#it's been a whole year since i've done this gifset

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Sometimes, I say exactly what I think. Perhaps you could teach me.

[mecachrome]

omg k i just saw ur top 3 landoscar moments post from october 2023... any changes/updates since then? new moments made it onto the list? or if not... favorite moment of 2024 so far? (i just like hearing (reading?) ur thoughts it's like reading an intellectual (but still sappy in my fave way) bedtime story 🥰)

hklsdfhlsfhd naurrr... this is so embarrassing why am i still deeply landoscarpilled 6 months later 😔

but honestly i have been thinking about this and the sheer volume of crasyinsane material and lore we've accrued since last year because now i'm like how would you even begin constructing a top 3....... the possibilities are endless!!!

in terms of pre-october content that i might have missed before, i'd say most of this ask still holds (lando's biggest fan dot mp4 will NEVER lose its insanity to me. quintessential landoscar meta as far as i'm concerned) but now i also desperately need 2 shout out portrait painting challenge...... when it came out i was of course susceptible to the "you look beautiful" bantz though mostly just wrote it off as shipbait and since then i've looked back on this video multiple times and been like ?! why was oscar's deference to lando so insane actually.... i've alr mentioned this b4 but 1) oscar taking lando's intro in stride and immediately responding i am ready lando norris 2) oscar playfully acquiescing and letting lando use purple after he'd already chosen it 3) >like 5 seconds later. "you like purple don't you?" "uhhhh... i can do now" (who says that.) 4) another stunning display of lando Nooticing and fixating on oscar's hair swoop and last but not least 5) the way oscar FOLDS OVER and giggles helplessly when lando tells him i've just done you all pink ??? like. OKAY. cheers

looking @ recent content..... personally i find 814 so fascinating because while there are many Discrete Moments i can point out that make my brain explode i also feel like to some degree the reason we (? or maybe just me. again i apologize for the nonsensical drivel i create) love to make parallel gifsets of them is because they have such an understated dynamic built off many minute unspoken habits and wordless exchanges and essentially Patterns so there is less of like... a need for spontaneous intimacy.... if that makes sense. it's about the consistency of reciprocal comfort... iterations..... palisades palisades......... ok this is totally not related to the ask i've just been rotating it in my mind

anyway 10 personable favs !!! arranged chronologically

finish the lyrics (oct 2023): a deeply obvious one but you can't Not include it 😩 i can't believe this came out a week after i answered that because seriously what da hell. @ OSCAR PIASTRI WHAT IS WRONG WITH YEWWWWWWWW. there are sooooo many things i could mention here that i feel have already been exhaustively expounded, the most obvious of course being the classic ojp Heart Eyes moment(s) (Many such cases......but also specifically the love story one) (like i'd argue silverstone was mostly responsible for getting 814 off the ground BUT this video was when their dynamic became the most "mainstream" and accessible to fandom as a whole... the amount of non-f1 fans i saw qrting reups of that clip!!!!) anyway but then you also get 👉 whatever the inside joke they have about old town road is. oscar saying "i reckon you'd be unreal in a karaoke bar in japan" which i still think is such a Line... just me ??? the way he verryryryyyy softly sings "yes" with lando at the end of their love story karaoke and the insane camera angle of him just out of focus. like. really in general there is just such a soft and lighthearted and Fun air to their dynamic in this video that makes me ;__; AND this is another prime moment of lando narrating oscar's firsts for him (singing on camera at mcl!!!) . ALSAURR lando tapping oscar on the bicep while sarcastically complimenting him. once again for two guys who never touch it compels me... actually i could go on about this video tbh like how oscar nearly falls off the couch giggling at lando playing the songs together and then it cuts to the next one and he's suddenly all flushed and his bangs have gotten all fucked up. he's so... they're so... let's move on.

splunk sim city challenge (nov 2023): many classic lines such as "i haven't even distracted you yet!" + oscar knowing his podium year and lando saying "you're a nerd!" + lando going ":) :o are you okay?" and so on... general setup of this challenge was crasy tbh. how it revolves around disrupting the other person's focus and the visual asymmetry of one being sat higher and having to lean over to distract them and how oscar just giggles goodnaturedly when lando sticks his cue cards in front of his face instead of getting annoyed and—SO ON. also forever obsessed with how oscar wordlessly lifts his eyebrows at lando at the end lol

that one sticker video (nov 2023): this video is insaaAAANEEEE to me. ANYONE ELSE??? first of all oscar and lando gingerly standing across each other on either side of the flower bed (while zak brown assumes a power stance directly on it lmfao) is already so visually overwhelming but then the way oscar glances up as he's removing the sticker from the cap, how you can seeeeee him calculating the move the entire time and being adorably pleased about it, @__@ the way lando grins at him afterward... (also crying at zb glancing at them and being equally charmed by their antics) wahhh TT__TT the vibes of this clip... immaculate

oscar thanking lando in their final post-race message (nov 2023): honestly the entire message in general but :__) one of my fav 814 moments OAT is oscar including lando in his thank you speech and lando not really expecting it and being genuinely touched by the gesture. lando is so endearingly fidgety the entire time honestly and the way he perks up a bit and wrings his hands together and playfully smiles at oscar when he mentions him... okayyy. anyway 2 me it's reminiscent of yes/no challenge "am i the funniest teammate you've ever had?" "(shyly) yeahhh... you're up there" (said in the same baby-ish voice as "so... lando?" UGH. UGHHHH) and how lando genuinely gets a bit awkwardly flustered by it like!!! god. wait ALSO i don't have the space for this so i'm throwing in end of season awards MMMM debatable + how gleefully lando threw oscar under the bus and in general just the incredible expression work going on for both of them during this exchange. God [2]

si rapid fire questions (dec 2023): this video was crucial in determining that oscar... well. is obsessed with accommodating and mirroring lando. many things we already knew (aka listening to whatever music lando listens to; insert prema lap "maybe i should move to an english team because the music's better" moment here) but equally important is oscar "stealing" lando's dinner, how lando presses him on the back to the future question until oscar just changes his answer to his, and of course as you know per my blog title NO I'M GOING TO KEEP YOU HAPPY is in my eyes top 5 most insane things oscar piastri has ever said. likeee... lando showing a bit of jokey remorse over enforcing his rules (don't even get me started about lando and game/challenge rules...) but oscar being sooo determined 2 honor his teasing 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 :melting_face: x100!!!

need to split this into two lists because apparently there's a div character limit 😔 continuing on

hilton spa ad (feb 2024): of course this pained me because of This Moment (specifically lando bringing his hand back down when oscar tried to lift it from beneath him 😮‍💨) but that is neither here nor there. obsessed with the salmon at the engineering table anecdote because the most logical explanation for oscar Not doing that anymore is because lando didn't like it... or he just eats different things now but we already know that he's adopted lando's preferred meal b4 so that's equally a lot 2 digest !!! also >the callback to their one million LOOK AT YOU/HIM moments >how they touch shoulders exactly Once when they sit down and then never again despite lando continuously leaning into oscar's space to get to the button... eugh. also just top tier oscar faces + hair 🥰

opening title behind the scenes (mar 2024): thinking about all the hilarious gifsets of this moment that i ate up deliciously 🧡🧡🧡 this was such a significant reminder of how 814 have just gotten like, exceedingly comfortable around each other & have learned 2 communicate via the most inscrutable expressions and noises and gestures that somehow suit Them perfectly x__x although i doubt they will ever really become ~effusive~ with each it's frankly even more devastating that they both help each other care less about maintaining appearances / how they often get so sucked into their interactions (see next bullet point) that everything else kind of just fades away in that instant.... all right ⚠️⚠️⚠️ maybe that's a bit of a stretch but we can pretend for the rpf lens!!! see also my tag spiel in this beautiful tuva gifset.

photo day antics (mar 2024): do you ever just...... what went on in bahrain. honestly. more from this weekend in a second but this video plus the accompanying photo encapsulate their dynamic so perfectly it makes me scream... how 814 are not only so annoyingly focused on each other all the time but also stand SOOO UNNECESSARILY CLOSE while every other teammate pairing is spaced out normally. yuki and checo glancing at them alksfdhdf 😭 truly so ridiculous that the poor photo person tried to get lando's attention and they pretended to comply for two seconds before oscar was lifting his foot to show lando his boot again. also why did it take oscar a million years to step away from lando and put a more appropriate amount of space between them...?! and even then it was barely that much........... (10 paragraphs of speaking later) I prefer really not to speak.

accidental waist grab (mar 2024): this gave me psychic damage so bad i should be lobotomized. we've already spoken about this perhaps erm excessively but why did lando feel the need to stand JUST as close to him if not closer after they broke apart. there was truly no need...... honestly the way this ship will have us looking up driver cams and staring at esteban ocon's ass as he gets out his car just for a single glimpse of their parc fermé dynamic.

bahrain post-race interview antics (mar 2024): You already knowwwww. the sky sports "he follows me everywhere" moment is equally important but the f1tv interview giving us horrifically natural banter (juxtaposing this with their previous interview moments...), lando's dumb faux australian accent and oscar playing along as always, and most of all them HIJACKING THE INTERVIEW & commiserating on camera together ❓❗️ lichrally the grid photo all over again. often when i have emotions over an 814 moment i worry that i sound overly He_Only_Got_Two_Eyes.jpeg but truly sometimes two people are just objectively insane. plus land of piastri/lando piastri.....

also runner up is the f1tv interview with lawrence aka lando's cooing noise @ oscar discussing lily (anyone else frame by frame color pick oscar's face to see how badly he flushed... no? just me?) + the beautiful self-aware surfacing of the CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS of their relationship...... !!! love when 2 guys expose and confirm their own sincerity in trying to verbally resist it. hem

is this anything. sorry eve LKSFDHLDHSF thank u for the ask & pls lmk what ur fav moments are too 🧡

[backjustforberena]

Hi! I've been enjoying reading your insights regarding the Velaryons, especially Rhaenys. I don't know if this has been asked already but if it hasn't been yet, please do rant about 'the juxtaposition of Corlys and Rhaenys at their daughter's wake and how it perfectly represents and underlines the divergence they are having in respect to legacy which leads onto their opposing positions in regards to succession.'

Hello! I assume you mean from this gifset? I would love to talk about it. And thank you for your compliments on my "insights", I really like having a ramble about these characters. It's fun, and escapism, and they occupy far too much of my headspace.

So, yes, the wake. I've done a bit of a meta, HERE, about it, and then a more in-depth look at specifically Rhaenys's movements during both the funeral and the wake HERE.

And I think my thoughts, just generally, about them as a couple during this whole entire episode, is that they are diverging and that ebbs and flows throughout and then you get the break of that relationship being the most visceral and violent event at the end, with Laenor's death and Rhaenys screaming and Corlys yelling. And that's what leads us into this six-year gap. They are ripped apart by this. It's the only thing that could have done so because the love and the marriage is pretty solid otherwise.

At the wake, obviously, both Rhaenys and Corlys are reacting to the same incident. The same trauma. The death of their daughter. But they each react in different ways which means they can't understand the other or even make room to try. They're at opposite ends of the spectrum and that is really new for them. It doesn't happen.

As I touched on, in the first meta I've linked to, they grasp onto their grandchildren as some sort of remedy. As some sort of answer. Both characters are fierce in their ideas of family and propelled by the love of their family but, in cases such as this, what that love amounts to is different.

For Corlys, it's the idea of legacy. So, he looks to Luke, who is to be his legacy as Lord of the Tides after Laenor. He tries to take comfort that, despite a major pillar of his love and family (and legacy) having been taken (Laena and an unborn grandchild dying in childbirth), all is not lost. All is not despair. Luke represents a future and a way out of this pain and grief. A brighter day and one, dare I say, that will absolve Corlys of any regrets at yoking his family to the Targaryen royals. It's a way of not facing his demons and not facing his culpability (however you want to look at that whether as illogical guilt, support of a match that meant Laena was away from them, his ambitions driving the family) in the situation he's in now.

I don't think it's any coincidence that he goes into familiar territory rather than looking at his granddaughters, who are basically living copies of the daughter that just died and are the last piece of his daughter. He's not engaging with the fact that they've lost Laena. He doesn't even do it in the following scene when Rhaenys wants to talk about Maesters. He fobs her off. For a man obsessed with legacy, he doesn't consider the legacy of his daughter specifically.

Whereas, looking at Rhaenys, all she can do is face the fact that her daughter is dead. Rhaenys is, in my opinion, light-years ahead of her husband in terms of the consequences of ambition. It's why she's the cautious one of the pair and why we only have them really, truly, on the same page about the Iron Throne in Episode 10 - because he's now been humbled by all this war and deaths and the cost. For Rhaenys, that sort of lesson has been burnt into her since the Great Council. So, she's painfully self-aware of her sins and the cruelty of the world, as opposed to Corlys who is a very accomplished man. Who does what he wants and very rarely gets burnt. I think Rhaenys is all too ready and willing to blame herself. To blame them.

And Rhaenys's view on legacy and priority on legacy has to be different to Corlys's. In part, because Rhaenys's legacy has been set for decades. What will she be remembered for, if not as "The Queen Who Never Was"? But also due to her sex. Her children do not have her last name. She has no holdings or land. Her name has every chance of being in a long list of Meleys's riders. Any title she could have passed on was stripped from her: her children are not even Prince or Princess. She has nothing to give that she cannot give day-to-day, during her lifetime, whilst she lives: her love, her body, her protection.

Corlys can cement his line, be remembered as grandfather to Kings, and leave behind a prosperous Driftmark with a secure succession of Velaryon after Velaryon, at least in name. His voyages and discoveries will be legend, his accomplishments will become myth, he will have victories and claim territories etc etc. He will be in the history books. He lives for legacy because legacy can be something to him. It can't be, for her. Any legacy as she would have liked it (Queen of the Seven Kingdoms) was taken from her long ago.

But back to Rhaenys and the loss of Laena, specifically... she can't deal with anything else. It's all she thinks about. All that motivates her, in this episode. There was even some cut dialogue during the knife scene (which I do agree on being taken out but nevertheless gives us insight) where, as Rhaenys and Corlys enter, she berates the room at large: on the day we buried our daughter (I'm paraphrasing). It's all about Laena and being unable to prevent Laena's death. It's self-reflection on her own actions or inactions.

Of course she's going to prioritise blood because that is the only thing she has to care about. She's going to prioritise Laena's legacy. Not Corlys's. Not her own. Laena's. Because those girls are all that is left of her daughter. She's going to protect those girls with everything she has and give them all she can and atone. Giving those girls a happy life and keeping them close and keeping them safe is the only thing even remotely within her control. It's also a way of fulfilling her daughter's wishes.

But, as we see in the fireside scene, it becomes about choosing. To elevate Baela (which is a massive thing to do, like I cannot emphasise enough how out of line Rhaenys was with that suggestion), you cast a shadow on the boys. You just do, without meaning to. So it becomes an argument, rather than a conversation because that threatens what Corlys is trying to find solace in - the communication goes out of the window. And that whole conversation spirals because they are just grieving parents looking to different things to make them feel okay again.

But I'll stop rambling there. It's just layered.

[crestfallercanyon]

weekly tag wednesday ☁️

thanks for the tag @mmmichyyy!!! Been a while since I've actually done one of these but I'm always excited to see others tags <3

name: crest

age: late 20s

your time zone: actually currently it's mountain time but that's not typical.

what do you do for work? I'm an attorney.

do you have any pets? yes, I have one cat, he's adorable.

what first drew you to this fandom? admittedly I at first started seeing gifsets, and then I realized they were coming from a beloved mutual @go-catch-a-chickn and I was slowly becoming obsessed and wanted to know more about the show, talked to my sibling who has already seen Shameless too, and then when I finally made the plunge everyone was SO NICE and LOVELY! So while I'm back to being a bit on the fringes (of all things fandom lately, not just Shameless) I do still adore it.

are you a morning person or a night owl? quite genuinely I am both and neither. It really depends on how well I've slept, how much time to myself I feel I've had, or how busy I am.

what are your hobbies? writing, getting back into drawing, video games, hiking, I play an instrument in my community orchestra as well, as well as others.

how tall are you? 5'4ish?

if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? I don't know actually -- some days I just want to go back to the midwest, other days I want to live in New York and experience that. I'm pretty happy where I'm at, though.

favorite color? green

favorite book? Oof, favorites are really hard. I don't know if I have a true favorite book, just recency bias lmao. I absolutely loved This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. However, I will say, I actually reread The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermere (particularly the first two books, Annihilation and Authority) fairly often. It is one of the most compelling stories I've read, and every time I reread it I catch a new clue as to what's going on and a new creepy detail.

favorite movie? Steel Magnolias. No other movie makes me laugh and cry as hard as that one does.

favorite fic? there's so many, I've read in so many different fandoms, too, this isn't really quantifiable. That being said, I probably reread Stag and Wolf, Wyvern and Rabbit by deadlifts (Fire Emblem Three Houses Claude/Felix fic) the most. I've also read Ready (Maze Runner Gally/Minho fic) by comebacknow a lot. They're both amazing, I greatly recommend.

favorite musical artist: glass animals and the japanese house. this is also subject to change all the time, but I adore these two for sure.

what is your average screen time so far this week? way too fucking high. I've been easily distracted recently.

what’s the first app you open in the morning? this will date me for sure -- probably snapchat. i've got streaks with friends spanning years, not about to let 'em die.

how long have you been on tumblr? not until around the pandemic area, think 2021? My vibe screams I was on tumblr when I was a preteen, but when I was a kid we only had one computer for the whole house and it was ancient -- which means I never got to use it and had actually never heard of tumblr until after it "died" the first time.

finally (and i know this one is hard) tell me a fun fact about yourself: no one ever expects it, but I'm actually a pretty good dancer, and I love to go salsa dancing.

no pressure tags: @go-catch-a-chickn, @michellemisfit, @jrooc, @callivich, and anyone else who wants to join!

[faejilly]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @shadoedseptmbr ages and ages ago

tagging uh... i have no fucking clue. anyone who writes! no pressure! please blame me! @fancytrinkets @la-muerta @leahazel @jadesabre301 & ?!?!?

1: How many works do you have on AO3?

178 fics, since this is a fic writer meme.

2: What's your total AO3 wordcount?

1,193,590, with the caveat that that includes a collab fic of 190,409 words of which I was primarily writing only one of three POV characters. (And also one other shorter collab and the minimal amount of words required to describe the podfic/fanmixes.)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly Shadowhunters (TV) atm, a lot of BioWare Games (especially Dragon Age 2) and then a truly random smattering of smaller games and tiny!fandom prompts back when askbox games were more common here plus Yuletide/Fic Exchange Matches On Unexpected Things. (I think I've broken 20 fandoms on AO3, depending on how one counts the various DA sub-fandoms.)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

These are all Shadowhunters and Malec fics. The first three are complete, the last two are WIPs.

two are halves of one

My only posted 5+1 fic, a series of outsider perspectives on Alec & Magnus & their very long day of denied cuddles/alone time. 😅

i cannot touch because they are too near

Parabatai Feels & Magic Lore! I wrote this for a Season 3B countdown event, and it's Magnus Being A Nerd and trying to figure out how this parabatai thing works. I snuck Jace and Michael Wayland feels in there kind of sideways too. I do think it's one of the most self-indulgent things I've ever written (epistolary! melancholy comfort! No Plot!) with many thanks to @rutherinahobbit because she helped me land the ending.

with an if in its soul

So I killed Alec off-screen right before the fic starts, and proceeded to keep poor Magnus very upset about it for the following 22k words. (It gets better! I promise! No one stays dead!) I got many angry and wailing comments, I have never been so proud. (This one suffered from very dramatic scope creep while I was trying to write it, which amused tumblr a lot, and this time I have to thank @poemsfromthealley for helping to make it work. And also the blurb, because I just could not figure out how to post it for ages.)

i am for you

Epistolary!Fluff Fic that was supposed to be a bit of a missed connection thing for @pameluke but Alec instead proposed to Magnus on first sight and I just kind of went with that instead. /I am not in charge of the voices in my head

It is the first fic I ever had really break containment and get a lot of engagement/comments/subs/etc. It has been out-kudosed now, obviously as it's #4 on this list, but that's only because I killed the momentum and never finished it. 😅😅😅 ISTFG I am going to finish it some day though!

if broken hearts were whole

From a soulmates/massage combined prompt meme thing ALSO for @pameluke. I got stuck on this one largely because I had three different prequel/s1 retellings in my head at the same time and I kind of tangled them all up too much to get any of them done. I will eventually figure this one out too, but I may have to finish one of the other things to sort of clean my brain out, and I haven't managed that either.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

In theory? I got hung up on a comment from an FTH bidder the year I failed to finish my FTH fic, and didn't want to reply to their comment 'til I wrote their fic?

which doesn't make much sense, but brains are weird, so there we are

someday I'll answer the backlong. it's only like two or three years at this point? 😅😭🤣

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

so about uh... five years ago? there was a really popular gifset format from an Elizabeth Hewer poem called in one timeline and I haven't the faintest idea how to gifset so I wrote a fic for Malec instead. [ao3]

I have written other things which Have Angst, but for me I tend to ease the ending... this is one of the few where I didn't.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Everything Else! (Almost)

I think, as an exercise in the true form of Happily Ever After, I'd have to go with Fine Feathers, which is an epilogue to a Georgette Heyer Regency Romance novel I did for Yuletide 2016.

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

Not usually. I don't even get people yelling at me to update on my WIPs, which may be hateful but isn't the same thing 😅

/and I'm certainly not complaining about either of these things, but I wish I knew how I avoided The Discourse™️so I could do it on purpose

9. Do you write smut?

I used to pretty regularly. I was even known as a smut!fic writer when Dragon Age Fandom and I were mutually more active together. Not so much (on either the writing quantity or the requests for more smut) for Shadowhunters.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Mostly no? I did two very short ficlets for Bingo Squares. I do still believe that Leverage is the Fix-It Fandom that fits everywhere and thus only kind-of counts as a crossover, plus I wrote a Shadowhunters / Inception bit with Ariadne as a Warlock.

I do also enjoy a good fusion fic, aka using a different canon as an AU setting, rather than combining characters from two settings.

For example: Shadowhunters Characters as BAU Agents from Criminal Minds!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of? I've seen it happen to co-authors though, and other friends

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I am still stunned and amazed and delighted by this!

Batty_Blue translated several of my Shadowhunters fics into Russian:

a flower of always i cannot touch because they are too near trust your heart ashes of angels / ashes of roses

And Pomyluna translated 'First Choice' into Polish

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes!

Only once successfully (aka one and done and finished and posted), and that was entirely thanks to my co-author Raph. 😅 (Against All Odds for @galedekarios back when I knew her as Chignon on an actual forum prior to tumblr. She's who got me onto tumblr, so if you met me here? That's her fault. 🥰)

I have started things with people a few times that never got posted, and there's a massive Mass Effect retelling on potentially permanent hiatus, though all three of us do hold out hope that someday our lives will align again. (Persephone Rising)

14. What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

Me & Sleep

(Sorry, can't do it, can't choose. Beware My Armada. With a couple ancient ship leviathans which can raise themselves from the deep with the slightest provocation.)

15. What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Every thing I have ever posted (except for 12 Moons) is something that I do in fact hold out hope I will eventually finish.

Things I have not started posting are too numerous to count and/or list. Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they are fertilizer for other things that will be written later.

16. What’s your writing strengths?

Dialogue and hopeful melancholy? I get a lot of compliments on emotion/mood, and I do feel like I am usually pleased with the, idk, vibes of most of what I write.

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

Plot & structure! What is? How do? What do you mean I have to have things happen rather than just reacting all the time?!?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I have done it with mixed success and there are definitely ways to do it more accessibly than I did. It can add a lot, but you do have to think about the execution.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Uh. I think Lois & Clark back when I was a teen!jilly. Either that or Sailormoon when I was a slightly older teen!jilly?

In terms of posting in public, it was Bioware something, either Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins back around when Thing 2 was born. And he's 14 now, so... 😅

Orion's Belt, I think? I didn't originally post it on AO3, and then I deleted myself off the internet for awhile, and then I re-uploaded everything, and I'm bad at time in the best of circumstances, which that clearly was not, so it might not have been that one specifically but it was close.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I CAN'T CHOSE JUST ONE WTF

As a formative event/process, I have a certain enduring fondness for Lost for Words, which was like the first fic I really wrote while in fandom... I was social about it and posted while I was writing and finished (eventually) and it is still the longest single story I have ever written. (Tho I am for you will beat it out when I finish that.)

It's not particuarly good from the perspective of who I am as a writer some dozen years later, but it's sincerely meant cotton candy, at least. 🤣

[sansloii]

Name: Hollis! ( though, i go by Marshy as well and have for about 6 years )

Pronouns: she/they

Preferred comms: discord because tumblr ims are questionable at best. i also uninstalled the app because of how often it would just randomly crash for little to no reason so.... if you want to reach me, disco is the safest bet

Name of muse(s): I have eight wonderful creatures of varying temperament. Batch 1 was Mikah. Batch 2 was Penelope, Wynn, Evan, Dakota, and Joseph. Batch 3 was Roderick and Andris. I also am working on fleshing out Vega properly but he's not quite done yet.

Experience in RP: in about 2012-ish, i was into f.andomstuck and i had an oc for that until like.... 2014-ish? it was baby's first blog and i didn't really know what I was doing. I had fun, while it lasted, but i also knew some of the people in this community ( like they went to the same high school as me ) so any issue we had on tumblr would translate into lunchroom confrontations. I didn't enjoy that part so much and my interest for it fizzled out by the time i graduated. then, i jumped over to the fire emblem fandom and made an oc for fire emblem awakening! i think i stayed in that rpc until 2016/2017 and i had two ocs, a mother and her son from the future, that i still very much adore. there were ups and downs and i feel like i was taught.... multiple frustrating lessons during my tenure there. it did help me develop my writing a lot and i have to say that i'm honestly better off having taken the chance to do it.

lastly, i ended up here in 2017 and i'm not leaving. i also have another massive oc blog i'm slowly reworking but i'm trying not to stress myself out lol.

Best experiences: it's very difficult to put specific experiences into words because most of it, for me, is vibes. my best experiences have been interactions and plots with people that I not only get along with but like... you know--we understand each other. like if i decide that i'm not going to rp on tumbles for a month and maybe just stick to headcanons, i can do so without fear that you think i'm wasting your time. or that we can pick up where we left off and it's okay if you respond to the months old thread you had with me. or! we can just stay up until the wee hours of the morning talking about ideas or blorbos or getting really into a discord rps. like it's the vibes that i can come to you like a fart in the night with a gifset or image like "hey this is our muses" and, likewise, you can do the same with me.

to those of you who i vibrate at the speed of light towards at any given moment, you know who you are. thank you for being patient with me and giving me the space to vibe with you :)

Pet peeves / dealbreakers: i feel like every time i open my mouth about pet peeves i have, i sound like a crotchety old person that always has something negative to say deep down ... but w/e. it's my soap box.

i've noticed that since i've come back, it feels like i have to be the one that's chasing some people for interactions or plots more often. or like. right out the gate, they wanna jump from A to Z and be best buds and whatever so we can speedrun everything. or... i'm expected to or have to do most of the work because they're quite literally doing none of it after expressing interest. and like some of that isn't inherently bad! i'll be the first to admit that if we're friendly enough and progress something enough to where it's like... an established thing? we can have something going faster than the speed of sound after that. we can have multiple ships, a dedicated au, a whole slew of worldbuilding shit together and i won't care because i know said person on some level. and that took time + a whole slew of back and forths.

however, it doesn't feel great to express that "hey i want to plot something but it'll take time and like... if we're shipping on top of that, it'll take double that amount" and watch, in real time, as that person just... eventually leaves you on read. and/or just doesn't interact with your content anymore. and i can tell the difference between being preoccupied/ having not great week/taking a break from tumblr entirely/being slow and being put on a shelf/ barely acknowledged very clearly. i shouldn't have to feel like i'm competing for a slot or something, which is the vibes i got sometimes and ( as you would expect ) didn't like.

this isn't directed at anyone i'm currently following, ofc. i know i am not perfect but i also know that i am an extremely patient person, which is how I want to be treated. It's very frustrating to try and try and try again only to get the bare minimum from people i genuinely wanted to interact with. but c'est la vie--such is life--and i move on. i, like many others, have limited time to be on here and if something doesn't bring me joy after a month, two months, three months, I'm more than willing to part with it. there has to be effort on both ends in some way and if you want me to pat your ass, pat my ass too.

Muse preference ( fluff, angst, smut ): you cannot make me choose. now, does that mean that I write them all in equal amounts? certainly not. but it really depends on my mood. sometimes, all i wanna do is talk about soft moments. other times, i want to put my muses in a blender and watch them process what's happening to them. occasionally, i'll let them roam free and be as horny as they like. the key is to always cycle through the three so you don't get burnt out on any one of them.

Plot or memes: uuuuuhhhh it depends? plots are my fucking jam and i like having a general storyline to follow when writing and then figuring out the little details when we get to them. it's a long process but i enjoy the wait and the buildup more than i enjoy air so djsfdvdfvd--

buuuuuut i also think memes are a valueable, valueable springboard into interactions. and plotting straight outta the gate can be intimidating for some. plus, if you want to plot but your head is empty atm, finding and sending memes with the same vibe as the plot point you wanted to discuss is helpful! i'll admit that i'm not great at sending in memes but it's not for lack of wanting to. it's more not knowing what to send and picking a muse to send along with it that trips me up. Plus, not being here most of the day tends to mean i miss a lot of meme reblogs orz

Long or short replies: long replies but i do trim them shorter or rewrite portions of them. sometimes, i will write what i deem to be "too much" for a reply ( e.g: my partner has like 350 words and i'm sitting at like 625 words ) and i'll go back and edit it down to 450-500 if i find stuff that doesn't really move anything along or is just needless padding.

Best time to write: it used to be late night but i pass out too often for that to be effective anymore ( because of my sleep schedule for work ), so i tend to favor late mornings and early afternoon. if i'm writing late at night, it's because i didn't have time during the day to do so.

Are you like your muse(s): n...not really in most cases. like we share some traits here and there but for the most part, my personality, sense of style, and morality deviates from most of them.

tagged by: @rexpyre tagging: @arcxnumvitae @gunrising @royaletiquette @nezumivc103221 @bonesofchaos and anyone else that wants to.

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

A Fanfic Update

Hey guys, I thought I should give you an update about what's going on Ongoing-WIPs-wise just in case you've had some worries.

The short of it is that the writing juices haven't flowed well for a while now and I'm trying to get them back but it is a struggle. I've worked a bit on this fic or other but haven't made significant progress in a few months. I absolutely hope that will change soon but I unfortunately can't force it. It doesn't help that I'm going through some stuff IRL right now that I have to take care of (I am unfortunately an adult who has to do adulting and pay bills and shit 🥲). I try not to be too stressed out about it, but the more time passes the more the anxiety sets in. Wish me luck. 💪🏻

Anyway, here's a fic-by-fic overview, split up by fandom.

THE UNTAMED

The Angsty SongXue Fic — I'll be honest, I've written a little bit since I last updated you guys but I still haven't finished the buffer chapter (at this point I'm thinking about posting chapter 51 even though 52 isn't done yet), so nothing really new here. I really want to get back into a writing flow but so far it hasn't really worked. I am still working on it, though, so don't worry, I'm not going to drop it.

The It Follows AU — I'm ashamed to say I didn't even realize I posted that fic almost two years ago and I still haven't written the second half. I'm so sorry it's taking so long! I definitely still want to finish it! I might rewatch the It Follows movie before I do that, though.

The Observer Series — Oh yeah, remember that smutfic series I started a few years ago of which I've only posted part 1 so far? Yeah, I still need to work on that. I did write chapter 1 of part 2 a while ago, so it's not like it's forgotten, I just need to get my ass up and write the rest of part 2 before I can post it. 🙈

The Color Rush AU — Okay, technically I haven't posted that one yet but I did share a snippet along with a gifset a few years ago, so you guys know it exists. I haven't worked on it in a long time, though, and I don't know yet when I will find the spoons to continue writing it but I'm still intrigued by the premise and want to give it a go. Thank you for your patience!

The Somewhat Sweet, Somewhat Angsty XuanXian Fic — Again, haven't posted that one yet but I've been posting about it, so you guys know it exists. Nothing new on this front. I did want to rewrite the whole thing because I wasn't really happy with the way I wrote it thus far, so I'll probably go back to it at some point and do that, I just don't know when yet.

WORD OF HONOR

The Xie'er Deserves the World Fic — Listen, guys, I love this fic so much, I just haven't worked on it in a while. I'll probably re-read what I've written so far and go on from there, I've just been struggling with the latest chapter ever since I started writing it years ago. It's not dropped, though, I will get back to it! Pinky swear!

SAILOR MOON

I've mentioned here and there that I'm working on part 1 of an epic that is based on a doujinshi I started when I was 13 or 14. Unlike my other WIPs, this one really is 100% self-indulgent to the point where I don't even care whether people will read/like it once I post it when it's completely done. I'll just put it out there to make my teenage self happy because this story has been simmering in my head for over 20 years, and so that my IRL friends can read it if they want to. So, this one will be a long way out, but it exists. I'm only really mentioning it because I've mentioned it a couple of times before and because it's the fic that's been on my mind the most lately.

STAR WARS

You didn't think I forgot about TROBS, did you????? I did work on several beginnings of a draft during NaNoWriMo last year and I'm getting more and more of a clear picture of how I want it to go. For those unfamiliar, TROBS (or The Rise of Ben Skywalker, though I already changed the name of the fic again) is my attempt at an Episode IX fix-it fic that essentially replaces TROS. This one has been simmering in my head since early 2020 and I really want to get it out of there and onto the page for catharsis. I've even held off on reading any other TROS fix-its because of it, even though I've heard there are some really amazing ones out there (and I can't wait to read them once I've gotten my own out of my damn head). I really need to finally finish that beast. Wish me luck. 🥲

UNPOSTED WIPs

I still have so many notes for other fics (mostly for The Untamed) that I want to write at some point. Will I be able to get them all on the page? I honestly don't know, but I'll see where they take.

Anyway, that's all!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Really here for Miss Bounding Frog, but I wanted to thank you for becoming a Wyll BG3 appreciation blog. Because while I've no interest in playing the game myself, he's just so charming and lovely and always a joy to have on my dash

You: is today the day I blacklist the bg3 tag? Wyll: *smiles with his whole heart out of a gifset* You: .... naaah he can stay, he seems polite.

You made me realise he and Frog are fairly alike in that I try to go for girlprince in her glams a lot of the time and he's just pure disney prince (but a devil).

(spoilers for BG3 musing on their similarities)

Also I guess their personalities are pretty similar in that they remain genuinely well-meaning heroes after going through it all. Like, the vacation before Dawntrail has been fun but Frog would still absolutely throw herself back into the fire when the self-sacrificing bullshit returns. She slept Endwalker off in a week and then was confused about why the scions were treating her with kid gloves. "Look, I'm upright again! What next??" "Have you tried this adventure called 'retiring to the beach'?"

I know a looot of people have rightfully tired or grumpy WoLs who are completely done with being asked to do things and people Assuming you will be the hero, or being in the crosshairs of the universe, but I did want to write a WoL who was genuinely hype to be here and would take it on the chin with old school heroic stoicism. However gutting everything is she's like, well, we hear-feel-think this trauma and on the other side we understand and respect what it did to us and move on stronger. And then forgive everyone who caused it. (she's very annoying)

Mr Of Frontiers over there had his tragic backstory at 17, a year younger than when Frog started adventuring (intentionally with no tragic backstory, I wanted her to be in it for love of the game) and I'm hypocritically declaring she was more than old enough because I say so and Wyll was a KID just a LITTLE GUY... but also Alphinaud doesn't exist in BG3 thankfully so there's no need to debate when kids should be allowed to be in charge of armies - although I think Alphinaud and Wyll should have a catch up and maybe learn some things about how they were doomed by the narrative together...

Anyway Wyll's various endings aside from the one where you set him up to be a Duke in the city (which I did on my Astarion play since Astarion is marrying him, craves creature comforts, and was presented with not even a persuasion check to decide Wyll's entire future, which is shockingly cruel of the game) he will just go back to adventuring and saving people. Like, a guy who can legitimately retire off the back of everything that just happened and return forgiven or at least as a hero if you did get his dad murdered to not be around to forgive him, and he's like... Actually, the People Need Me, I'm going to go write the next chapter of my life as an itinerant hero killing monsters and swashbuckling all day.

Also, aside from him definitely having whatever's wrong in his brain that Frog has (and Meteor Finalfantasy who is ready to Dawntrail also and is swashbuckling), he does also have the WoLbrain when it comes to Just Saying Messed Up Things. He's so funny and sarcastic and would absolutely fit in with WoLs who pick all the weird dialogue options. WoL can make moogle noises at Thancred? Well, Wyll over here will meow at you.

He also genuinely thinks clowns are funny, and every year the WoL earnestly goes along with a demon clown halloween event so there's that.

[brw]

first of all: i clicked the unfollow button on accident 😭 sorry

i can't see the emoji for the favorite creations thing, so here's a heart❤️

also, if i may request two things:

🤖pick what's easier/most interesting to you (!!!): emma frost. scott summers. scemma. matt murdock. natasha romanoff. doom. doom/reed. carol danvers. magneto. marc spector.

and ofc congrats 🥺❤️ i can't wait for the edits, of mine and everyone else!

and don't worry about time, take as much as you need, i will definitely like these characters in the following months! 😜 and i've been in this hellhole for +10 years... i won't leave either 😂😫)

hii raffa! thank you so much for your lovely message, here is the carol danvers edit :3 i hope you enjoy!

i have quite a few gifsets of yours i really like, but my absolute favourite is this steve rogers one, the no bitches megamind image genuinely makes me laugh every time i come across it, there's messages on discord way back where i linked it to some people bc i really loved it <3

i really like this more comic book inspired avengers one that's framed like a collage, i think it's a really creative idea and the overlapping related images with the faded colours of the gifs themselves to make them look paperish and scanned really invokes the taped together collage vibe. it's a really solid idea!

this elmo one has been living in my head ever since i saw it, it's such a high level shitpost and i was actually so surprised when i saw it only had like 170 notes?? the colours and inverted whites are genuinely terrifying and the kind of like, late night horror documentary vibe is captured really well by the graininess of the footage and the flickering specks. its really creative and i'll be honest is the thing that has made me most likely to go watch american psycho because it's such an odd idea. i would love to study you for this.

fight club is a great movie and i think this gifset showcasing the more overt homoeroticism tinged with the violence inherent is really well done, and the final one at the end with the aubergine still takes me off guard, it's really funny. it feels very invocative of the many film essays written about the theming of fight club which makes it very interesting to think about, and of course the sharpness and colours are stand-out too :)

finally, this goncharov gifset is amazing and one of the best things to come out of that whole meme, i think. the colouring and editing and splicing does such a great job making it look like an actual movie, i genuinely believe you could reverse engineer a movie out of this! despite being from different films, they all go together extremely cohesively and the idea and layout itself is so cool! the first with the overlaid red kremlin! it's such a cool idea and definitely one of my favourite goncharov inspired creations of all time :)

[it-begins-with-rain]

if you dont mind me asking, when did you get into seventeen? i've been following you for years now (back when i was still into tog/acotar), got into svt just over a year ago, and now find it a cute coincidence that you listen to them too!

Ooo! Maasdom follower who is also SVT fan!!

So... I want to explain something first to explain something second, lmao.

FIRST::

I've had an ear to kpop since about 2008, part of a fandom I will not name but your hint is they are famous for how overwhelmingly toxic they are.

Fell in love with the Korean language and dramas, actually lived in Korea in college and Seoul is the most beautiful city on the planet (I lived in Wonju which isn't bad, but isn't as amazing as Seoul).

And then the group that I had been following entered their... how to say... image-destruction-phase. It was like they were addicted to saying shit that exposed how rude and arrogant they were IRL, one guy just let his homophobia hang out there for the whole world to see and waved it around proudly.

Amidst all of that (the homophobic one actually came out as homophobic a week after this, so it hadn't happend yet but it was the nail in the coffin) I had somehow become a fandom leader against my will, known for being able to play CSI: Fandom (because of an emotionally unstable former friend I had to keep talking off ledges by getting to the root of scandal rumors). It was exhausting and people were fucking stupid. My stance on idols is they’re grown ass adults (mostly). Who the fuck gives a shit if they’re dating someone or whatever? Honestly I was so sick of the bullshit.

Anyways

A former member of the group released a solo album and it just... wasn't my taste at all. I didn't say anything against it by any means, but someone sent me an ask saying they'd noticed I wasn't reblogging.

I said ONLY "It's just not my genre, but I wish him luck" and within 15 minutes I had 12 messages either threatening my life or telling me to kill myself. Because of those words.

That was when I was like "You know what, fuck all of this" and bailed. That was around 2012-ish. I refused to go anywhere near kpop with a 10 foot stick after that. If I saw news, it was because it hit CNN or BBC (so the tragic deaths and the Burning Sun Scandal which was just INSANE, like, omg). But that was it. And btw I still dont' listen to that group I used to listen to. I fully will not touch their stuff.

SECOND:

So that was a big ass mountain blocking me from being willing to even consider kpop. But a dear friend of mine was very much into it and just like once in a blue moon I'd notice a post on my dash that was kpop from her, but I ignored it.

In mid-2020, a fuck ton of bad shit went down even on top of all the COVID stuff. Like, at one point I genuinely considered driving into a wall (except I was buried alive under responsibilities) and it just got incredibly hard and incredibly dark. My personality- I can't ask for help. I just can't. IDK why, it's a huge block for me.

So that friend, my darling Sarah, who reblogged kpop stuff I rarely saw, a GIFset came across my dash that I was just so exhausted and defeated I didn't even have the energy to scroll past and decided to read it. It was Seventeen in that group blitz episode of Going Seventeen where they hit the inflatable obstacle course.

And it made my heart feel not quite as heavy for a few seconds. Maybe I even cracked half a smile.

I kept dragging myself on, and I saw the GIFset again and in another defeated day, I looked it up on Youtube (had to play it at 70% speed, those psychos talk FAST) and watched it.

And... it made me genuinely smile.

So I watched all of Going Seventeen over the next several months. Then about 6 months in I decided to listen to one of their songs (Hoshi- Spider) and loved it. Started listening to more of their music, found out Carat are actually extremely chill and extremely dorky, the opposite of the fan club I'd been part of before.

So I joined Carat formally (i'd never done that with the Fandom That Must Not Be Named, Carat is my first fanclub :) ) and I just... enjoy them.

They got me through some really incredibly dark times, just being able to watch something lighthearted and simple and funny. Like, I know it’s cliche to say, I know they'll never know that, they probably wouldn't give a shit, they probably hear it 150,000 times a day. It doesn't matter. The dumbassery helped me a lot, and I'm grateful for that.

And this year I got to go see them live in concert with my darling Sarah, the same week I got the news that my mother's cancer (which we were told was terminal) was in full remission and she's one of only a few cases her doctors have ever SEEN to go into remission, and just...

That was way more info than you were asking for, but that's it. Their dorky, probably-licks-bus-windows charm was just simple and yet funny enough that it helped me breathe when that felt impossible, and so I like them :)

[mushroomwriter]

(pt 1) "Atleast we can suffer together!" lol true! Gosh, that line (and tbh that whole scene with Sergio and Martín murders me of FEELS)... it's just so angsty cause it's not even the fact Andrés died, but he was also sick and Sergio knew that and he still never truly considered the possibility of his brother dying :(

BTW, what headcanon for the hermanos backstory do you subscribe to? I'm not sure when you first started the show, but I watched the show back when s3 was just released and in those days everyone subbed to the hc that they were half brothers, and there was this interview where Alvaro mentioned even more headcanons abt the bros (they shared a father, who abandoned Andrés for Sergio & his mom, then after he died Andrés appears on the scene and tells Sergio he is his brother, took care of him for medical treatment etc)... of course, 2 years later s5 seemingly retconned all that and just made them normal full(?) brothers growing up in the same household with both parents which I didn't appreciate very much lol. Anyway, just asking you that because some of my thoughts about the hermanos are influenced by my thoughts about their childhood - especially if Andrés raised Sergio as a kid, it makes everything so much more WORSE and heartbreaking cause of course he'd have grown up thinking his older brother is invincible almost, right? Interested to know what you think!!

(pt 2) Yeah all but one of my exams are done with... meh I've been pretty miserable but thank you for all your kind wishes! You're so right, if Andrés just mentioning Sergio makes us feel things, I can't even imagine what a whole scene with them together again would do!! I miss Sergio too 🥲 Once again, feel free to take your time and wait for the inspo, I actually came across an angsty quote that might fit the Scene that shall not be Named and since you love pain, I will tell you. "I wanted to fall down right there but I knew you wouldn't catch me because you're dead." - Richard Siken. Don't think about how as Andrés fell, Sergio was also falling in Helsinki's arms. (Also please don't feel like I'm forcing you to make a gifset with the quote or anything, I'm sorry if it comes across that way I just wanted to share for the #hermanos angst) I have no words for your next para but just. yes. I agree with everything you said. I will never get over the fact he literally tried to run back into the (idk how many metres long) tunnel himself despite knowing the police were on the other side and it would almost definitely lead to capture but Sergio was willing to risk all that just to get his brother to safety :( (pt 3) "When they're together, they're a big brother and a little brother" I knowww 🥺🥺 it makes me so SOFT. I'm with Andrés, how can you possibly eat breakfast when the world's most precious hermanito is not there yet? That scene when he wakes up Sergio is so sweet, Sergio looks so adorable and just the fond amusement Andrés has when he picks up the book "did you stay up late studying again" and how gentle he is when waking him up, Sergio also does not startle in the slightest, in that small moment you can see how familiar they are, how much they both love and trust each other, your honour I LOVE THEM!! Ah the Toledo house always makes me think how they spent those 5 months pretending to be strangers, I mean you can't tell me that Sergio was also not taking every excuse he can to spend more time with his brother (it's DEFINITELY to discuss important plans with the heist Captain!) but I like to imagine Sergio also took care of Andrés in secret, helping him with the meds and stuff... despite everything, Andrés did have a clock running out and they both knew it :( On another sidenote, I've been wanting to write a oneshot of the bros in Toledo since like 2020 but I never got around to it LOL so thank you once again for letting me ramble abt the heist brothers to you Oh god yes, those lyrics truly come straight for the heart and make Sergio's grief infinitely worse! Awww I'm glad you enjoy my thoughts (and I hope you haven't regretted your invitation yet) Haha, you should probably put this one under a cut too, how do these things always get so long??? Truly the hermanos live rent free in my head... but you're right it's great the Range of thoughts they give us from sheer tragedy to happy little childhood memories asdfjsk. YES IT'S THE CUTEST EVER and Alvaro plays it so well :') Comfort scene of all time to me <3 No, thank you for your patience and just being so lovely!! As always, it gives me so much serotonin to talk with you abt the heist bros ❤ Have a great day/week whenever you see this!! (also I hope you got all 3 parts, my wifi is being so weird rn 😭 I can't imagine how confusing it would be to get only 1 half or someth, anyway. pls ask me to resend if tumblr did in fact disappear an ask)

So true (that scene really leaves me on the floor suffering!!)... he knew and yet... at the very least he was convinced they were going to have time after the heist (the scene where he's giving instructions to the other band members about where they'll live etc. always gets me because he was supposed to go somewhere with Andrés...)

About the hermanos' childhood, I feel like I'm an outlier there 😅 because I learned of that headcanon later, I don't remember exactly when, for sure after watching season 3, and season 3 gave me the impression they were full brothers, because I think we get scenes where Andrés refers to their mother and to their father in a way that made me go, okay, so they share both parents. You know, the scene where he tells Sergio he's got mom's disease and the scene where he asks him where did dad go wrong when he robbed the bank... So when after that I saw that interview I didn't really embrace (? I don't know how to say that lol) the half-brothers headcanon because the show had already given me another impression. On the other hand, I immediately accepted the idea of Andrés bringing Sergio to Russia where he got the cures he needed (also because lol that's a point they never clarified in the show, right? How he ended up healing). That said, I really like the potential and implications of the half-brothers headcanon too... like, for example, as you said, Andrés basically raising Sergio. I think you can kinda work that into the full-brothers scenario as well, though maybe not quite at the same level, because if their parents already had trouble with medical expenses for Sergio when they both were there, once their mother was alone I imagine she really had to bury herself into work, which left Andrés in a position to really have to take care of Sergio... also as I mentioned I believe he was the one who found that hospital in Russia where Sergio could be cured, and found a (probably not very legal) way to take him there and so on... and at this point I like to play with both options and confront them and see like, okay, in half-brothers scenario Andrés probably resented their mother for abandoning him while in full-brothers scenario he ended up resenting her because she couldn't take proper care of them and (probably especially) because she failed to come up with a way to save Sergio's life, Andrés had to take matters into his own hands. And I think it's super interesting that he doesn't end up resenting Sergio (which I think he could have easily done in both scenarios! Like, in half-brothers scenario because he was abandoned for him, and in full-brothers scenario I have to imagine his unhealthy little brother received a lot more attentions!) One thing I think we get more intensely in the half-brothers scenario is that taking care of Sergio is really a Choice, like he really didn't have to and still!

Oh, and regardless of scenarios, I really love the idea of Andrés being the one who ultimately saved Sergio's life, it's possible that at some point doctors in their hometown were a bit resigned about him not making it but Andrés was like NO. And he did save him! I bet he's ferociously proud of that, and maybe it's another think that makes him feel especially protective of his hermanito (and makes Sergio feel like Andrés can do ANYTHING).

I see, at least you're almost done... ugh, I'm so sorry, I get it... I hope once you get rid of that last one too you'll feel a bit better... Gosh, I would probably never ever stop screaming if we get a new hermanos scene! And HOLY HELL, that quote fits the whole thing so well, I feel sick! Literally literally Sergio falling but he's not falling in his brother's arms, his brother isn't there anymore... no, absolutely, don't worry, it goes without saying that I appreciate the #hermanos angst, and suggestions about quotes that could fit them are always welcomed (I mean, as of right now I wouldn't know how to make a gifset with it but maybe by turning it over and over in my head I'll get an idea...)!! Also, I actually got inspiration for a gifset about them, finally!!! from another Richard Siken's quote, no less (he was really writing about them lmao), like I'm still not completely sure of which scenes to use, but I do have an idea, I hope it'll work :D

Oh god that's true. Oh man he really tried to run into that tunnel, no matter how crazy that was... I cry!!

It's trueee, that scene where Andrés wakes Sergio up OVERFLOWS with familiarity, it's so clear it's not the first time he had to wake his little brother up after he stayed up late to study and had to pick up some book Sergio left lying around... he's so fondly amused!! Please and now I'm smiling so much at the idea of Sergio coming up with Very Important Topics He Needs to Discuss with The Heist Captain... and I wonder how many times they were the last ones left in a room (a mere coincidence, of course!)... and yeah, I bet Sergio also played the Finding Many Small Ways To Take Care Of You game, this is making me emotional! Hehe I'm happy I gave you the chance to talk about these things, if you ever get around to write that please let me know (if you want to of course)

I definitely don't regret my invitation, when I saw your new messages I was like yessss! Oh right, at this point the ability to put things under a cut is my friend sjsjsjsk but I feel you, I can't get them out of my head!!

Don't mention it!! Talking with you about the hermanos is such a serotonine boost, and honestly I very much needed that, the last few weeks have been pretty tiring! Thank you, I hope you do too, despite that accursed exam! Please take care! (Also as you can see all three parts made it safely to my inbox, thankfully!)

[badgerhuan]

Saw your post about only having a few Tom movies left to see. Curious about which ones those are and which ones you’ve seen recently? Do you like his films on the whole? I ask since I’m also in the middle of a Tom movie marathon....he’s done such great work in all honesty.

oh hello!!! yes i've been deep into the Tom Cruise fandom ever since I saw Fallout in 2018. I've been steadily watching his movies since then! tho i kind of took a break between January 2021 and now bc I fell into the hole that is fixating on Les Grossman and Rob Slolom from Tropic Thunder

so far the six movies of his that i haven't seen are:

Endless Love

Taps

Losin' It

Risky Business

Magnolia

Lions for Lambs

but i have access to Taps, Losin' It, and Risky Business! so really the number will go down to 3 in due time. personally not sure if Endless Love would be worth it since he plays only a small role in it, and both Magnolia and Lions for Lambs are movies that i'm going to have to work up the resolve and the courage to finally watch, just due to the nature of the characters he plays in them. I will probably push Lions for Lambs to the very very back haha.

it just so happens that i've set a tentative resolution for myself to watch one movie per day this year, so in a way that's really helped me have the incentive to watch the tolms (tom films) that've been sitting on my computer since september last year. but recently i've watched:

cocktail

the color of money

all the right moves

the outsiders extended edition in theaters bc they did a rerelease here in taiwan! very grateful i got to experience it

i've watch all of rest of the tolms before January 2021!

i love his films as a whole! i generally have very positive things to say about movies in general, but for tolms it's just a whole other level. he's done so many truly great and delightful work. and even if the movie itself isn't "well made", the characters he plays in them are often worth watching for. and he's done such a vast genre of things! there's something for everyone.

you can search all the other tolms on my blog to see me uh, mostly rambling about them in the tags of gifsets i've reblogged. or you can visit my Letterboxd and find my reviews of them.

in any case please talk to me about any and all tolms bc i have Opinions about all of them.

[gaywatch]

i've been meaning to message you for months with some Golden Lovers updates, haha, but i was waiting for something more concrete, and boy howdy did we get it. there is way, way too much to explain in just this one message (i'm working on a gifset that goes into more detail, but it's hard to put time into that and also do NaNoWriMo, so it might get done in december), since it covers years of history and spans at least four/five companies as well as some dramatic shifts in the industry, but i'll try my best.

basically, AEW just wrapped up their biggest story yet, which they've been building up to since the start of the company in 2019. Kenny Omega was an essential piece of it, and right before the long-awaited climax, they revealed that his story in AEW since the literal beginning has been about his unresolved feelings toward Kota Ibushi this entire time. if you're a subtext reader like me, this has been obvious, but it's still absolutely incredible to hear that confirmed directly in the canon after i spent years pointing out individual details and looking like a conspiracy theorist. essentially what happened is that right before Kenny defended his title against his ex-partner, Hangman Page said "if i remember, you once had another tag team partner who maybe you felt like you didn't measure up to, either" (Kota liked a gif of this line on twitter, btw, akjfgdhgk). i SCREAMED

i'm going to link this other post that i made instead of going into too much more detail on that, but the whole segment was Hangman basically realizing that everything that Kenny had done to him was because he was projecting his own hurt and insecurity after Kota left him again, and it wasn't Hangman's own fault, which thus freed Hangman from his own cycle of doubt and insecurity and meant that nothing Kenny could say to him had any power over him anymore.

a few days later, Hangman faces Kenny with the AEW title on the line. there's a great moment at the beginning of the match where a fan (later revealed to be Anthony Burch, haha, who writes for Borderlands, and whose sister Ashly Burch voiced Chloe in Life Is Strange lol) brings out a sign that says "what would Kota think?" and Kenny stops and stares at it for like ten seconds.

Kenny loses the match and drops the title to Hangman (as we all expected). a lot of us Golden Lovers fans had been terrified going into the match that Hangman would become the second person ever to kick out of Kenny's finisher, the one winged angel, since they'd been talking that up again recently, but we needn't have worried. it's still the most protected move in the business, and the only person who's kicked out of it other than Kenny himself is the love of his life.

as far as where the Golden Lovers story is going to go next... well, the immediate next step for both of them is rest and recovery, because both of them are unfortunately injured at the moment. Kota dislocated his shoulder after failing to hit a phoenix splash on Okada in the G1 tournament finals in NJPW, so he's healing from that, and Kenny's been running his body so hard for the past 3+ years, he needs a ridiculous number of (thankfully minor) surgeries.

after that... well, no one really knows where either Kenny's or Kota's story will go, but i can say that in the 2.5 years that i've been following it, this is the most optimistic i've been that we're actually heading toward a reunion. the Kenny & Hangman story wrapping up in AEW is a great opportunity for Kenny to finally start that final chapter of the Golden Lovers story that he's been wanting them to have since 2019.

there will probably be fans writing various explainers summing up Kenny's AEW story as seen through a GL lens, but i don't have any to link at the moment, and the one i'm working on will take a long time to complete, because i want it to be comprehensive. sorry for giving such an incomplete description!

i'm not sure how much you actually care about all of this, haha, but this is enough for one message, i think

These updates are AMAZING as always like I may not go here but I am full on Tyra Banks ROOTING FOR Y'ALL ❤️❤️❤️

[1kook]

content creator

→ year in review ♡

hey chicas, i got tagged by multiple people to share my year in review ( @ttttaehyungie​ @dreamystuffers​ @floralseokjin​ @moononthejoon​ @yeoldontknow​ thank you all soooo much 🤩 mwah mwah hope u all have a good 2021!! ), so here’s me reflecting back on all i did in 2020!! also i threw a header on this bad boy bc thats how my life has felt since march </3 

→ first creation and most recent creation of 2020: first creation of this year was actually skirt chasers - drabble i on april 23rd (yes april, she was a late bloomer -_-) after not writing for 6 months so it was very special to me ! the most recent creation was commercial break ; EIGHT on dec 29 where i rlly got to flex my ability to make up stories as i go 🤩

→ one of your favorite creations from 2020: of course i have to say netflix & chill that's my baby!!! i had a real fun time writing the original, and i don't think i could have imagined how popular it would become 🥺 also the series has allowed me to try writing so much freaks shit that EYE aint even know i was into good grief.....

→ a creation you’re really proud of: some way some how !! i wrote that entire fic in less than two days, shit was coming straight off the domeeeeee and also i feel like my storytelling in that fic was one of the best i’ve ever done !!

→ a new style you tried this year and a gifset/fic that uses it: since all of my fics revolve around pretty silly plot lines, i tried to do a more serious story with BORN SINNER; it has a couple deeper topics that i’ve never tried before, so i’m excited to see how that turns out!!

→ a creation that took you forever: explorer -_- that shit took me two whole months to write !!! i was so unsatisfied with the story and kept rewriting it until the very end of september. in the end, i can say I'm really happy with how the story turned out and the world building i somehow managed to do... also i love me some alien kook <3 

→ your creation from 2020 that received the most notes: again, netflix & chill for the win lol. this baby has amassed 2.4k notes since it was posted in june, am i proud yes, am i shocked, also yes 

→ a new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it: errrr i didn't join any new fandoms that i could've made content for 🥴 

→ a creation you made that breaks your heart: honestly, the scene in disney+ & bust that’s part of my n&c series :// to this day i still read it n im like wtf am i okay?? girl???

→ a ‘simple’ creation that you really love: the zoom call series i’ve only just started 😳 the concept is so simple and plain, and too... “normal” compared to my usual fics, but for some reason i really adore it and i’m excited to see how it turns out in the future !!!

→ a creation that was inspired by another one: mmm, i started a series in july that i promptly put on hiatus bc its hard called acatalepsy that is based off/follows a similar theme to the movie bird box !! 

→ a favorite creation by someone else: i really really enjoyed angels & airwaves by miss @yeojaa​ the story just makes my heart flutter 💓💗 i don’t mind by @bratkook​ bc imo it is the best rockstar jk au out there!!! i will die on that hill don't test me. and the weeb koo series by miss @himbojk​ nominated for best emotional rollercoaster of the year !!! i adore these 3 stories and these 3 writers 😡🖤

→ some of your fave content creators from the year: of course the three i mentioned above, @yeojaa​ @bratkook​ and @himbojk​ and also some other authors i got into this year - @hansolmates​ @jjkfire​ @dewykth​ @1oserjk​ @rmnamjoons​ @gimmeyoon​ @readyplayerhobi​ @gukslut​ @jimlingss​ @ubemango​ @angelguk​ <333333 u guys r all so hot n amazing !!!

→ and for good measure, another couple more creations of yours that you love: not any released creations, but i have to shoutout all the accidental jk ideas I've put out into the universe n now have at least 3 people begging me to write everyday, love u ‘jk likes girls with boyfriends’ ‘diff jk’ ‘concert jk’ ‘model jk’ and ‘slater jk’ ur efforts have not been in vain brothers 

→ tagging: anyone who’s already been tagged anywhere in this post, unless you don't want to which is totally cool, happy new years loves <3333 stay sexy in 2021 <33333

[pynkhues]

Hi, Sophie. I need some advice, and I understand if you aren't comfortable with responding, however I trust your opinion and your perspective which is why I've come to you (this might get long). I am feeling extremely and increasingly despondent about my place in the Good Girls fandom, to the point where I just don't want to write any more. This saddens me, as I enjoy creating content immensely, however I feel my work does not get the same engagement of works with equal merit,

particularly in regards to making it on to the rec lists that circulate a lot. I engage with the fandom, I’m enthusiastic about other’s work and encourage them to create, I consider myself to be a fandom member who understands this place is built on reciprocal engagement however I just don’t feel like I get any love back. This in turn makes me feel like I am genuinely not a good writer, despite my own belief to the contrary, and to wonder if I’m embarrassing myself by even bothering to continue.

I’ve asked for constructive feedback and been honest about not having a bruised ego if people were to tell me why my work doesn’t resonate with them as much as others, however this hasn’t come to anything (do people not do concrit any more?). How do I figure out where I’m going wrong? I know everyone likes to push the platitude of ‘fandom isn’t about receiving glory from others’ but with respect I think that’s an incredibly dismissive attitude to have (not that you appear to have that opinion),

(last message I promise!) particularly when fandom is entirely about interaction and content creation, and the symbiotic relationship between the consumer and the creator. I want people to engage with my work more, what’s the secret?

Hi! I’m so sorry it’s taken a week or so to get to this – it’s just been a bit of wild time lately for a whole suite of work and personal reasons.  

Thank you for reaching out though! And I’m not uncomfortable at all with these sorts of questions. I think it opens up a really interesting conversation, which I’ll circle back to in a sec, but before I get into that, I want to say that I’m really sorry that you’re feeling despondent about your place in the GG fandom! I can’t speak to your specific experience of course, but I will say that I get where you’re coming from. I think it’s something that affects all of us at varying points, including myself, and I think that the sort of despondency you’re talking about is really something that taps into questions of any sort of creative landscape where people are creating and consuming work.

(Under a cut, because this reply is a little meandering, a little personal, annnnd about 4.5k words, haha)

It’s an interesting point too, because I think when we talk about this, we tend to think both of creative communities and/or fandoms as only having these sorts of issues when they’re BIG communities or BIG fandoms, but that’s not true at all. To me the reality of any sort of community – whether that be a million-person Marvel fandom or three-person knitting club – is that you have people wanting to connect with others, and, with the added factor of some of those people having a creative output within that community (whether that be through writing, art, gifsets or a really great set of mittens), you have an added level of vulnerability and investment.

People aren’t just seeking connection, they’re seeking - - well.

A whole lot more.

And you thread the needles of some of the issues of that really well in your ask too. Those three needles being engagement with your work, popularity of certain people, and how that’s bred an insecurity in your own work.

And seriously, as someone who’s worked extensively with creative communities, and on-and-off in cultural production for the last ten years? These are concerns that I think are endemic in all of these spaces; although perhaps I’d articulate them slightly differently.

You say engagement, popularity and the work.

I say community, profile and craft.

Potato, po-tah-toh, haha.

Ultimately these are three things that depend on each other just as much as they exist entirely independently of one another. It’s like a weird, polyamorous relationship that at its best works great and creates a thriving, mutually beneficial environment for people to grow and develop and engage, and at its worst is a totally toxic clusterfuck. Realistically though, this is a spectrum not an either-or scenario, which means probably 98% of the time a community space really is something in-between.

Unpacking the ecosystem of that I think is pretty crucial to the questions that you’re asking, so I hope you don’t mind me using this time as a bit of a launchpad to talk about those things.

Community

During my arts touring days, I used to see a lot of misconceptions around how communities came to be. There tended to very much be this ‘If You Build It, They Will Come’ ideology, which is really not the case at all. Sometimes that might work, but most of the time, community builds from the ground up, not the top down. It begins through – usually – a few people coming together out of need or want or passion, and then if enough people have that need, that want, that passion, that community will likely grow. That growth though is usually championed by certain members of said community, because communities do tend to need - - not leaders per se, but people who are invested and drive things that create space for engagement.

Fandom’s not any different at all, and in that sense the communities are built similarly around participation, trust, discussion and content, things I don’t really feel like I need to elaborate on because you clearly know that from your ask, and most of this post is going to be about the last of those things, but I think it’s just worth mentioning. Particularly because I want to add to that that in my experience, communities are also usually built pretty strongly around regularity.

For a show like Good Girls it’s kind of great because that regularity is built into the DNA of traditional TV – it airs weekly as opposed to being dropped in bingeable packets. So that sort of gives you this in-built ten, thirteen, eleven, soon-to-hopefully-be-sixteen weeks where there are appointments for engagement. As a part of that, you get an organic flurry of activity and a degree of commitment from people participating, which is further bolstered by the time in-between episodes having drops of sneak peek clips and promo pictures which in turn bolster speculation, theorising, and a hunger for creative content i.e. fic, art and gifsets.

Working in cultural production, we typically call this ‘appointment programming’ because the idea is that you build community around a regular event. People put it in their diaries, and choose to show-up. It used to be integral to TV, but it’s becoming far less so, but that’s a whole other thing. Appointment programming though encompasses a lot more than just TV viewing, it’s a part of our international cultural ecosystem – it’s festivals and cons, it’s touring concerts and shows, it’s showcases, it’s workshops – it’s anything that builds engagement around a specific experience, at a specific time.

The reason I bring this up is that to me – from my years of experience in fandom and natural tendency to think a lot about / dissect things that I participate in, haha – is that I think fandom spaces typically continue this appointment programming and production beyond the parameters of the content itself. We see this through conventions, fanfic big bangs and other challenges, awards, events, as well as just regular content generation.

Good Girls in particular has a lot of community-driven appointment programming. There’s the weekly re-watch I’ve done on here since August last year, as well as back in 2019, there’s @foxmagpie’s Good Girls’ Appreciation Week, @nottonyharrison’s fic awards, prompt-a-thon and kinkfest, the new fic awards too which are going around, as well as fic authors who publish regularly or on a fixed schedule - @fairhairedkings’ FBI fic I think being the best example of that.

But it’s not even always that structured. I’ll talk about this a bit more in my section on Profile below, but I think this extends to asks and replies. Basically to the expectation of content, whether that be gifs or art or fic or meta or surveys or rec lists, or some combination of all of the above.

I categorically hate the term, but the reason ‘Big Name Fans’ become ‘Big Name Fans’ are usually because their blogs become touchstones for more content (whether that’s original or sharing other people’s), which in turn means occasionally some voices can generate a profile that makes them sort of central figures of the broader community – because there’s this guarantee that you’re gonna go there and you’re gonna get regularly fed. Their blogs, including mine I think, become in and of themselves sort of ‘appointment programming’. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on this in particular, both good and bad, but my feelings on it don’t particularly matter in this context, haha, so I’m going to leave that thread there.

The point I’m getting at is that while a community builds organically, a community, like anything, needs to be fed to grow, and that people are more likely to engage when they’re being fed regularly.

Look at this way, I was definitely at my most popular in this fandom when I was more or less posting an instalment of Playing House every week. Like, seriously - -

And that was on top of answering between three and ten asks a day.

In that sense, I think that outputs got a lot to do with engagement, particularly in smaller fandoms. There are fewer content producers, which I think bolsters the profile of the one’s posting a lot, regularly, which I think in turn can have the unfortunate trickle down effects too where other members of the fandom see there as being this wall and hierarchy that doesn’t necessarily actually exist, simply because certain names become prevalent.

I think if you come from a big fandom where there are 50, 100, 250 big content producers, it’s a bit more liberating and a lot easier to ‘curate your experience’ so to speak, whereas perhaps in a small fandom, like Good Girls, where there maaaaybe 15 regular content creators, that’s a lot harder. In the end I think that some people feel like you have to like and follow certain people and their work (you don’t!), that ‘it’s cool’ to not like those people (it’s not!), and that certain voices are being ‘silenced’ simply because they don’t have the same profile for whatever reason. Unfortunately that’s hard to get out of, because being in a small fandom is the equivalent of being in a very small, very hot room with not a lot of people, but enough that you’re going to bump into literally everyone on your way in and out of it.

(This is a bit of an aside, but I just want to say that that things do get personal in communities because you do get to know people and have relationships and they can end badly. It also sucks when those personal issues with members of the community bleed over and become public and make the space overall a bit shit. I’m very much guilty of this and will own that, but I have been trying hard to do better, and have completely stopped certain behaviours.

All that said, I do want to flag here that the very nature of this post means I’m going to be honest about my experiences. It’s not meant as subtags or as pointed comments, it’s just - - me talking about said experiences. If these people do still stalk my blog, which well - - I know they do because other people send me shit, haha, I hope that they don’t take any of this the wrong way).

So yeah – I think smaller fandoms can by their very nature become a bit of a melting pot of personalities which results in engagement becoming politicised. I personally do try to share everyone and to not politicise fic recs. I even rec people I personally don’t get along with if I feel it’s appropriate to do so i.e. my episode fic recs, but I’m pretty aware that that type of engagement is not a courtesy extended back to me. It did bum me out for a hot minute with a couple of people, gotta be honest, haha; one person in particular because I didn’t feel like we had a personal beef prior to her doing this, so I didn’t really understand why she was purposefully excluding me. 

I knew she read my fics, and I knew it was personally targeted because she DM’d a friend (who I don’t think she realised was a friend of mine) and told her not to rec my fics which is – y’know – in my mind just kind of a dick move? (also really weird, like - - people aren’t going to leave the fandom just because you don’t like them, and you can’t omit them to a point they cease to exist lol), but at the end of the day, she can do whatever she wants, and I can’t control her behaviour, but I can control my own and propagate the culture that I want to be a part of.

On the flipside of that though, small fandoms – and bumping into everyone, haha – can also be great! It can foster friendships and relationships that really form the backbone of any community, and it’s really there that a lot of engagement outside of appointment-based consumption comes from. It’s those relationships that build growth and excitement and conversations and ultimately support.

I guess my point here is that often engagement and recs and championing can be a bit personal, and where you fit in a community, your relationships with people – good and bad – impacts the way people engage with your work. The funny thing is though right, like, jumping back a point, you might not even know what the beef someone has with you is. You can’t ever entirely know how people like or dislike you, where ego comes into it (and as someone who’s been in a lot of creative spaces, ego is alwaaaays present), what vulnerabilities and insecurities people have, where people are at in their creative journey, to say nothing of cultural differences in online spaces where people are from all over the world.

It’s complicated, is what I’m getting at, and the I think where you fit in community can have a big impact on how your work is received, even if we all like to say otherwise.  

Profile

Let’s talk about Like an Unsung Chorus.

This is a fic that I wrote back in 2018. At the point of writing this answer, it’s the most kudos’ed fic in the GG category on ao3, and the most bookmarked.

Do I think it’s the best fic in the fandom?

Fuck no, haha. I don’t even think it’s the best fic I’ve written in this fandom, let alone among the rest of the talent we have here.

I think to talk about the success of that fic is to break it down to a few different factors:

I wrote that during the s1/s2 hiatus when there just weren’t that many fics, particularly long running ones, which means there wasn’t a lot of ‘appointment engagements’ for people to tap into. There were some really great ones! Please don’t get me wrong there! But there weren’t a lot.

I published the last chapter the day 2.01 aired, which means it was close to the top of ao3 the day the new season started + new fans arrived, and lapsed fans returned, which means it was a pretty meaty, finished fic for people to jump into straight away.

I created this sideblog a few weeks before I posted the last chapter, and the combination of that + the fic meant people started sending me asks about the show, which I started answering.

It’s been the most kudos’ed fic more or less since then, so it means every wave of new fans who search for Good Girls fic and sort by kudos – for better or worse – see that fic first, and well. Then it’s a self-perpetuating cycle.

Profile’s a funny thing to talk about I think when it comes to fandom because I tend to flip-flop on how much it has an impact on readers specifically. Like – yes, I’m a prolific member of this fandom, and I have the most kudos’ed fic in it, but my Ruby-centred fic Blue Moon only has 31 kudos and 300 hits, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t sometimes bum me out. I like it as a story, I like that it prioritised character and backstory, I like what I wrote, and it’s not even that it just didn’t resonate, that low number of hits (just as a point of comparison, Chorus has almost 22k hits, and my most-read one-shot in this fandom has 12k hits) tells me a lot of people didn’t even give it a chance.

So in that sense, does profile even matter?

Okay, dumb question, Sophie, haha, yes, of course it has an impact.

I mean, comparing Blue Moon to Chorus is a false dichotomy for starters – one’s character-focused, not ship-focused; one’s a pastiche, the other is a plot heavy canon-extension; one’s a one-shot, one’s got 11 chapters, etc etc, but I do think it’s worth acknowledging what a small percentage of that readership transferred between them. My profile might have made a few people give it a shot, but it certainly didn’t affect all of them.

What I’m getting at here is that I think popularity and profile can often bear more weight in conversation than it does necessarily in reality. I do think that it has weight – I know for instance that some of my weirder concepts like Mick x Mary Pat got more traction than it necessarily would’ve if a brand new author to the fandom had written it – but I also think profile tips the scales in the opposite direction too. I mean I just talked about this but – personal beefs, people with those personal beefs actively encouraging others not to read or rec that person’s fics, people avoiding higher profile authors because they feel ignored by them (rightfully or wrongfully), etc etc.

Profile and popularity is, in a lot of ways, a double edged sword. I think it can bolster interest in your story and amplify your potential audience – particularly if you’re writing a story that hits the right note for people – but I also don’t think engagement is necessarily as symbiotic as you said in your ask.

I mean, I think it helps, but if the way people engaged with our work balanced with the way we engaged with other people’s works, we’d have a very different most kudos’ed fic list on ao3 (and I include myself in that – I’m not the best at commenting, although I do try to share and rec a lot).

So I guess that brings us to craft.

Craft

Like with the other two points, I can’t point solely to the craft of writing as having an answer to your question. I mean, I can’t speak to your writing at all given you’re on anon of course, but I think overall this is a really talented fandom, but it can be hard to predict the fics that strike a chord with people, but then, isn’t that true of all storytelling?

I mean, I could talk forever right now about arcs and scaffolding, emotional beats, thematic throughlines, whatever, but at the end of the day, what hits that note for you is probably different to what hits it for me. The way we engage with stories is subjective, what appeals to us is ultimately manufactured out of our unique histories, experiences, thought processes, desires and a million other things. There isn’t a secret ingredient, no recipe to be followed; if there was, everyone would have the world’s most popular story on their hands.

What’s important is to tell the story that resonates with you, because yeah, you want to be proud of the story that you’re writing, you want to enjoy it, but also that’s the one that’s going to feel authentic to a reader as well, and you do that through knowing who your characters are, what the story you’re telling is, and committing to that. Gosh, that’s why Twilight is cemented in our pop culture history alongside Animal Farm. There’s honesty to experience, whether that be manifesting teenage forever love with vampires or loading up farm animals with Russian Revolution metaphor.

But still, let me switch hats for a minute – fandom Sophie to editor Sophie, haha

Okay. Take all of this with a grain of salt, but here are some things I have noticed when reading fic, not just in this fandom but others too. These are broad, big picture comments – again, I can’t speak to you specifically because you’re on anon, and again, I can’t predict what makes things popular – but again. These are things I’ve pretty actively noticed when reading fic, and could play a role in perhaps a story not resonating as much as the author might want it to:

Missing Scenes

Writers like to skip ahead to the fun bits. That’s fine! Do it! Enjoy it! But when you skip the scenes that impact the next, just because you want to get to the next, your story will feel the loss of it.

That’s one of the best bits of writing advice I ever got actually – if a scene isn’t working, the issue often isn’t with that scene, it’s usually with one of the ones that got you there.

Storytelling is entirely made up of cause and effect, and if you skip out on the cause, the effect’s not going to work.

I’d really encourage you to embrace the unfun scenes, make them work hard with character development, conflict building, mood setting, so that the fun scenes sing.

 Mood

Speaking of, really think about mood. When I’m writing, sometimes I don’t even know the story yet, but I know the mood of what I’m writing, the tone of it. I know if I want it to be fun and flirty or rough and angsty or tight and thrilling, and I try to feel that and imbue that into the process of my writing. Mood goes so far, and it’s what really creates resonance with the story that you’re telling. It’s what impacts the way you write dialogue, engage setting, build conflict, and it’s going to not just guide you as a writer, but your reader as an audience.

It’s an exercise I use a lot when I’m teaching, but think of it this way: two girls walk alone through the woods. A basic premise. Now think about how differently you’d write it if it was: comedy; family fairytale; horror.

Those are completely different stories, right? And what you focus on and how you write it is going to be so different. So even if you’re just trying to write something and you don’t really know what, just have a little think about the mood of it, and what sort of feeling you want readers to take away from it. And then! Use that mood when you’re thinking about setting (the trees in these woods are going to look very different after all if it’s a children’s fantasy vs a horror), action and dialogue. Embrace it! 

Space

Space informs mood which informs the way we read stories.

I just touched on it in the above section, but embedding your story in a space is going to bring out so many different parts of it. It gives your characters objects to interact with, an environment to feel, a stage to play on.

Nothing happens in a vacuum, so why write that way? And again – space informs mood which ultimately is what creates resonance. Think of the gothic sprawl of the moors in Wuthering Heights or the way the house is used in The Lovely Bones to trap Lindsey when she finds the lock of her dead sister’s hair.

Understanding space can really level up your writing and make it feel alive.

(If you’re just starting out with this sort of thing, look at pictures, draw a map! It’ll help a lot). 

But why?

My favourite and least favourite writing question, haha.

It’s also my favourite and least favourite question as a reader. Understanding character motivations – whether they be major or minor characters – is pivotal to investing a reader in the journey of your story. As a reader, I don’t have to like it, but I need to get it, and that’s something I think is often unfortunately missing.

Engagement

Oof, this got long, haha. Sorry! There were a few personal tangents in there, but my point is ultimately that there isn’t a simple, single answer for your questions. The way people engage are, in my experience, this perfect cocktail of totally predictable and completely unpredictable. I think place in community and profile helps in some respects, but not in others, I think engagement can as much be about popularity as it can be about craft, and even beyond that, I think how readers connect with certain stories are beyond the scope of anything I can explain. I see great fics get overlooked, and fics that I don’t think are particularly well-written hit a huge note with pretty much everyone in the fandom, so I don’t know. I don’t think quality writing always has that much to do with it, and like I said above, I don’t even necessarily think profile breeds engagement.

All of this said, I do think that authenticity goes a long way with engagement. I know a few people who are very blatantly tit-for-tat with how they engage with others, which personally I find hmmmmmmmmmmm, I guess I’d say telling of people’s priorities within fandom? Which is fine! We’re all here for our own reasons, but I know it affects how I personally interact with those people because it’s not behaviour I personally value. I know for me, I’m more likely to engage if people are warm and friendly and contributing to positive culture and conversation within fandom, but I’d also always prefer to engage with people who were just openly different in opinion than people who pretend to be friendly but are actually the first to talk shit behind your back.

So I guess all of this is summing up to be:

Regularity and consistency of posting goes a long way.

Profile does help, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all by any stretch of the imagination.

Community and profile mean different things to different people.

Authenticity of approach creates better quality, more organic engagement.

Never stop learning about writing, because the more you learn, the richer your stories will be.

Keep growing and challenging what you know about stories.

Know that sometimes your story is more niche than you think.

People responding to your stories unfortunately isn’t a lock and key situation. People like different shaped keyholes! And sometimes something that looks like a key doesn’t actually fit that, and sometimes something that looks like - - I don’t know, a fish, fits perfectly. Okay, I’ve extended this metaphor too far now, haha.

I don’t think this is the answer you want, but it’s the only one I can really give, and it’s 5k words of context and hopefully a little bit of advice, haha. But look, write what you enjoy, find people you like engaging with and be proactive in talking to the people who are engaging with your writing already. Contribute positively and meaningfully, and do so authentically, and don’t give up!

There’s a great Stephen King quote which says – and I’m paraphrasing here, haha – that you’re not a real writer until you can wallpaper your house in rejection letters; and as someone who can absolutely do that and is about to have her first novel published with Penguin Random House, it’s really true.

You become a better writer through putting yourself out there, building networks and community, reading, learning, engaging, seeing what works and what doesn’t, understanding how profile bolsters readership, but more so than anything else, you become a better, more resonant writer through the act of writing.

And that’s as true of fanfic as it is of any writing.

[the-wandering-whumper]

It's been a while since I've been through random-fandom-whump (which is totally my bad) but may I just say that uhmmm holy Dean Winchester in hell your gifs have improved so much Missy. Not that they weren't already gorgeous before but it seems as if you have totally mastered the old gif making game now my friend. I can't wait to see what you have up your sleeve for Whumptober 😉! X

Oh Nonny. Thank you.

A hundred times thank you.

It can take me a while to pick up new things. I’ve been working at this Photo Shop deal for years and I’m only just now starting to get the hang of it. And still one gifset can take me all day. I’m extremely self conscious about my work and am constantly putting myself down telling myself that my gifs suck. That an average of 100 notes means everyone else thinks they suck, too. Then I get an ask like this and my whole perspective shifts.

Notes and reblogs mean nothing. I’m creating something and enjoying whump and sharing it with wonderful people like you, Nonny. That’s all that matters, though sometimes I forget.

Thank you for reminding me. Thank you for being so wonderful. Thank you for following me and supporting me.

Ok, I’m done now 😂