaos.

most of the time, when i have a fic idea, i begin with picturing very vivid scenes that happen about halfway through the stories. with shire, it began with the confessional scene between eddie and willow that ended up being all the way in chapter 40 something i believe. like, well over the halfway point. (also the just general want to have the background story on a fix it fic but i digress). and with twenty four, you’re absolutely right — the entire “this changes nothing” becoming “this changes everything” was one of the things i started off with. from there, i just sort of… brainstorm? drive myself insane? trying to flesh out what the actual story premise can be.

i could go on and on, but essentially, it’s a whole lot of me screaming to the void about what i want would happen, and also a whole lot of getting to know my characters. it’s always been a messy process for me, and even as i’ve changed casting in this last year and become more of a “planner” (simply because certain wips called for it), i’ve found what works best for me is to just… go for it. sometimes, i find planning actually causes me a lot more struggle than it’s worth. breaking things down chapter by chapter just isn’t what works best for my creative process. i much prefer taking the extensive time getting to know my characters and their backgrounds/motives, and maybe just having one or two core scenes i know i need to get to (that’s another thing: i rarely write outside of chronological order! i know some people can, but i can’t </3)

i think, at the end of the day, the best advice i can give to anyone dipping their toes into writing, whether it be fanfic or more, is to remember you’ll probably spend your entire life and writing career figuring out what works best for you. not for your favorite writers, not for what teachers or professors will suggest, but for you.

some people plan ahead. some people just vibe it. if you need to go into every chapter not knowing what happens next? that’s fine. you know your characters and you know where they’re heading, don’t put too much pressure on the whole planning aspect unless that’s what you find is needed for your creative process. 🖤

this is such a long winded response so my deepest apologies 😭 i hope this all makes sense haha

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

So @pilferingapples asked about Blorbos. Warning that this is probably going to get long, and also that this is a 100% OC zone. We've regressed to 10th grade apparently and it's all original fic all the time.

The short version is that there are two main sets of characters taking turns being rotated by my brain. There's the story I've been writing/meaning to write for probably 10 years now, and also a new one that's been in my brain for about three days and if anything happens to any of its characters I'm going to kill everyone and and then myself.

The first one is the old story. It's about a Prince who is culturally forbidden from touching anyone and his newly immigrated boyfriend who thinks this is an incredibly stupid rule. It is basically the ace pining story of my dreams and features a lot of Forbidden Hugs.

The new story is about a woman who is essentially a retired fantasy protagonist turned NPC shopkeep. She and her best friend/former adventuring partner run a second hand store that specializes in magical objects. She meets a kid (read: probably about 20) who is clearly in the Very Stressful No Fun part of his own fantasy adventure, and basically immediately adopts him and brings him home and feeds him soup. It is about friendship and community building and, apparently, knitting. I do not know how to knit. It has been interesting.

Long version under the cut!

Forbidden Hugs story:

Like I said, this one has been floating through my brain for like a decade, so it's both better developed and filled with weird vestigial elements from the various times I've started writing it and stopped partway through. But the core premise is always the same, which is that in this fantasy country there are very strict rules governing physical contact and who is allowed to touch whom and when. The short version of these rules is that you're only allowed to touch someone who is not of your same exact rank/social class if you are actively having sex with them or if you are a doctor providing them with medical care. It's honestly usually not too much of a problem for most people -- normal people aren't super impacted, since most people they meet are going to be their same social class, and even among the nobility families tend to be large and the Kingdom has an expansive and very permissive definition of what counts as 'actively having sex'.

Unfortunately the Prince of this country is the only child of an emotionally distant father and is also Very Ace. Damien is Not About any Pants business of any kind for any reason, and honestly I think that's very sexy of him. He's also generally kind of stuck because he has what we in our world would call Rampant ADHD and is not good at things like paying attention in long meetings and remembering people he's only been introduced to once and making even medium stakes decisions, and as a result is really not excited about being King one day.

His future boyfriend Erik was raised in one of the neighboring countries and came to Damien's because his brother is a diplomat stationed there and Erik is recently out of school and wants out of his parents' house. Through some political maneuvering by his brother, Erik gets given the position of Prince's Companion, which is traditionally supposed to be the confidant and right hand to the heir but in modern times is basically a ceremonial position with no real influence. But it gives Erik something to do and pays well enough that he doesn't burn through all his savings getting fancy court clothes made up, and it also gives Damien someone in his life who doesn't particularly care that he's the Prince or want anything from him.

The story is structured as a romance, so it's mostly about them getting to know each other and figuring out what they actually want. Erik's country's modern history started with a King abdicating the throne and instituting a democracy to stave off a violent revolution, so Erik's perspective on the whole Damien becoming King thing is, "have you considered maybe just not doing that?" Erik is also of the opinion that Hugs Are Good, Actually, and the First Hug between them gets to play a starring role in the narrative.

Because it's such a longstanding entity in my brain there are loads of side characters and lore snippets, but the core of the story has always been Damien and Erik and their relationship. I love them very, very deeply and one of these days I will actually finish this story.

NPC Shopkeepers story:

Because this set of characters have existed for less than a week, I know much less about them and their world than I do about Damien and Erik, but I'm figuring them out with surprising rapidity given how out of practice I am at this.

The main character is a middle aged woman named Ellie, who spent her youth tangled up in so far undefined fantasy adventures with her best friend Alice. I'm pretty sure there were faeries involved, but I'm also fairly certain that the details won't get spelled out in the actual narrative ever. Now they've retired from that and become NPCs, but like NPCs in a tabletop RPG that the DM can throw at a situation when the party gets in over its head. Their shop attracts a lot of people working through their own fantasy plots, looking for magical items to help them out.

The relevant one of those for this story is a 20-ish-year-old currently going by Jay. He is very clearly in the middle of the No Fun Very Stressful part of a fantasy adventure, and Ellie almost immediately starts plotting to adopt him and feed him soup until he stops looking quite so desperately in need of a friend.

She eventually succeeds in her quest, and partway through a series of events leads to him moving in with her temporarily. This furthers her soup agenda but also puts her directly in the cross-hairs of his fantasy plot. He is very stressed out about this, and she is fairly chill about the possibility, and this stresses him out even more. Jay is not cut out to be a fantasy protagonist. Jay is a nerd who studied magical theory in college and had already been accepted into grad school and was planning to be a scientist for the rest of his life. Jay has asthma and a panic disorder. He is not having a good time. (He grudgingly admits that the soup helps.)

Eventually Jay's plot does catch up with them, but unfortunately for the plot Ellie and Alice are old hands at this kind of thing. The details of how the resolve the problem are still fairly vague, but I'll figure it out. They've been a lot of fun to play with, which is the important part here.

[spoiledleaff]

💚✨ POLL RESULTS!! ✨💚

hehe, a tremendous thank you to everyone who participated in my fic plot poll, haha!! i know i kept the actual specifics of it incredibly vague, but!! now that it’s all done, i think you all deserve to know what you’re signing up for! ♡

first, the winner!! lingerie group sex with some era iv ghoulies!! ✨🎉 haha!! it was a pretty close one, that’s for sure!! without further ado. what’s the plan?

well! i’m so glad you asked!! the pairing for this fic is going to be swiss + the ghoulettes! this fic is planned to feature plenty of femdom, dom/sub dynamics and procedures, strapons and toys, sexual photography, polyamory, ghoul anatomy, and it’ll all be wrapped up in a pretty little bow like lingerie, haha!! ohh, but i know you’re not convinced! where’s the classic leaf gender fuckery? well, for this work, i present to you she/her transfem sunny manifesting her monster of a cock, and!! the main event!! i also present to you she/her gender-fluid swiss manifesting a pussy!! :D hehe, the dynamic is gonna be our lovely ghoulettes domming the swissussy and making sure it’s thoroughly wrecked. oh, all wrapped up in lace and silk, of course!! ♡♡

i’m gonna also be rambling about what the other options were below the cut!! if you’re not interested, that’s a-okay, my friend!! but, i’ve grown rather attached to these little plot points, so they may become ficlets or even fully fledged projects one day if anyone’s interested, haha!! this was just a fun break from whatever silly little storyline i may have from the hatefuck fic! ♡

haha, alright!! let’s do this in order of popularity, yeah? so! runner up was ovipositor with a twist featuring everybody’s favorite lads from era iii !!! :D this work would’ve featured terzo + omega, and it was honestly just a fun idea i had as an excuse to dive into more ghoul anatomy, haha! i feel like this work would’ve been a bit shorter, but the main idea was essentially terzo physically fucking both omega’s cock sheath, as well as another more desperate scene of terzo fucking omega’s dick hole. i’m realizing now i probably didn’t hint at this one perfectly?? but! that was the idea, haha! lots of big dick jokes as well as sappy, flirty teasing, and these lads bickering like an old married couple, haha! basically! ovipositor anatomy, but instead of something being… er, ejected from omega’s cock? some(one)thing is being inserted! ♡

third place was my personal favorite, haha! this one was confessional gang bang featuring just about the entire cast of era iii !!! :D the pairing for this would’ve featured zephyr + uh… well, everybody else, haha!! i am such a sucker for my usual everybody loves everybody bullshit, haha! anyways, the premise of this fic was actually inspired by those anonymous gloryhole tropes?? for both sucking and dick and sucking and fucking pussy and/or ass, haha!! although, for this, it would neither be anonymous or limited to just one side ♡ this fic would’ve featured confessional sex, plenty of dom/sub dynamics and bondage, probably mention free use between ghouls and their respective relationships and social structures. oh! also plenty of leaf gender fuckery starting with they/he intersex zephyr, as well as an excuse for me to dive into my personal characterizations for a lot of the era iii ghouls!! i still like the idea of this fic a lot!! so the chances of this actually becoming something are quite high, haha!! ♡

and, last but not least! this one, i think was probably a bit of a throw away idea? but i’d been thinking about it so much already that i said, ‘eh. why not, haha!’ anyways! the prompt was rough punishment sex featuring two silly lads from era iv !!! :D this fic wouldn’t paired up mountain + swiss together, and it would’ve focused on their specific dynamic! that one video with swiss trying to give mountain the rose?? it forever haunts me, my friend. haha! i also just like the idea of their dynamic a lot, and i wanted to try writing something… er, a bit more intense than what i typically default to :) so! this fic would’ve featured a lot of discussed and consensual dom/sub dynamics with dom mountain and sub swiss! as well as things like spitting and ignoring, impact play, bandage, humiliation and degradation, as well as some well deserved aftercare!! i was also playing around with the idea of including some more… extreme?? kinks?? i was debating on things like boot kinks, cock and ball torture, maybe piss play?? that sort of thing!! :) haha! i had a feeling, even though it was a bit of a throw away idea, that it wouldn’t get too many votes? especially considering i’m still atoning for my crimes with my hatefuck fic, haha!! regardless, it’s always nice to know how many of you are depraved animals, haha!! (/affectionately said, my friends! because, well, same!!) ♡♡♡

(well, uh, that was it really!! :) this was just a silly little game i wanted to try with the poll feature, but it’s lovely to know that so many of you are at least a little invested in my writing, haha!! i may try this again in the future, haha!! it was quite fun to do! i hope to see everyone with the next filthy, debauched, smutty project, hehe! ♡♡)

[thevalleyisjolly]

Get to know: 3, 8 & 16

Aww, thank you anon! <3

3. Describe the creative process of writing a chapter/fic

I usually like to centre my fics around a question or situation, and then write scenes or vignettes which explore different elements or possible answers to that central ideal. For example, in the face of death's mystery was first inspired by a comment Zac made in Adventuring Party about Lapin and Cumulous being great roommates.

I then asked myself "In what kind of situation would they be roommates?" I knew I wasn't interested in a Modern AU because the characters are so grounded in the setting, so then I started playing around with the idea "Well, what if Lapin came back from the dead?" That then led into "What are the implications of someone coming back from the dead? How does this affect their relationships?" before I realized that the question I was really asking was, "What does it mean to be dead? What does it mean to be the person left behind? How are the dead remembered?" Which became the final story - a collection of scenes, deliberately different in tone and voice, showing how different characters engage with that question of what it means to die and what it means to remember, through the frame of a dead companion returning from the beyond.

So I guess my creative process can be loosely described as "What is the situation?" -> "What premise does the situation rely upon?" -> "How do characters (consciously or unconsciously) engage with that premise?" -> "Where do I want to go with these questions by the time the story ends?"

Add in lots of blank staring at my word processor, vivid flashes of unwritten scenes keeping me up at night, walking around my room in circles out of frustration, and that's a pretty good representation of my process!

8. Do you prefer the beginning, middle, or end of a story?

I like writing beginnings and ends! All my finished fics have been written chronologically, and I think that's because the fics that I'm happiest with are the ones where I was confident in where I was starting out and I was also confident in where I was going to end up. I think I've mentioned this before, but for On the Composition of Clouds, I knew what the ending scene was going to be before I had even finished writing the beginning, and although I didn't write it until last, I had that clear idea in my mind to keep me on the rails whenever I got bogged down in the middle.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

So, so many of them, and I will never write most of them because I simply do not have the time to give each of these ideas the attention they need. Have a few, because you'll probably never see any of these as a finished product but I have to share them or my brain will explode:

A very conceptual exploration of Elrond growing up and coming of age in what was essentially the end of the world for the people of Beleriand. Going into things like growing up with the knowledge that your life was spared on a murderer's whim, that someone who killed everyone else in your life spared your life and your brother's for reasons you can't begin to understand, for a jewel your parents happened to have, for remorse and guilt (but what makes their crimes against you worse than their crimes against everyone else?). And then a whole thing about growing up knowing mortality. I'm a determined "Elrond and Elros aged closer to regular mortals before the Choice and they were fully grown adults when they decided" truther, and this fic idea has a lot of that. Becoming an adult during an apocalyptic war to end all wars (or so it seemed), living with mortality even though you're just a little left of mortal yourself. I don't really have a good direction for where this fic is going so I don't think I'll ever sit down and write it, but the ideas are percolating nonetheless.

A series of unrelated ASOIAF AU fics, each highlighting a different House around the canonical time of Robert's Rebellion, about how fully genderbending the children of that House (e.g. Stark, Baratheon, Targaryen, Martell, Tully, etc) changes the dynamics of the story. And by full genderbending, I do mean every person in that generation of that family - so the three Baratheon sisters instead of the three Baratheon brothers, or Branda, Eddara, Lyonel, and Berena Stark, or Dorea, Elias, and Obara Martell, etc. I just think it'd be interesting to explore the ways in which gender impacts these characters' lives and the way they see the world, and bring that forth by taking characters whom we know fairly well and showing how much they change (or stay the same) when their position and experience in society changes due to their gender. Unfortunately I'm not confident enough to ever write ASOIAF fic, so I shall just daydream vividly about this in my head without writing it.

I don't know if I'll ever get around to finishing this one although I have actually written a good deal for it, which is the Lapin/Theo/Cumulous fic. Part of the reason why I don't know that I'll ever finish it is that it's mostly a "scene" fic - I have specific scenes that really form the core of the fic, but no real connective themes or ideas between them. I also fully recognize that this is an extremely niche fic, and that readers will not accept it without a substantial bit of "Here's how the situation happened" on my end, which I don't know that I have enough time to fully write out.

[the-lesser-dog123]

I feel like you’ve actually hit a couple distinct cause-ish things that could all lead into “lego stories”

Danny Phantom and Miraculous definitely have lots of fanfics based on trying to build on missed potential.

But I’d argue that what originally led to Worm as a sort of fic-sandbox is quite different - more so the power setup rather than actual missed potential in the story.

And then MHA falls into both those camps.

Worm

My first iteration of this post was just long thing about Worm because I’m most passionate about its fanfic landscape, but now I’m adding a bit about the others so this is just one category category before those (if an overly long one).

The thing with Worm is that its canon is actually really good. Seriously, the story’s characterization can be amazing at times and it creates tension far better than the vast majority of fics I’ve read. I kinda want to start to list examples but honestly it’d get rather long…

It’s certainly not a bright/happy story, but that isn’t a failing; it’s kinda inherent to the premise. A story about imperfect people in a broken world making decisions that are often wrong couldn’t not be dark, and it never to me felt like it entered into “grimderp” (excessive darkness to the point of stupidity).

Yes, it absolutely still has its flaws (e.g. the timeskip was kinda weak, I feel like Sophia should have been written a bit differently towards the end, and ah yes, Taylor is totally straight. Sure. Just ignore her… everything) but I wouldn’t call it nearly as broken as some others. And the actual issues it has are entirely different from what most fics try to tackle.

Because some worm fic writers aren’t really as interested in what canon’s story is. Early on, many came for the powers, and that’s shaped things in the fandom since.

A common selling point you might hear people use for Worm is characters exploring their powers thoroughly. Taylor “just” has bug control and yet she gets so much mileage out of it thanks to her creativity with fully exploiting its potential.

Because of this, SpaceBattles—a forum with a lot of powerscalers and that ilk—took to the setting as a playground for exploring their ideas for powers, not because they were particularly invested in the story or world. And thus a lot of relatively shallow altpowers got written; just kinda loosely following approximately-canon but with their own powers inserted instead.

Those fics then inspired other authors who drew on aspects of them, and so on. Fanfics building on fanfics building on fanfics, gradually drifting away from canon. Eventually, it became self-sustaining. There’s an entire group (of both readers and even authors) that’s fans of worm fics rather than Worm itself.

Thus, those fanon characterizations have become sorta… solid. Common across lots of fics regardless of the original canon. Lisa as a woobified victim who’s only a villain because of Coil, Armsmaster as almost robotic with no social skills, Alec as a devil-may-care gamer without canon’s level of trauma, etc.

Hell, common fanon even changed one of the main gangs in Brockton Bay. The Merchants were nobodies at the start of canon; Coil’s gang was the third major power alongside the E88 and ABB. The Merchants only became worth mentioning after Leviathan when they could gather together the people who had lost everything.

And since that “wormfic fandom” is essentially its own community of just fanfics, it will reach the types of people who love fanfiction (and therefore are more likely to write their own fics), contributing to the lego box-ish setup of that side.

And like there isn’t anything inherently wrong with liking the fanon version. I’m a bigger fan of canon but it’s not somehow evil to enjoy something else more. I’m certainly a fan of a number of not-canon-accurate fics too. I’m just pointing out that I’d argue that Worm’s huge fanfic landscape isn’t really based on fixing issues in canon, but instead more on like, remixing fanon’s things.

And also like, this isn’t to say there aren’t any big Worm fics that are more “canon-y”. There absolutely are. Silence is Not Consent, for example. But they’re a very different vibe from the fanon side.

Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug

I’m grouping these two together since I don’t have nearly as much to add about them.

These are the ones that I feel most match your description - they have some really great ideas but also flaws that leave lots of room for people to want to try their own reworked versions.

And once those versions get enough material added to them, they can also become the same sort of self-sustaining, not-quite-canon communities.

Also the DP x DC crossover has a weird relationship with DP itself. It often uses a lot of the common DP fanon, but it’s not exactly the same as the non-crossover fandom part. Sorta like its own distinct also-self-sustaining subsection.

Though it’s even more unique from the other lego box fandoms in that it sorta… doesn’t have a canon? It’s a crossover; it has two canons to build from but isn’t that solidly based in either.

My Hero Academia

Oh boy, it’s both types!

It’s got plenty of concepts that were never fully explored in canon for the enterprising fic author to dig into.

The full extent of All For One’s criminal empire, the layout of hero society (and often the corruption within it), quirk discrimination (whether against the quirkless, mutants, or those with “villainous quirks”), more creative exploitations of people’s quirks, and so on.

Tons of foundations to build on.

And it’s also a setting that can be easily used as a power sandbox a la Worm’s altpower scene.

Quirks can be basically anything, and the basic “become a hero” plot setup offers an easy path to follow while exploring the power. Just slap your new power onto Izuku and it’s essentially ready to go!

And that ease of access is bolstered by the school setup providing an easy plot railroad. Izuku’s just a student, so most of the workings at UA are essentially out of his hands. You can cause all the character changes you want and still stick to canon’s events almost 1:1 with barely any extra finagling.

Like even if Izuku is suddenly super confident and suave and can create miniature suns by chapter 2, the battle trial can still be set up exactly the same way as canon. Sure it’d play out a bit differently, but what does that actually change in the grand scheme of things? They’ll still go to the USJ soon, the Sports Festival will likely still happen, etc.

Or of course you absolutely can go and switch things up if you want something a bit more unique. Maybe the classmates are changed around, maybe the Sports Festival is different, maybe the villains recruit different members, maybe you let your setup changes actually butterfly out, and so on.

Lego Stories

There are times when I've considered the idea of a media of the sort that is so bad, we want to fix it.

You know the type. Miraculous Ladybug, Worm, Danny Phantom--these are works that are really cool in concept, and have really cool moments, and have the potential for truly great worldbuilding and stories... but the execution falls flat. Works that get you angry over what could have been. Works that drive people like me to rewrite them in our heads, where fanon becomes more popular, more accepted, and maybe even more well-known than the canon.

I would like to propose a name for this type of work.

I call them Lego Stories, because if you follow the instructions you make a fun enough little setpiece, but the real fun begins when you take it apart and put it back together your way.

Worm is probably the best example of this. There are so many pieces to it that would make a truly great story, if they were just rearranged a little. Or a lottle. And we, the fanfic authors, are the ones who see the shape we want it to be and work towards it.

Anyone in the Worm fandom can probably name three or more fics they've read that they'd call better than canon. Harry Potter and Miraculous too.

The first example that springs to mind at the moment is @zoe-oneesama's Scarlet Lady comic. It's a retelling of Miraculous that diverges from the moment Marinette recieves the Ladybug earrings, because Chloe steals them instead. Everything that happens in the comic is canon, but a little to the left; all the pieces are there, but put to a better use, in my opinion of course.

Any fanfic does this to an extent, of course. A Lego Story is one that leaves lots of room for fanfic authors to explore. Some works are too tight to squeeze anything new in, and writing fic for it is a constant struggle; instead of Lego, they're a stack of cards that could collapse if you move anything. But that's a conversation for another day.