#kudos to you for publishing!!

[zaruba-needslove]

Due to recent issue with some people arguing about how ‘AO3 should have algorithm’ and such... I feel like these tweets need to be shared out more. Saw this tweets thread by chance and I had to admit it's a great advice esp on fic writing or fanworks in general.

[Edit] Also since I noticed this post blowing up, if anyone ever tell you that AO3 doesn’t have a function to RECCOMMEND fics you like to others or read other people’s fic recs on the site point them to this post.

[Edit 2] Check source for the original tweet.

[Edit 3] Not OP, but usually when ppl talk about ‘rude or demanding comments’ it usually refers to those that tend to message fanwriters to write according to what they want to be either on the flow of the plot, shipping, etc to the point of harrassment/toxicity. And that would make writing not be fun anymore for some. 

[barrencelenny]

✨fav fics published in 2023 ✨

173 fics (+ 15 podfics) (in English) were published in the coldflash tag in 2023! Bless everybody who continues to write fic for a show that has now ended!! Here is a semi complete list of all my faves from this year in lieu of a Spotify wrapped fics edition!!!

heading off the rails by Sandrine shaw

-let Barry be drunk (for a little bit) that's what I always say! he's in his 20s he should be at the club! and that's where he is here! incredible.

Into the Speed Force by captainicecube

-ahhh I just love fics where the speed force is a character and is also Super Creepy Eldritch Horror about it

detox just to retox (i’d promise you anything) by trespresh

-coming back to this series after years since the previous instalment made me go relisten to disloyal order of water buffaloes and single handedly restarted my fob obsession so thanks for that

Seek Comfort, Find Faith by Annawry

-love when fics just have the characters be cursed by magic. it's already a superhero show set in a universe with canon magic users it's not even a reach. also love when their solution is to fuck about it.

to give hope by Aerica_Menai

-Star Trek mention gives me so much serotonin it’s not even funny + honorary mention to ‘Just Another Tuesday Amongst the Stars’ for also being about Star Trek

small favours in high doses by QLaLa

-pov outsider and teacher!barry you are everything to me. the DTR bit had me in stitches. they're both SO goddamn embarrassing my god.

There’s blood on your teeth (let me get that for you) by SoftBoyDepot

-the tag being “if you’re a fan of Leonard Snart begging this is the fic for you!” and boy did it deliver

I Won’t Ever be Too Far Away to Feel You by RedRidingStiles

-this is the only fic where I would agree with len being a cop because it’s so good. the second hand embarrassment of the initial call from Barry makes my chest hurt but hey, that just tells you how visceral the experience of reading can be lmao

So Long, Scarlet Speedster by HowToKillAVampire

-time! travel! You are everything to me! Time travellers wife-esque situations where they meeting out of sync is catnip to me I’m gobbling this fic right up

The Fair Price of a Plate of Dinner by RetroactiveCon

-hehe love fics where both Barry and len are being little shits and causing problems for Joe. Me 🤝 Len “has no interest in Christmas, but do just about anything to cause problems on purpose”

slipstream by wednesday

- competent! Barry is everything to me. Misunderstanding is delicious to me. Len not knowing how to deal with random acts of kindness is Kryptonite to me. You see how this fic is exactly up my alley

[not-poignant]

wait okay so now that you're seriously thinking of publishing, will you be writing a new prequel to game theory with the new 'Canon'? like the story as it's meant to have happened between gwyn, augus, terho and the nightingale, or are we just starting from game theory?

ALSO I'm so glad that you might be publishing the ftv soon for wholly selfish reasons -- you're clearly done writing about these characters, but personally I am nowhere near done reading about them, and I'm definitely not creative enough to write fanfiction myself either, so I'm just stuck rotating the characters inside my head like a microwave😭😭 it's really tough out here!!!

imagine the massive wave of new readers and the new community that's gonna come in once the story's more accessible... IT'S SO EXCITING

Hi anon!

No prequel, I'll be starting with Game Theory (and Deeper into the Woods will be published afterwards as a prequel, just as it was chronologically in general!)

Quite a bit of Game Theory is being edited and new content being added (anyone on the Gary & Efnisien tier can already see about 2,000 words of new content in the first three chapters alone, including new scene/s with Crielle), and some content being removed where it's OOC. The events with Terho and the Nightingale will be explained in Game Theory, with Gwyn likely meeting with Terho (or learning about him) a few times within.

As for Fae Tales, you know, it's nice to think there will be some new readers, and there might be like a handful or two, but there will be no massive wave. It is the least popular thing I've written in proportion to the amount of time I've put into it. Even the AUs have all generally done better proportionately.

It's one of the reasons I've never rushed to publish, honestly. It's a lot of work to put into something that you know will never financially justify itself. To the point where I think other projects are far more viable financially (Underline the Rainbow as a series I actually think would be great, because new, meaty omegaverse has a very intense (though small) fanbase and I think that series would bring more people in).

There would be no massive wave of new readers. I think we'd be lucky to see at most about 10 or 20 new folks, and I'll cherish everyone, but I'm also pretty realistic. More people find all my other works these days than Fae Tales, The Ice Plague is still one of the worst performing things I've written in proportion to length + time + work investment (despite being one of my favourite series out of anything I've written).

I think I'm realistic, and I also think there's a chance that the Fae Tales Verse if published could draw some haters. Most people don't want that level of BDSM in their epic fantasy, unless it's much lighter 'romantasy,' which Fae Tales definitely isn't. There's even a chance I might get my KDP author account suspended because of breaching content TOS/violations.

So yeah, it's a risk, but I'll take it. It's just not a risk I'm prioritising right now, because I can't see a way that the Fae Tales Verse will ever really go that far. Hand on heart, way more people who come over from my fanfiction find Falling Falling Stars and Underline and almost no one (with maybe a few exceptions - I love y'all) goes into the canon these days unless they're older / long-time readers.

[anto-pops]

I'm not gonna lie, Ao3 being down all day feels a lot like the burning of the Library of Alexandria

[swordsonnet]

the stubborn grace of being loved (regardless, regardless)

Aziraphale/Crowley, 19k words, rated E. read here on ao3!

Summary:

After a failed stint in Heaven, Aziraphale returns to Earth and tries to patch things up with Crowley. Naturally, it doesn't quite go as expected. Or: ducks, Jane Austen, sudden rainstorms, and words (un)spoken.

i've been working on this fic for far longer than i care to admit, but now it's finally ready to see the light of day, so i'm posting it as a birthday gift to myself. hope you enjoy! :3

[sadalmostlesbian]

“OMG you don’t filter by kudos on ao3? How do you—”

I need you to understand it’s an archive site for a reason. It’s the ONE THING LEFT without an algorithm. I will read anything with tags that I like/ for the pairing I like at the moment. I like giving new authors kudos and reading stuff that would get buried otherwise because THATS WHAT THE SITE WAS MADE FOR!

[bookishjules]

guysss the shape of the tide is officially the longest fic i've published on ao3 <333

[rocksalt-and-pie]

@ the three other girlies in the fandom who don't hate Ketch and appreciate him for being THAT bitch (hot bastard sexy evil milfman representation and one of the funniest bitches on the show) who are just like me starving for content, weep no more. I have just the fic for the four of us.

This is a Dean/Ketch fic taking place during episode 13.18 Bring 'em Back Alive, in which Dean and Ketch travel to apocalypse world and the entire episode is basically already a hurt/comfort enemies to foxhole buddies fantasy as it is. But there is a gap between scenes that needed to be filled!

[sirgwaiine]

I need Leigh Bardugo’s next book in the ninth house trilogy to come out NOW

[theogony]

actually insane to me that nocture has already shot up to like. listings of number 3 of top kudosed fics on the kam ao3 which is. wild. especially considering it's so relatively new

[crispycreambacon]

One more hour before my nonbinary!Professor fic gets an official announcement... omg...

[astralmarionette]

reading a fic and the premise is sooo good but the characterization does NOT fit MY autism characterizations + adding a bit more of real life aspects to the characters and I almost cried /srs i had to literally tell myself "you're okay. its okay. they're okay. the author probably wouldnt even care! (he would care alot which is WHy I'm so sad. BOTH OF THEM woULD ACTUALLY THATS wHAT MADE ME SOOOO SAD)

[sio-writes]

"I feel weird commenting on an old fic" "it's been published for a while surely the author has moved on--"

[rodrickheffley]

felt compelled to read fanfic for the first time in a long time and luckily there was one single one that was what i wanted. love wins

[redmoonwanderer]

Wondrous Tails of FFXIV 2024 Prompt: Discovery Continuation to this. Summary: The twisted beast forces Qhol’a to risk his life for the twins; the battle draws something unexpected out of Alisaie. Warnings: Violence and all that pertains, body horror (or something similar, anyway). I’d rate this M to be safe. Music. There's another piece linked within the story for when its time comes (though honestly, it could be timed earlier. Or later).

______________________

It’s the loud thud of flesh running against the wooden structure that is the shack that wakes Qhol’a up. He jolts, and is up in an instant when he hears the deceivingly human screech ringing from the outside of the building. He’s not sure how long he slept, but he still feels tired, devoid of aether that he knows he would need too soon.

He looks over to see the twins in the same room, both up, brows furrowed as they look to the direction of the living room as if they could see right through the walls. Alisaie looks well considering she was ilms away from passing onto the next world not too long ago, but he picks up on the slight slouch, on the bags under her eyes and her brother’s. He takes note of the rapier at her side, the way it’s been made tells him she used to be able to cast, as well.

The siblings (twins?) notice he’s up, and Alphinaud speaks, “What should we do?” he asks, and Qhol’a wonders why he looks at him like he has the answers. Because he can still cast? Because he’s older than the two?

Another thud, and the sound of breaking glass, and screaming as the shards pierce the Desperate. But it keeps slamming itself against the wall, the sense that would direct it to a door long since having abandoned it.

He’s not sure it knows they’re actually here, but if it doesn’t, they could hope that the building would hold until the Desperate would grow bored and go seek its prey elsewhere. But if it knew, if it had sensed them somehow, or it had clung to some remnants of humanity to take note of the tracks outside… they would have to run or fight, and with it this close, they would not be fast enough.

Qhol’a points at himself, then to the direction of the living room. After that, he points at the two, holds one finger up as a sign of waiting, then towards the door he’d come through earlier.

“Are you out of your mind?!” Alisaie hisses, though it seems she would much rather scream. “You cannot win it, not as you are.” And likely not even at your full strength, that she doesn’t say, but she doesn’t need to.

“She’s right”, Alphinaud says. “We can’t let you sacrifice yourself. There must be another way.” Qhol’a really wishes there was, but the creaking of wood could as well be the shack screaming that it could not hold on any longer, that it was about to break and let in the evil that it had been holding at bay.

Qhol’a shakes his head sharply. There’s no time, he wants to say, no time to argue if even some of them are to make it out alive! He points at the two again, and more pointedly towards the exit, hoping to convey the message well enough.

“Maybe it will break through one wall, but that one, as well?” Alisaie says, nodding to the one that Qhol’a had slept against. “And to make a hole big enough for it to –“

The loud crash interrupts her, and they hear wood clattering on the floor and the furniture dragging as the Desperate destroys the wall and manages to squeeze in.

They were trapped. The only way out of the room was the hole in the wall, the door was blocked.

They all stand quietly and listen. Heavy thumps of the large feet as the creature turns around to find life that it could destroy. Wood clatters as it gets kicked by its many legs, and some break under its heavy weight.

Qhol’a gestures for the twins to move to the back wall. He sees the shadow move past the hole, and knows he could see the Desperate if he was standing at an another spot and kneeling.

It could be moving out, Qhol’a thinks, giving up on finding anything from here.

Then the fingers curl around the edges of the hole.

Three, four times larger than a hyur’s, red as the sky after the Last Dusk. Black sharp claws that sink into the wood like it was butter and pull. The wall creaks and groans, and Qhol’a takes his staff, ready to cast despite not having many spells in him.

The Desperate rips of a chunk of the wall and they can hear it toss somewhere behind it. Next, they see the face as it lowers its body to look in. The human face, eyes black, teeth bloodied, and skin full of scratch marks from its final moments as something sensible. The face looks almost like it’s been pushed into the red flesh that surrounds it, like a poorly fitting mask, with black tufts of hair or fur growing like a mane along the spine on its neck thick as a tree. Fresh, bleeding wounds all over its lower throat and likely chest, too, from where it broke the window. It sees them in an instant, and lets out a scream that gets the twins slap their hands against their ears.

It hurts. It’s like something is trying to tear free from within, something that’s much greater than Qhol’a is, like he’s too small a suit ripping at its seams. As he draws of his aether to form a lightning that crackles as it grows into a bolt, the Desperate begins to claw and rip at the walls with four hands, all equally massive. It sounds like its beast-like feet are kicking somewhere behind it, destroying what little was left of the room.

And it’s crying. Not weeping like it was sorry that it had become this, regret filling it even as its bestial side continued its rampage. No, the black rivulets underneath its eyes were likely no sign of emotion like that, if of any emotion at all. Perhaps hunger, desire to sink its claws and teeth into flesh, rip them open, bleed them on the floor like it was a dying garden and they the water it so needed.

Maybe, he thought, it was crying because it was desperate.

He releases the ball of magic, and the Desperate screams as it pulls back, hitting the wall behind it in the narrow space it had forced itself into. Already, fires begin to gather close to its face, and it looks at it with wide eyes as it explodes, burning it.

The hands return, and its working twice as quick, like if it had been promised a meal unlike anything else it had ever caught.

He needed to get the twins out. He had to save them.

Burning the door would be of no use, they’d have to walk through the flames.

He’d have to force the Desperate to move away from the wall.

The hole keeps growing as the hide of the creature burns under magic it has likely never faced before.

It should’ve been scared, but perhaps the need for whatever it was that it sought from those that still remained was stronger.

As ice briefly takes two of its hand out of commission, Qhol’a looks over at the twins, who are looking at the scene ahead of them in awe and fear in equal measures. They meet his eyes, and must somehow read that he has a plan, because before he can even begin to sign, they’re nodding in unison. That, or they think they know what he wants, and will do something he would rather not have them doing.

No point in trying to guess.

He turns as the ice shatters and realises the hole in the wall is already sizeable. Not enough for the Desperate, and it would take some bowing so he wouldn’t hit his head, but he would be able to manage it.

Getting past the creature, though… that would be difficult, perhaps impossible. Only one way to find out.

One last flash of an explosion, and while it’s briefly blinded by it, Qhol’a runs. He bows, jumps onto the neck of the thing and runs along its spine. The Desperate, while it can’t see him, can still definitely feel him, and it begins to scuttle backwards, away from the wall.

It straightens, shakes itself to dislodge the nuisance from its back, and Qhol’a jumps down, on to the side of the broken wall, and bolts.

When he feels the hand wrap itself around him, he’s only taken a couple of steps.

It brings Qhol’a closer to it’s face, eyes still squinting as it’s recovering from the attack. Qhol’a can barely breathe. His hands are still free, however, though it would be impossible to cast with his feet off the ground and concentration waning as the Desperate is slowly squeezing him.

He turns the butt of his staff towards the Desperate, and pushes.

It hits the eye, and again, it screams. It stomps its legs on the ground and throws him against the wall like a child having a tantrum. He hits the floor, but before he can gather himself, the crying, howling beast is upon him. It grabs him by his lower torso and throws him again, but only to its feet. It tries to hit him with one of its other arms, but he manages to roll out of the way. A sweeping arm pushes him even further away from it. He rolls through the wall and into the dirt outside. and gives him the distance and time he needs to clamber onto his feet.

Casting would be difficult, now. To gather the aether takes time, and he no longer has the wall to give him cover.

The Desperate turns around, and one of its hands grabs onto to the couch. It tosses it at him like it weights nothing to it. Qhol’a barely manages to dive out of the way, finding himself on the ground once more.

The ground trembles as the beast runs over towards him. Qhol’a tumbles but gets back on his feet just in time for it to get him within its reach. He manages to put his staff between himself and the oncoming overhead blow, but it leaves his legs unprotected, and another hand takes hold of them.

He’s hanging, head down, yalms above the ground. This time, he’s not brought close to the face. This time, he’s struck against the ground.

His hold on the staff fails, and when he’s lifted, it’s left behind.

This time, his vision is blurry. His neck hurts. His heart is beating, beating, beating

The scream is louder, this time, than when it saw them

His ears are flat against his head, he brings his hands to press against them

Anyone else would feel their skin tearing apart

Feel the need to tear themselves open to ease the sharp pain from within

But not him, and it feels like he’s in all Hells all at the same time and he’s sure the people that succumbed only felt relief

This time, the screaming doesn’t end. This time, as he’s slammed against the ground again, the world fades. Not for long, but he doesn’t remember being lifted up. His hands are hanging uselessly, the other shoulder is burning with pain. His legs, too, in the vice grip.

This time, it lets go, throws him with all its might. There’s nothing to break the flight but ground. He hits it, bounces into the air a couple ilms, then down again. Rolling, rolling.

He feels sick and the world keeps rolling even after he’s stopped.

He forces himself on his knees. He can’t straighten his back, can’t properly open nor focus his eyes.

But he can feel the trembling of the ground, he can lift his head enough to see the moving, blurry figure galloping towards him.

Only the right arm obeys him when he tries to force them both up. He presses it against the left. The cooling energy feels relieving in the broken arm as it’s set back to how it should be. The silhouette it nearly there.

He might be able to pull off another spell. He doesn’t think so, thoughts have since left him like there was no hope left, anymore. It’s more of an instinctual thing, same as when a cat sees a bird and knows it must catch it.

He lifts his arms, and this time both obey him. He draws all that he dares without snuffing out his own candle of life. It’s slow. Too slow. The ball of fire grows but it’s too slow, the Desperate is already upon it, running through as if the flames do not matter.

He releases the energy upon its back and neck as the claws rip him open because he wouldn’t do it himself.

From shoulder to chest to hip, two gouges deep enough that it must be a miracle he doesn’t die right then and there.

Anyone else would scream, but he, somehow, manages to not do so. He thinks.

He hits the ground, the shadow of the Desperate falling over him. The dirt underneath him is already thoroughly soaked with his blood. He tastes copper, smells it. His ears are ringing.

But he barely feels anything. Barely sees as the hand moves above him to cover the bloodied skies from his view. He draws in a breath, shallow, raspy.

He sees something move above the Desperate. Thinks he hears screaming, but more like human.

Like Alisaie.

The Desperate backs away with a roar. There’s furious, wordless screaming, that kind which comes out mixed with desperation, and Qhol’a thinks he sees the young elezen stab the beast in its back again and again and again. Ceaselessly forcing the tip of the rapier through the thick hide. When the beast shakes itself, she must dig the rapier into its flesh and hold on to it because she doesn’t fall.

When the Desperate tries to turn itself enough to see her, she stands up and leaps. When gravity beckons her back, the Desperate turns its face to the heavens to see her. She falls from the skies and towards it like a comet of fury.

Qhol’a watches as the weapon sinks in deep into its face, all the way to its hilt. There’s no death holler, no stumbling this way and that. The Desperate’s legs give out under its massive weight, and then, it keels onto its side. Alisaie manages to land safely, and then, when silence has barely graced them with its beautiful presence, she shouts something as she begins to run. The words are hard to make out.

Only when she drops down on her knees right by him can he hear the repeated, “No, no, please, no”’s that fall from her lips.

Qhol’a would smile, but nothing obeys. Shudders move his body and it hurts some. He just looks at her in the eye. There are tears, clear, and while he feels joy over something so simple, it also aches to see this youth he barely knows weep.

“Alisaie”, comes the voice of Alphinaud. “Alisaie, what were you thinking…” The last word fades as he reaches his sister and sees Qhol’a. “By the Heaves”, he mutters as he looks eyes wide with horror.

“You can’t die”, Alisaie sobs. There’s anger in her thickening voice as she continues, “You have so much to explain, you don’t just get to go and leave us here in this rotten world!”

Ah. Their hope. He was their hope. That something could still change, that the world could still perhaps be saved, returned to what it was.

She must be weeping not for a stranger but for the brief moment that she held newborn hope in her hands, warm in the cold existence, only to watch it dim and fade into darkness.

He wants to apologise. He swallows, would cough but there’s not enough air in his lungs for it.

Alisaie takes his hand like Alphinaud had taken hers when Qhol’a was healing her. A prayer.

He closes his eyes.

“Please”, Alisaie chokes out.

Her hand is warm against his cold, and he thinks he can remember how the sun felt against his skin when there was still sun.

It feels like it’s spreading everywhere, and he feels at peace. It’s easier to be, now.

To breathe, to exist.

He hears a gasp from Alphinaud. “Alisaie, how –“ he begins but falls quiet.

The pain, suddenly, feels worse. Like a blanket of numbness is torn away from him, exposing him to the cold. The blood in his throat feels like the only thing stopping the moan that follows the sensation, and he opens his eyes a little.

There’s glowing light where their hands are joined. Magic.

But not his.

Somehow, in this dead world that had been drained of magic, Alisaie was manipulating aether.

It can’t stitch him back together, there’s no single person capable of that, but as he closes his eyes again, Qhol’a thinks that maybe, maybe, he’ll get to open them again.

[putuponpercy]

I completely forgot about Confinement's existence until I got a random kudos on it recently