#it's a niche fanfic site? hello???

[apocalyptic-dancehall]

the most hilarious thing is that people think ao3 has an actual cultural impact on society outside of fandom

[proshippers-against-censorship]

Hello so i am really obssesed with a incest ship the ship is basically older brother who is a menance with good heart and younger brother is a cinammon roll with bad heart they also are kind of like angel/devil dynamic so i just really like their dynamic a lot.

Anyways sorry for brainrot and here is the deal

So the fandom that i am in for the ship is very small, in here and unfortunately most the people there are antis and some of them can be really violent not the mention the show is a children's show so more antis often partake in here, and i want to post ship art of the brothers i like but i don't want to get dogpiled by most of the fandom... i am very senstive towards harrasment i can't even mention the show's name cause i am very scared.

So what i look for is a site where can post ship art without getting bullied? like a niche site would be so cool. Do you know like a site like that? or what is your recommendations for me? Like it would be lovely to hear you guys advice cause i am really passionate about this ship which is the fandom so blind about their dynamics. and they're so underrated too i only could find 2 fanfics of them in ao3 and i can't write :(

Okay have a good day and it is okay if you not willing to answer this :)

The best suggestion I unfortunately can give is to either post it on an alternate account here, or upload it to AO3.

Any suggestions from the lads?

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Hello! I’m trying to collect seminal fanworks for different fandoms, and figured that it would be a good idea to ask you for any for atla since you said that you’ve been involved in writing fanfic for the show for so long. Basically, I’m hoping to find any fics that are widely popular within the fandom and/or have laid the groundwork for certain aspects of fanon. I’ve already got Embers by Vathara down for this since I’ve seen influence from it pop up pretty often, but I’m a bit new to the fic side of the fandom so I wanted to know which other ones were out there. Thank you!

Hmmm. Well, I can probably point you in the right direction, BUT there's a few things about me you'll want to take into account.

I have always had incredibly niche tastes. Even back in 2009 I was way more interested in reading about minor characters than I was reading about the main cast, and I preferred genfic over shipping. So the fics I read didn't tend to get popular, and the fics that did get popular were usually shipfic and thus I didn't read them and wouldn't be able to track their effects on the fandom. I also haven't regularly read ATLA fic in years; I write it, but I'm way more interested in my own OCs and worldbuilding and headcanon sandbox than most fic these days, so I'm not sure what the current trends are or where they came from. Most of the things I point you towards are going to be very old and possibly forgotten.

That said, I think your best bet is going to be figuring out where the hangout spaces were and who the major players were in old ATLA fandom and going from there. @loopy777 and @piandaoist may be able to help us out here too, especially since I only joined the fandom after the finale aired; they were around long before that.

So, where did the original ATLA fandom and its fic live? Well, for the fic, mostly on FanFiction.Net. You're lucky in this regard--I don't think there were any big independent fanfic archives for ATLA. Harry Potter was around at the same time and had several big fic sites, but HP was older than ATLA, so places like Sugar Quill and FictionAlley were founded around 2001. FFdotnet was founded in 1998, but back then it was pretty commonplace to build your own personal place on the internet. By the time ATLA aired, though, I think FFdotnet was becoming the go-to fic place. And old ATLA fandom never seemed to have much of a slash fandom; if it had that would've been more incentive to start up a separate slash-focused archive, since m/m would be especially vulnerable to purges. So as far as I know, no one felt a need to establish an ATLA-focused fic website, and if they did it never got very big. You'll probably have some good luck seeing what was popular if you just go to the FFdotnet ATLA section and sort by number of reviews and check the dates on what you find.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are going to go looking for this stuff, you need to keep in mind that you are looking at a past internet that is very different from what you might be used to today. For all that purity culture wankers like to complain, AO3 is a dream compared to the olden days. Now, you can see a fic's tags and warnings (or that the author chose NOT to warn) before you even open it. That was not possible or expected on many other fic archives. FFdotnet only gave you so many characters to write your fic summary, that was precious real estate. Sometimes people warned for things in author's notes, sometimes they did not. The culture and etiquette around warnings was different; in many fandoms back then, failing to warn for character death was seen as way more upsetting than failing to warn for rape. Check the rating, the summary, the author's notes--and then understand that you might still run into a completely random sex scene halfway through the fic. Was every fic like this? No, of course not. Most of them weren't. But you have to understand that this is an unavoidable risk. If you can't handle the idea of stumbling across some underage Zutara smut, this might not be the project for you.

Oh, and mind the citrus scale--lemons mean sex, limes mean the characters don't go as far as having sex.

And FYI, it's been ages since I've read anything I'm about to go over and I can't remember the details, so yes, this warning applies to anything I recommend here, too.

Other places to check...well, fandom lived on LiveJournal back then. I'm not sure if ATLA fandom was very affected by Strikethrough and Boldthrough; like I said, there didn't seem to be a lot of slash fans back then. But you could probably go trawling through old journals and communities and see if you find anything interesting... Oh, and back then all fanart would've been posted on DeviantArt, that was pretty much where fanart lived back then. LJ didn't have native image hosting, you had to use Photobucket if you wanted to post any images on there, and why do that when DeviantArt was RIGHT THERE for your fanart.

Ooooh, here you go, FanLore has some lists of ATLA fan spaces, lots of which are on LJ and DA!

There was also AvatarSpirit.Net, but they shut down ages ago. I archived a lot of the threads before it went, but I basically skipped the whole fanfic forum--everything in there was probably on FFdotnet, and no one really left comments on the fic threads, so it seemed pointless since I was pressed for time.

I think that pretty much covers the places. So what about the people?

Well, off the top of my head, I think one fan you might find useful is AvocadoLove (haha your names match). She wrote a lot of fic, but her most popular by far was Another Brother, which I believe was the original Zuko Joins The Water Tribe story, so that trope can be traced back to her. AvocadoLove also kept what might've been the fandom's most prestigious fic reclist, which you can still see on both her LiveJournal and her DreamWidth:

LJ 1 | LJ 2 ||| DW 1 | DW 2

There's a lot of popular fics on this list. Be warned, though, that a lot of them have disappeared, especially if they were posted on someone's LJ instead of on FFdotnet. A few years back I went down this list archiving everything I could, and the number of error pages I hit was saddening. It's possible some have been reposted to AO3 so you can go check there.

Going off this list...

Enslaved by sharkflip--This was a popular Zutara fic, Zuko's the one who got enslaved lol. Extremely different worldbuilding from canon, I gave it a read once and it was interesting.

Mai's Ramblings by @loopy777--Oh my GOD I forgot this existed but it's great. Unfortunately ASN is gone and I have no idea if they're posted anywhere else, LOOPY TELL US, but these were just hilariously stupid rambles by Mai on every ATLA ship imaginable. Did they have a big effect on fanon? Unsure. Were they beloved by the ASN community? YES.

Stormbenders by Fandomme--Another super-popular Zutara fic, people loved it, so it's possible it might've affected Zutara fanon?

Water Tribe by Rufftoon on NoSelfControl--Okay, so this is a long webcomic about "what if Zhao survived the Siege of the North, got amnesia, and the NWT begrudgingly took him in?" Very popular with Zhao fans back in the day. The really cool thing about this is that Rufftoon was actually an ATLA storyboard artist, so her artwork looks a LOT like the show. I believe she made Water Tribe as a sort of personal practice for long-term visual storytelling or something. She did lots of other ATLA art too, you should check her out.

Oh, speaking of webcomics...

Plight of the Freedom Fighters by SioUte and PFFbySIO--The first webcomic was a "how to make Jet survive" story, the second followed the Freedom Fighters after the war as adults. SioUte was the Freedom Fighters BNF back in the day.

And while I'm thinking of it, not a webcomic, but sylvacoer had this whole not-really-Zutara story going on that was literally Blue Spirit/Painted Lady.

*thinks* Look, when it comes right down to it, unless there's stuff going on in the shipping subfandoms that I'm not aware of, I don't think you're going to find anything that directly established as much fanon as Embers did. There were plenty of other super-popular fics, sure, but most of them focused on shipping, and worldbuilding wasn't quite as important. Embers put worldbuilding first and foremost, and therefore it was easier for the fandom to pull from as a whole.

Uhhh let's see what else...at this point I'm basically just throwing whatever I can remember being interesting at you, lol, idk how much of an effect any of this really had.

DJNS wrote a bunch of fic with interesting premises, some shippy, some not. The Zuko/Aang roleswap AU was pretty cool.

For me personally, the biggest influences on my writing were Dark Puck and Rebecca Hb, specifically their Dai Li fics. They had a circle of friends on LJ who put out some good stuff.

*thinks* Yeah, I think that's all I've got for now. Hope that gives you a starting point! I'd also recommend, as you trawl through FFdotnet, checking out the authors' favorited fics in their profiles, you could probably find more interesting stuff that way.

Idk, I'll add more later if I think of anything. But if you start with AvocadoLove, I think that's an excellent starting point.

[andallthatmishigas]

just wanted to say my friend + i both noticed (independently) the other day how omnipresent you are and that you have quite literally shown up in every fandom for both of us over the past 10+ years, whether it be here or on fanfic sites! i always smile when i see your @, cheers to us having so many of the same niche interests!!

Oh my goodness hello friend this is so funny to me. I’m so old and I get so deep into the most random things and I’m always delighted when anyone overlaps with more than one of them haha! I never really think that anyone thinks of me for any reason so lease know this message absolutely made my day. Come talk to me and share more!!

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

Hello! Hope you're having a good day! = D

Could you answer #1 from the writer's ask game please?

Of course!

1. When did you start writing? How?

Okay so let's rewind to 2010. I was... fourteen? My sister and I were super into Tennis. Yeah the sport. So we spent a lot of time on a little site (now defunct) called Quizilla. It was sort of the precursor to what UQuiz is now, and it hosted not only quizzes but fanfic also. We couldn't find a whole lot of Tennis content on Quizilla--almost all of it was for an anime called The Prince of Tennis, which we promptly got very very into.

The first fanfic I ever wrote was for Prince of Tennis and it was a Seven Minutes in Heaven Quiz hosted on Quizilla. I did two of these: one for the protagonist team and one for their biggest rival team. I co-wrote them with my sister and they didn't, like, explode into popularity, but we did get a lot of comments talking about how well done they were, how each one really felt tailored to the character, rather than flattening them out into the usual dirt bag teenage hot boy antics that you would tend to find in spin the bottle/smih fics/quizzes.

That made me feel really good, that I was coming at a niche with a (very slightly) more mature lens that catered to an underfed more mature audience.

The following attempts at full-on stories were, I'll be frank, not as good. I was definitely exploring what I found attractive about each character, but as story they were definitely very threadbare. I had some good concepts but absolutely no emotional development to make them into what I could call a "story". So I set writing aside for a while, then I did some unpublished OC Bleach fanfic and after that really didn't write much of anything until March of 2021 when my Twilight Renaissance began and I decided to resurrect and overhaul my Twilight OC (you can find out all about her on my side-blog @crookdeclipses ) along with completely overhauling her, her name, and her backstory, I also started a dedicated OC fic called Moonrise. that takes place during the events of New Moon and is about her and how she meets her love interest while abroad during the Cullen exodus. But that's all currently unpublished because while it's set in the Twilight universe and directly connects to the principal cast, almost all of the action deals with completely original characters.

Cut to October. 2022. I watched the Phantom of the Opera (2004) and was high-key not okay afterwards. I discovered right from the beginning that the final lair Brings. Out. The. Worst. In. Me.

So much so that after several weeks of obsessive viewing of the film, I formulated a fix-it scenario which then became When The Longing Returns, which is my first published fic in over ten years, and is also the only thing I've written that I feel justified in calling "a story".

[bloomvalyria]

Hello! If I may ask, how did you get into digital art and writing fanfics?

I think I’ve talked about it before, but I actually stumbled upon fanfiction by accident. I was doing very intensive research to find a specific winx doll set I wanted to buy, and one of the links was to a winx fic for some fucking reason. I clicked on it, was very confused, but immediately became intrigued. My stupid little middle school brain never fathomed that someone could actually ship characters how they weren’t in the show, or even that people could write storylines that weren’t part of the show. So as you can imagine my tiny stupid mind was blown. I strictly only read them for a couple weeks, and then I was like fuck it let’s try it ourselves. My very first fanfic ever was a Winx Club x Twilight crossover. We don’t talk about it and it never reached the site (thank god). However I do believe it may still be here in my house somewhere —haunting me. But I then proceeded to write others that I eventually posted (unfortunately for everyone around me) that are now removed due to several reasons. And as shitty as those fics were, I do miss the carefree nature I had when I wrote them. There wasn’t as much pressure as there is now.

When it comes to digital art … I honestly don’t remember what made me start. I cant draw for shit. And when I do somehow manage to draw something, it’s never intentional. But a friend I had in middle school was an incredibly talented artist, and she showed me some hacks in good ol’ Microsoft Paint. They fell on deaf ears however, because I still sucked. No matter how much I practiced, it just wasn’t meant to be. But then I was introduced to Photoshop! And while I was watching tutorial videos, I saw them piecing together photos to make the optimal end result, and I wondered how well that would transfer into animated styles. So I tried it and boom! I immediately found my niche! Of course it doesn’t work all the time, and sometimes I have to bullshit some drawing skills together to make it look how I want. Which is part of the reason why I switched to Procreate! Using an iPad is way nicer than using a computer mouse for what I do, and also just as a company, Adobe sucks! ✌🏻

[convexicalcrow]

Intro:

Hello, frens! Call me Lex or Crow, queer, he/they/she pronouns bc gender is weird and fucked. Old Millenial. Australian. Practicing Witch.

This tumblr was mostly set up for Hermitcraft and Empires shitposting, and that's mostly what I'll use it for. I do occasionally post fics and other ramblings, sometimes snippets from streams or from watching episodes, new or otherwise. Lots of art and fic reblogs. And sometimes I post my minecraft builds.

And now that it's Snowflake Challenge time again, i thought I'd do these posts over here and the first challenge is getting your fandom info and links organised, and I really don't have anything like that over here yet, so. Have an intro post. :D

Ships and Fandom Interests:

I'm mainly hyperfixated on Cub and Scar and the ConVex, as well as Sausage and Pearl and their lore, but I also write RenDoc and Ren/Martyn and others when the inspiration strikes.

I am shippy and do occasionally write smutfic and kinkfic, but I do also write gen and platonic fic as well when the story wants that instead. Mostly I am your niche rarepair writer who isn't interested in the big juggernaut pairings. And who wrote skulk Cub before it was canon lmao. XD

Blogs:

Follows come from this account bc I set this up not intending for it to be my main and then I left twitter like an idiot and well. Here we are lol.

I have a sideblog set up @lexstellaris for non-fannish shitposting and other more personal things. No need to follow that unless you want to.

Asks:

Feel free to submit asks if you have questions, or there there's something you want me to discuss, or you want to throw fic prompts at me. :D I have a tag for all my ask responses if you want to look through that as well.

AO3:

You can find my fic posted on AO3 here under the name orphancrow.

I have been posting fic on AO3 under other accounts for a long time, and I mostly adhere to AO3's guidelines when rating my fic. So you may find kinkfic and other sexual content in my M-rated fics as well as my E-rated fics bc both are designed for adult content, but this will always be clear from the tags so there shouldn't be any surprises. I know I differ from some of the fandom on this, but it's how I do things, and I want to be upfront about that.

Transformative Works Policy:

If you wanna write fic or draw art inspired by my works, that's totally fine with me, just link back to the works that inspired you. I'm also fine with anyone wanting to podfic my works or translate them into other languages, as long as there's a link back to my original works.

You can find this in my AO3 profile as well.

Tags and Projects:

#spoilers - I'm (mostly) consistent in using the spoilers tag for any new eps or current streams I'm posting about so feel free to block that if you're not interested in knowing. I mostly use this for eps just released if I'm watching them then.

#fanfic - Fanfic posted on this account can be found under the fanfic tag. This does include stuff I've posted to AO3 as well, some of which is stuff I've edited and tidied up after posting it here.

#vex magic grimoire - If you're interested in the Vex Magic Grimoire, I have a tag for that where you can follow the progress of that grimoire. The concept behind it is that it's being written mostly by Pharaoh Cub in s7, with inputs from Scar, and it's exploring and explaining Vex magic and potions and a bunch of my Vex lore.

I have also started an archive for the grimoire pages over here at the Liber Vex archive. It's just simple links back to tumblr rn, but it'll be more of a full text archive in time. New pages will be updated there and I'll link this at the end of each new post as well, so keep an eye on that site if you want to keep up with all the lore.

#minecraft builds - All my minecraft screencaps and builds are housed under this tag. I play mostly java these days. I currently have two worlds I'm working on:

#villa hekatea - This is a Java solo world, seed -6478546301100136766. I mostly play this as survival, but it's become a bit of a crevival world, as sometimes I just don't have the energy to grind resources in survival, so I build in creative instead. It's its own personal mix of builds for particular gods, and just whatever else I want to do. Current project is a woodland mansion base near a mountain that I cannibalised for ores early on.

#hctcg smp - This is the Creo minecraft server, where I have a big desert base inspired by ancient Egypt as well as Pharaoh Cub and other things.

[your-royal-momoness]

As a smaller blog, how do you suggest I gain traction and more followers? It’s really intimidating to come on here when all the big blogs are friends with each other. It feels like there’s no room for the smaller blogs to grow. I don’t mean to come off as rude its just a concern I have. Thank you for listening <3

Hello friend!

I don’t think you’re being rude at all. This is a completely valid question and I agree that it can be daunting to come into a space that feels rather established and be all “look at me!”

I’m going to let you in on how I gained traction: I talked to people. I didn’t ask people to bump my posts or mention me in theirs, I just had honest conversations with them about this children’s television show from the early 2000s that I absolutely adore. I had discussions with people about their posts, what fanfics they like, why they felt x about y. And I grew. It wasn’t my intention to gain followers. I came on here to make stupid jokes for myself and thought, “if someone else also likes this joke, then that’s great” but it wasn’t my intent at all.

I know this seems a bit frustrating because organic growth is pretty difficult but it does happen! I also made this blog when the atla renaissance was ramping up.

I agree that atla tumblr can seem cliquey at times but all the “cliques” I’ve seen have been very welcoming to new people! The blog squad is full of “big” blogs and more niche ones. We’re not friends because of our follower count, we’re friends because we have common interests and genuinely enjoy each other’s company and conversation.

My advice is to just keep talking to people! You don’t need to have 5000/500/100/20 followers to have meaningful relationships on this site (I think that’s part of the beauty of it). I also still get nervous talking to people I admire! (I got a notif today that someone I really like started following me and I made a very embarrassing squeaky noise and then chickened out of talking to them because I didn’t want to seem weird.) it happens to all of us!

And if you’re a new blog (or a “small” blog - whatever that means) know that you can always come talk to me! If it’s an authentic relationship you’re seeking, and not a mention or tag or boost, people will see that. I hope this helped!

[autumnslance]

how do you get into roleplaying on a ff server? like how do you do it and how do you know if your character is lore compliant? ;A; pls youre a big inspo to me

*Hugs Nonny* Getting into RP on a FF server can vary; I don’t actually RP much these days, outside of some friends I already have connections to--and that in itself can be difficult just due to Life! It can take time, and patience, and some fits and starts.

And this gets...really really long, so buckle up and go below the cut, please. :)

The cut got broken by an edit. Sigh.

In game there’s always the RP status tag, and just doing RP with folks in public spaces. There may be trolls now and then, but they can be ignored. I personally find Balmung’s Quicksand area too busy and anxiety inducing and not actually all that conducive to actual RP, even “meet at a tavern” walk-up type. But unless you already have a ready-made group of friends/FCmates willing to RP more than some random walk-ups with you, it may take some legwork to find folks you can and want to write with.

Social Media There are a couple of RP community blogs, like @mooglemeet​ and @ffxiv-crystal-rp​  and plenty of server-specific ones. There’s also some Discords for these communities. They host and advertise events and reblog people who are looking for RP contacts. Some of them have running gdoc calendars and in game linkshells and fellowships as well.

Shofie has a good post about Tumblr/social media RP blogging.

@shofie-ffxiv

It’s a fact now that social media outside game is a way to make contacts, or even a medium for RP itself. There are few centralized websites/forums for server RP communities anymore. Making connections over your social media, like Tumblr and Twitter, can help find RP. You can’t just throw your own character info out there or reblog prompts hoping others bite, though; you have to put in some work and show interest in others, too. This can be difficult and even scary. That’s OK.

RP is about collaboration and creating with other people, which means finding folks you can write with, and who see you as someone interesting but also interested in them and their OCs. If you want to keep it a solo endeavor focused on your own OCs, write fanfic (which I’ve actually made friends and gotten RP interests that way too through comment interactions, so hey).

If you reblog a prompt from someone, see others on your dash reblogging prompts, if people reblog that prompt post from you? Send them asks! Alternatively, don’t wait for prompts, just send asks, comments, or chats saying hello and things you notice or like about their blog/character/posts they make. Try to form connections with people you think are genuinely interesting and might be fun to talk with. Social media should be, well, social.

BUT respect boundaries, too. Don’t try sarcasm or jokes with people you don’t actually know, it tends to go over poorly. Unless someone’s specifically posting a naughty meme/prompt, keep stuff you others send clean and polite, especially if it’s unsolicited and you’re not already friends (doubly so if you don’t know how old they are IRL, there are laws you do not want to break). Respect if people aren’t open to random asks or chatting with new followers, or say “no” to RP, and know it’s not personal--it’s just what they have time, energy, and emotional/mental capacity for. Don’t give up on other people, though. This stuff can take time and effort to find those you click with.

Respect and communication with RP partners is pretty key.

Do curate your feeds and don’t be afraid to unfollow/mute/block folks, either. I’m selective in who I follow and remove as needed, too, for my own mental health. I miss so much of the discourse and drama and that’s fine by me. Also it costs nothing to not step in on a lot of the drama when it does pass in sight.

Profiles I have static RP profile pages for my girls here on Tumblr (and a lot of other static links and pages, but I’m weird about organizing like that). This way, if people want to write with me, send me prompts, if I sent them prompts, or they want to otherwise interact with my characters, the information is handily available. For some folks, this makes all the difference in who they choose to interact with: how easily can they find even basic info about your OC?

Some people make Carrds. Some folks have gdoc links, or use Dreamwidth, etc. Just keep the links in the blog’s sidebar menu, and/or in the blog desc so people can see ‘em on mobile. There are templates out there, or you can make your own. Feel free to snag mine if you’d like. A lot of times people also copy their profiles to rebloggable posts when looking for RP contacts. Profiles are a good way to let folks know just the at-a-glance basics about your character(s).

I picked a simple theme with a simple layout that makes it easy to add and show off links. I put them in the blog desc to make them easy to find on mobile, too.

[Images: links from my blog sidebar menu showing how over organized I am]

RP, Stories, Lore Post some stories or RP logs (with permission of others involved) or even just random little blurbs and headcanons, as well as any screenshots, art, aesthetic posts for your OCs. Have something of interest to show for your character, too, so some of those folks your interacting with have something of their own to see and ask about!

If possible, try some light RP with friends and FC Mates who are amenable. Go to events, even if just to lurk at first. When you do get up the nerve to talk to people, don’t try to throw a character’s entire backstory at them, or try to steal the limelight--RP is collaboration, back and forth, and a lot like real conversation. Maybe come up with little light things to talk about if asked; a recent adventuring job, a silly shopping incident, etc. They can break the ice or just give you something to reply with for a few minutes.

Lore Compliance is Variable. Some people really want lore compliance, others are OK bending it here and there, while still others throw it out the window entirely. If you want to be super lore compliant...read. There’s a LOT of information, in game and out, for finding lore; from official publications and website material, to tools like Garland Tools site, to compilation blogs like @mirkemenagerie.

Note what’s important for your concept. Narrow it down. Characters aren’t going to know or be or do everything, so only worry about what’s necessary for the base idea. And be flexible; it’s SE’s sandbox, we just play in it, and they can change things any time. They usually do it in the guise of characters not knowing/having all the correct information, at least, but also some places just don’t exist in game yet so we don’t have info.

I’m unspecific about a lot of elements of Aeryn’s childhood, for instance, other than “traveling merchants near Thavnair.” I don’t have to be super specific. I can keep most details vague, and focus on her family and those relationships.

Dark, as my first character, has a fairly simple backstory that I’ve expanded on and adjusted over time as I learned and came up with new info. I also bet no one remembers I originally said Dark was from the North Shroud. I’ve changed things (now from East Shroud, due to the proximity to Gyr Abania and its Hellsguards) as I learned more about the world and my character. You don’t want to change things willy-nilly, but sometimes being flexible and smoothing down some rough edges and making small changes can be fine, especially as one gets more lore over time.

Iyna has a pretty detailed backstory, that came from a basic idea, and checking dates in the pre-Calamity timeline. I based her being taken and trained the way she was not only on what info we have about Garlemald’s imperial practices with conquered provinces, but borrowed a bit from real life and the re-education schools many Native Americans were forced into (though I haven’t gone into detail on that yet, either). I tied the turning point in Iyna’s life to a major event that wasn’t the Calamity, and have left plenty of space in between for me to fill in as time goes on and I learn more about her and the world.

The world isn’t static, and is bigger and more diverse than what can be shown in the game. There’s space in the margins for plenty of weird stuff and contradictions or unusual cases. So read up on what you can, ask questions, and then find where in those spaces your OC fits. Then, find people who enjoy similar tastes in lore compliance (or non-compliance), and who enjoy playing with you and your OCs, and not worrying about the rest. Can’t please everyone, nor get along with everyone, so don’t try; just find what works for you, and who works with you, and don’t police anyone else’s pretendy fun times, either.

There’s no magic answer on the “right” amount of lore compliance, or how to quickly and easily find RP partners or break into the broader RP community.

I hope this helps at least a little bit! Good luck in finding your niche for RP, and maybe I’ll see you sometime at an event :)

[thisonesatellite]

for the fanfic ask game: 5, 19, 27 and 51 please and thank you!

Hello my dear - and thank you so much for this ask!  ❤❤❤

Let’s see what we got:

.

5.  Which fandoms have your written fanfiction for?

Only OUAT - and only CS.

i remember a long time ago, when i really liked BtVS, stumbling across a few random sites which had B/A fanfic, which i read and enjoyed.  However, the notion of fanfiction being A Thing, the notion of fanDOM being A Thing, never ever occured to me.  This was before fanfiction websites, so the pages i had found were literally just the personal websites of these people.  

i read the stories and then life got busy and i forgot about the whole thing.  And then, years later, OUAT happened.  i had been emotionally attached to other series and movies before that, but never quite like this, not since BtVS.  And then i remembered those stories.  i had actually encountered the term fanfiction in the interim, so - on a lark - one day i searched for ‘OUAT fanfiction’.  And stumbled across AO3.  Where i started reading.  

And - oh.  What a treasure trove it turned out to be. 

i was never going to write anything myself, didn’t apply for an account for months, and in the end i only did because i had a story idea knocking around my head which would not leave.  The story became The Road, taken.  And one day, i got a comment on it.

You cannot possibly imagine my surprise.  i thought AO3 was simply a place to “store” your writing.  Publicly, so that other people could read it, but i NEVER expected interaction.  Somehow i had not realized interaction was an option.  It was so odd - but motivating.  

And then one day, a person named @profdanglaisstuff​ left me an absolutely lovely comment on my second story, which turned into a wonderful ‘comment conversation’, and then she asked if i was on tumblr.  

And the rest is history. ❤

.

19.  Is there a ship which you wished you could get behind, but you just don’t feel them?

Oh - that’s a hard question.  Outlaw Queen and Rumbelle?  i like each of these for their interesting dynamics - personality-wise - and their volatile potential.  i think they’re fascinating.  But - it’s true: i just can’t feel them.

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27.  What do you hate more: Coming up with titles or writing summaries?

That’s like asking me whether i prefer the black plague over cholera.  😂  But if i have to choose one, it would be summaries.  The titles do come easier.

Or rather - some titles i have found easily.  Some i even had before i started a story.  Some, not all.  

But.  A summary has never come easy.  

(Except for militae species amor est, which i wrote for @darkcolinodonorgasm​‘s AMAZING art for the @csrolereversal.  That’s the only summary that has ever just plopped into my brain, all two sentences of it - and that’s only because it was the most obvious possible choice, and Sara likes The Princess Bride even more than i do.)

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51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

i absolutely love the fact that people care enough about a piece of fiction to create content for it.  To connect to it so much that they have likes and dislikes and opinions; headcanons, thought processes, explanations, and emotional investment.  i love that there are different niches and ships and styles, love that there is space for everyone.  No matter what you like, you’ll find something to suit your tastes.  And if you can’t, you can make something for it.

It’s amazing to me that stories can be so powerful, they beget more stories,  inspire this kind of creativity in their audience.  And whether these stories manifest in written word or art - it means that people care so much about a world, about these characters with whom they connect, that they want to see it live on, want to be part of it.

That, to me, is incredible.

.

.

So - that was probably a lot more than you  bagained for!  Brevity might be the soul of wit, but it sure doesn’t wander into my asks, like, ever.

Again - thank you so much!!   ❤❤❤

[sihtric]

Lately I've been seeing some great tlk edits on here yet only a handful reblog them. Why? Is it because the fandom is small? No one likes the characters except the coccham squad?

Hello, anon! First of all, gracias! I'm glad you like the edits I've posted thus far! Second of all, there are a few reasons for the lack of reblogs, as you suggested:

In comparison to other fandoms on this site, TLK's is quite small. We are slowly growing, probably due to more opportunities for participation within the fandom (read: fanfic fest). However, we don't have the large following which similar shows like Game of Thrones and Vikings do. Fingers crossed that we'll get there someday!

It's not necessarily that nobody likes the characters except the Coccham Squad. There are many of us who appreciate the more niche characters (Erik, Sigefrid, and Aldhelm for instance). The Coccham Squad just happen to be the main characters. Even Osferth and Sihtric content is lacking in my opinion. I've noticed that some of the biggest characters on the show are Alfred, Uhtred, and Finan, so there's much more content/desire for content for those characters. However, I won't be discouraged, and nobody else should either. Create, like, and reblog content for that obscure character you like that everyone judges you for (cough, Wihtgar, cough)!

Some people may enjoy edits and other such content but not feel like reblogging it because it may not fit the fandoms or style of their blog. I can understand that, but if you truly like a content creator's work, why not share it with others? Everyone is free to reblog or simply like whatever posts they choose, and I'm not going to say people have to reblog content if they don't want to (although as a creator, I will say it's disappointing when people don't).

Thank you again, lovely anon! I hope you have a great day/night! 😘

[neil-neil-orange-peel]

Fanfic ask 4

Hello, anon!

The site I started reading fanfic on was Wattpad in about 2013 (because I'm a young one). I'm afraid it started with Harry Potter 😂 but I'm happy with the direction I've moved in... Namely, towards niche old sitcoms and on to ao3.

Thanks for the ask!

[qwedfas]

Anyone ship drarry? I find myself being unable to read like actual books but give me some fanfiction and I'll spend all day reading it? I honestly do miss and want to to read like your classic books but I just can't seem to pick it up. Any tips?

Hello!

FAM Member 1: I’m not personally into Drarry but I can empathise on reading too much fanfiction and not enough ‘real books’. In year 7 and 8 I was really into this semi-niche ship and I wasn’t that close to anyone at my old school so I pretty much used to read fanfic, and then go on tumblr to find new fanfic, and that was it. Also then, that was pretty much all I was reading beside school books, and I honestly think it is really hard for me to read a lot now because of it. Like, in year nine I felt I struggled to let go of reading fan fiction, and then I just stopped after I picked up some new hobbies. Honestly I don’t really read that much even though I want to because I feel like I never really make time for it, and it’s always more convenient to watch youtube videos in my break time. Maybe try and ease yourself back into reading by starting with a book that isn’t too challenging (ie. a YA book or something), then building up how challenging the book is, and how much time you spend reading (ie. start by trying to read 5/10 minutes a day and then slowing building it back up, or read a book on public transport instead of listening to music when you can (i find this really helps to get through a book).

FAM Member 2: Hey there! I also had that problem - I could spend all day binge reading one amazing fanfiction and find that the entire day had passed. It became a huge problem for me when I entered Year 10 and had less time to focus on my responsibilities and general wellbeing. It was also something hard to drop since I always had my phone on me and reading fanfiction on sites or apps was so convenient. I think the thing about reading fanfiction is that it’s hard to let go of a familiar ‘world’ or ‘story’ e.g. Drarry ship. It’s just easy to keep reading about your dreams and fantasies right? However, we have to learn to let go of this comfort zone and open our mind to other ‘worlds’.

I’ve since stopped reading fanfiction having picked up other pastimes (which I recommend if you want to do something other than read!). If you wanted to pick up reading again, think about what you like about fanfiction (was it HP fanfics?). Perhaps it was the ‘magical world’, the romance/drama/angst/etc genres. Maybe it was the convenience of reading online that keeps you reading fanfic? Then, like I currently am, you could try reading apps like overdrive/ borrowbox.

If you want to stray from online reading completely, try restricting yourself from using technology too much. Dedicate travel time/ doing nothing time to reading to ease yourself into it. It’s hard - sometimes you just want to stop reading a book/ not be bothered to read. When it gets to this point, it’s up to you to continue.

Hope this helps!

Love,

FAM xx

[the-harvester]

To new readers: Hello!

::

So it has been a while since I gave you all a proper hello~ To those who are new around here, welcome. To those who have been around since day one... You’re all dedicated as heck and we’re pleased to have you here. Just came by to give a quick run-down of how this blog and story work for those who haven’t been around all that long or perhaps have forgotten.

This blog is moderated by me, “Astire,” a fusion of CZ and VT’s gemsonas, Asteria Starstone and Phire the Sapphire. I am both CZ and VT, and yet neither at the same time. I’m the ambiguous voice of both the authors.

There are two authors behind The Harvester. @chillachompers and @vt-scribbles. They equally write every TH chapter [aside from Ch. 8 and 40] and both are okay with receiving questions about the story and their characters! For a list of who writes whom, check out this spiffy new reference list here! http://the-harvester.tumblr.com/Characters

Both authors are open for curious asks about their characters. Feel free to drop by and shoot us an ask, just make sure you’re asking the right person about the right character!

We take hiatuses between arcs so that VT and our main editor can bulk up on edited chapters before starting a new section of the story.

TH is, first and foremost, a hobby. It was never intended for readers, so please don’t take it as such. We are not trying to make a fantastic fanfic, just a fun story for us to write.

There are LOTS of spoilers on this blog! If you plan on reading TH, we don’t suggest following until you’re caught up! We do, however, tag everything with “;;Spoiled Goods” and “Spoilers”/”Spoiler”, though.

@here-comes-the-harvester is our official editor and beta reader! They may know certain things ahead of time, but please do not pester them about spoilers or editing. Come to us about that sort of thing.

There are niche subjects in The Harvester like Size Difference and Vore, the subject of things being eaten by other things. These are both in a nonsexual light in TH, but we understand it may make some people uncomfortable. If this is not your cup of tea, we understand. [Chapter 2 has the worst of it, and after that it is greatly watered down.]

We refer to Vore as “sin,” as a joke. Please know we are not actually referring to the religious definition of sin, or actually calling our art sin/sins or anything of that nature. It’s a joke-term we use, just like how we call certain things we draw “sweaty”. These are things we merely find appealing/embarrassingly appealing, not in a sexual light or anything. This is merely some clarity on some personal terms.

We do not condone NSFW art of our story or characters. Please do not draw or write this sort of thing. If you do, keep it to yourself, do not share it or tell us about it.

Do not use our characters for your own stories. You may write in-universe things for them or harmless fan-things, but do not take our characters for your stories.

The blog page has a lot of helpful links! Model sheets, character heights, a list of our tags, a list of ship names, etc!

Lastly, here’s the related sites for The Harvester!

The Harvester Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCac-lnMXNO66z981a2a1klQ

The Harvester AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5349707/chapters/12353510

CZ’s Blogs: @chillachompers @asteriastarstone @gemsontherocks

VT’s Blogs: @vt-scribbles