#longfics also has the potential for MORE smut
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Same. But also, why not both? 🤷♀️
I am in a constant battle between wanting to write long fics with intricate plots and the filthiest smut imaginable
#they are not mutually exclusive after all#longfics also has the potential for MORE smut#drive up that word count with your filth#writing#dancingwiththefae
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What’s the most surprising smut pairing you’ve written?
Share a DVD commentary on Scripts and Tongues?
Share a smut rec for Maedhros.
thank you so much for the asks! 💖
13. What’s the most surprising smut pairing you’ve written?
I think at this point, Gandalf/Círdan! I told a friend on the phone that I was going to write that pairing a couple months ago and was cackling at her reaction. Otherwise, maybe Daeron/Thingol (and thank you for your support of both of these!) Both are the only smut fics for these ships in their AO3 tags, so I guess I'm happy to feel like they fill some kind of niche!
22. Share a DVD commentary on [one of your smut fic/smutty scene from a longer work]. (Scripts and Tongues, the aforementioned Gandalf/Círdan)
Heheh. So this fic was born of 2 things basically: a past discussion with @searchingforserendipity25 that set up Gandalf/Círdan as A Ship in my mind, ft. beach imagery, and then my preparing to write some things for smut week and having the VISION implanted in my brain of like "sex joke featuring 'I'm missing your STAFF'". And then I thought it'd be charming to have this sexting take place sometime around LotR, in familiar events--I wasn't at first decided when and where, or if it might be like a "throughout FotR" kind of thing, or in Moria, but, I'm rereading LotR quite slowly now on audiobook and so had the episode of Gandalf recounting at Elrond's Council his research in Gondor's library on the brain. Initially, I wasn't settled on that setting/moment but the more I wrote it (and the more innuendos I could work in related to it) I quickly decided I was keeping it. :D I'd thought initially I might write a longer, sexier scene, but realized I liked it as a briefer piece just moving into the sexier part, focused on the part I was most excited to write and share (the sexting).
Also, I'm honestly full of thoughts about them now: in my head there's like a dramatic whole soap opera thing where Gandalf arrives in Middle-earth and is perhaps greeted with a little skepticism from Círdan (who instantly sees he is a Maia and who's already lived thru like the whole First Age, drowning of Turgon's and his own mariners, sinking of Beleriand etc), vs. Evil Rivalmance smooth-talking Love Interest/Ex Saruman, Círdan coming to trust Gandalf and give him Narya as a token of MARRIAGE um trust, becoming snarky yet relied-upon confidants and then naturally boyfriends, Saruman very personal inevitable yet slay betrayal, later angst and hurt/comfort (pain when the osanwe bond is severed as Gandalf 'dies' and returns??), seaside retirement and coming to know Gandalf's Maia form in Valinor after they sail... IDK IDK. There's so much there and I'm coming to have a lot of feelings about Gandalf as a character. I wish I wrote faster and had the motivation to do some kind of 50k longfic old man yaoi for them; I doubt that will happen but I hope you can imagine and experience for yourself the beautiful vision that it would be.
23. Share a smut rec for [character]. (Maedhros)
Oooh okay. I'm going to share just a few of my favs from across time and space...
Maedhros/Maglor:
Do Not Bait Me With Your Laughter by The_First_And_The_Last - SEARINGLY HOT times in Valinor ft. slightly dubcon Maedhros seduction of trans!Maglor. Absolutely formative!!
Hunting Time installment 2 by Divano_Messiah - Yes I did read this via googletranslate which makes some interesting choices, but the sheer poetry of this omegaverse series transcends language and culture. In this fic, Maedhros returns to the family home to realize Celegorm has taken advantage of Maglor, who is his own, and he restakes his claim. Just brilliantly indulgent, and contains the line "Nelyafinwe, are you fucking insane?" from Celegorm that rewired my brain about unhinged Maedhros potential.
No Pearls, No Feathers by dur - For something entirely different, rough and highly charged moments between Maedhros and Maglor in late stage Beleriand. This fic is packed with beautiful, weighty writing that really arrests you, making the reader feel and experience each second of this brief in time, yet SO POWERFULLY CHARGED and sexy scene with its rise and awful fall alongside Maglor. Really breathtaking, and Maglor thinking of Maedhros denting a goblet in his hand won't leave me ever now.
Maedhros/Fingon:
I already recommended Death and Taxes on another one of these asks, but...
Pantië by orphan account - Maedhros/Fingon, past Maedhros/Sauron - to this day the ANGSTIEST Nirnaeth fic to me even though it ends right before the battle itself. Maedhros' intimacy issues. Maedhros' control issues and desperate need to give up control. Sexy angst and manipulation all around, alongside and coexisting with this real, strong undercurrent of loving romance between Russingon.
Exchange of Favors by daphnerunning - this fic series I honestly read before I read the Silmarillion itself and it's meant so much to me, even as I've moved off in some interests! This installment is the sweetest, funniest, most intimate and tenderly charged Elves Roleplaying As Humans (Maedhros as Fingon's mistress). I love it so!
Maedhros/Thingol:
YEAHH babey secret sexiest ship of the book.
Guidance by iddump (and in fact the whole series that goes with this, but this is an incredible, soo sexy bite-sized version) - Thingol edging Maedhros while advising him (mentor to mentee... one lord to another...) on his correspondence.
Maedhros' Good Report Card by @imakemywings - fem!Maedhros as fem!Thingol's younger sugar baby in a modern AU. Being dommed so thoroughly and with such steady affection could probably fix everything wrong with Maedhros. I have to mention this one because fem!Thingol blew my mind this past week and I'm still reeling and recovering.
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20 Questions for Fic Writers
Thank you @failed221b-chill for tagging me!! I'm still such a little baby newbie fic writer but I'm eager for the chance to reflect and grow more.
How many works do you have on AO3? 2. Hoping to increase that soon!
What's your total AO3 word count? 2,285. Amazingly low compared to my huge chunkin longfic sitting tucked away, unpublished.
What fandoms do you write for? Mainly Final Fantasy VIII, but I've dabbled in Stardew Valley.
What are your top five fics by kudos? Top five, lol. Wellll one of my Laguna one-shots has 5 kudos! I'm pretty happy with that considering there are like 5 FFVIII fans out there!
Much more under the cut!
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Absolutely! I want to talk about my fics all day!! That is, I have only received thoughtful, positive comments from lovely people so it's been easy so far.
What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? As of right now, They Are My Family is the angstiest ending I've ever written, though you might consider it a somewhat optimistic ending. In its very short word count, this fic deals with Laguna's immense loss and how he channels his grief into helping other people. I dearly enjoy writing angst, though, just usually with a happy ending.
What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Grip on My Heart, my other posted Laguna one-shot, is a happy ending (though if you know FFVIII then you can probably see the angst between the lines). However, if I ever post my Stardew Valley longfic it's got a very sweet ending. I wrote that as a total escapist happy ending fantasy tale lol. And hey, I would even argue that my FFVIII longfic may actually have the happiest ending of all, simply because the angst that it took to get there makes it all the sweeter.
Do you get hate on your fic? Not yet, though I anticipate that I am not everyone's cup of tea, and I think I am okay with that. I would hope that people who comment would have the ability to be respectful about our disagreements. Alas, I know it doesn't always work that way.
Do you write smut? Indeed, I do! Nothing posted yet, and nothing too explicit. But yep! I've got little spicy bits peppered through all of my wips. It took me a while to be okay with writing sexy stuff but I wanted to explore that aspect of relationships. I don't think I could ever write straight porn, though.
Do you write crossovers? I have not considered a crossover, but there's still time! I'm not opposed to it, just haven't had any inspiration.
Have you ever had a fic stolen? I don't think so! That would be sad.
Have you ever had a fic translated? No but holy cow what an honor to one day be that important!
Have you ever co-written a fic? No, I've thought about the logistics of this and I'm not sure how much I'd like it, though I may be convinced otherwise one day. And like my bestie and beta @failed221b-chill pointed out, before finding each other the two of us practically wrote the same fic but with different characters and a different plot. Pretty incredible to see the themes I have been obsessing over told in a new way!!
What's your all-time favourite ship? Oh, how can I ever get enough of Squall and Rinoa? dreamy sigh
What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Ooh good question. I'm starting to doubt the validity of my unpublished Stardew Valley longfic. I think it has great potential, and I may go back and rewrite the entire thing, but it's just got a lot that needs work. I am pretty determined to finish my FFVIII longfic so that gets priority!
What's your writing strengths? Ahh, talking about my writing strengths is not one of my writing strengths. After reflecting on this for a hot minute, I think I can appreciate my growing ability to write in a way that is easy to understand. With practice and the help from @failed221b-chill I've gotten so much better at flow. I also have little moments of intrigue, imagery, and maybe a little bit of symbolism that I'm proud of. In general, I think my biggest strength is that I am learning quickly how to make all aspects of my writing better!
What's your writing weaknesses? I feel like I can't end a scene to save my life, but maybe I'm the only one who sees that in my writing! I also struggle with knowing when to dramatize a scene and when to leave it to exposition. For a while I thought that was just the problem with writing a longfic that spans over several years, but I found the same issue in writing one-shots. On a related note, I think I fall in the under-writer category. My rough drafts are usually about 1/4 of the size of the final product. I guess on reflection that's more of a strength: I can flesh things out appropriately during editing! Oh that's a nice discovery :)
Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'm not opposed to it, but I don't see it happening in anything I plan on writing! I'm simply not familiar enough with any other langues (RIP, my almost-fluency in French).
First fandom you wrote for? Probably either FFVIII or Harry Potter. I can't remember which came first! I know for a brief time I was all about that James and Lily ship lol
Favourite fic you've ever written? Definitely my FFVIII longfic wip. As far as published works go, They Are My Family is really something I'm proud to have put out in the world.
I'm officially tagging anyone who would like to participate! Enjoy!
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Thank you, @gingerlegacy07 for the tag! I love Q and As like this, so I'm happy to contribute! :D
How many works do you have on AO3? I have.... *checks Ao3* 77 works at the moment! I have written so many one-shots, lol, but I have written some chaptered fics!
What's your total AO3 word count? 1,208,532! About half of that is from my Avatar AU longfic, which is 500k words, haha ^^'
What fandoms do you write for? Just Hogwarts Legacy! I just had some ideas in what to write, and then I decided to just give it a try. And here I am!
Top five fics by kudos? Quick look into it....
An Avatar's Legacy (78)
Becoming Official (50)
Where's My Love? (46)
Hogwarts Legacy: Bloopers (42)
The First Unforgivable (38)
Do you respond to comments? Yes! I love comments, and I do my best to respond to all of them. They're just so encouraging and remind me that there are people that love reading things I write.
What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hoooo....well, I prefer to write happy endings. ...However, I once wrote a Garrelda songfic called "I Still Want You" with the BTS song "The Truth Untold", and if you know the song, you know it doesn't end well.
What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Happiest ending? Hmm, I write so many one-shots of fluff, so it's hard to decide which one is happiest. I think it would be my one-shot "A Good Life" as it's involving family fluff. Sure, there's some angst, but that's a given when it's with Sebastian and Estelle (my MC). In the end, though, it's just about Sebastelle, Poppinis, and Garrelda being like a big family with their firstborns, and it's just so sweet and wholesome :]
Do you get hate on fics? I....don't think so? I've only gotten a couple satirical comments, but nothing else.
Do you write smut? Haha...no. I am a full-on sfw-only writer. I do allude to things sometimes, but I don't write explicit details or anything like that.
Craziest crossover? I have written a lot of AUs, but not any crossovers themselves.
Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.
Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope! I've only written in English.
Have you ever co-written a fic before? I have not yet, but I think I will be co-writing in the future....sometime, lol.
All time favorite ship? Honestly....It's gotta be Garrelda (Garreth/Imelda). I just saw so much ship potential between these two, and I thought they were similar in being very passionate in what they love, and I just kept writing them, and it's also a Slytherdor pairing! I also see them with a classic dynamic of Golden Retriever x Black Cat, where he's very sweet and wholesome while she's tsundere. I love them so much, aaaaaaa
What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I do have some on-going fics atm, but I am determined to finish them. There are my series of one-shots, though, that I'm not sure I'll add more one-shots to them. Maybe, because I have ideas, but...other ideas just come more easily to write, lol
What are your writing strengths? I...honestly don't know. I guess creativity in AUs would be one? I receive a lot of praise for my AUs, and it is fun to write characters we love in different circumstances or time periods and such. I also think I flesh out characters really well and keep them close to how they are in HL. Maybe some description, but I am not sure.
Thoughts on dialogue in another language? I have do it with Spanish before, actually! Just a couple things Imelda says, lol. But I do find it easier to write the dialogue in Italics so people know it's another language. I do that because I don't personally know other languages, so I would need to rely on Google translate. However, I have a good friend that speaks Spanish, and she helped me get the right phrases I want in my writing.
First fandom you wrote in? Hogwarts Legacy has been the only fandom I wrote in :]
Favorite fic you've written? Favorite fic I've written.... I think I would say "An Avatar's Legacy", my HL Avatar AU long-fic. It was fun playing with the concept of ATLA and changing it to HL, and I enjoyed writing my favorite characters in that world! 100 chapters and 500k words, and my first actual chaptered fic.... It was such an incredible feat, and I'm still proud of it. I love the story, and it makes me happy that many others love it too!
Thank you to whomever came up with these questions! I enjoyed doing this, and it was nice to go back and see how far I've come :]
#hogwarts legacy#hogwarts legacy mc#hogwarts legacy fanfic#hogwarts legacy fandom#garrelda#poppinis#sebastelle#ao3 fanfic#q and a
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This rec list is for my sister, who in a few short weeks days will have a tiny human keeping her up all hours of the night and asked me for "something to read, God knows I will have time for something long"
Long Fics
Honestly, the only thing these fics have in common are their length. I don't know about your definition of a long fic, (in my mind it's usually 90k+) but I included 70k+ here, simply because there were some great fics I wanted to included for my sister lol
We've got some Modern AUs, Fantasy AUs, Historical AUs... Some romantic and light, some dark and tense, some dramatic and angsty, all filled with the beautiful richess that only a longfic can provide!
I also included a few WIPs that I am following that regularly update.
A royal mix-up by AttackoftheDarkCurses | Explicit | 67k | Complete | Modern AU | Royalty | Strangers to lovers | Fake Relationship | Banter | Hair Braiding | Prince!Ben Solo | Journalist!Rey | Drama | Multi POV | "After hooking up with a stranger on her flight, Rey considers his sudden request that she pretend to be his girlfriend for the holidays. Hotels are expensive, and he seems nice enough. It’s been a while since she’s had a homecooked holiday dinner, and despite what he suggests, how intimidating could his parents really be? Alternatively, Ben Solo conveniently forgets to tell a girl he’s a prince." | Brilliant banter and chemistry between Rey and Ben! Great premise and well written! With a great story! Love all the characterizations (Rey, Ben, Hux, Phasma)! Lots of steamy and satisfying smut.🤤
when the moon met the sun in the sky by RebelRebel | @rebelrebelreylo | Explicit | 71k | Complete | Fantasy AU | Feudal Japan | Ghibli vibes | Samurai | Royalty | Arranged Marriage | Enemies to Lovers | Growing up togther | Childhood Sweethearts | Secrets | Politics | War | Spies/espionage | Sun/Moon Mythology | HEA | Multi POV | Princess to a worthless throne, Rey attempts to assassinate the Evil Emperor only to discover his right hand, Kylo Ren, is her long thought dead betrothed. They tentatively join together to shake their world to its foundations. | At first it's a TFA and TLJ re-write set in a ghibli-esque feudal Japan, but it takes a phenomenally original turn. Movie quality story! Unbelievably cool world building!
Peacock by AttackoftheDarkCurses | Explicit | 72k | Complete | Modern AU | Neighbors | Rivals to lovers | Pranks | Misunderstandings | Fake relationship | Multi POV | Rey and Rose move in nextdoor to Ben and his whole world is turned upside down. A prank war escalates into a fake engagement. Now they are playing chicken with a marriage. Who will back down first? | A perfect rom com. its so many misunderstandings on top of miscommunication on top of them both being idiots. God I love the prank they pull on leia and phasma at the end.
in want of a wife by AquaWolfGirl | @aquawolfgirl | Explicit | 79k | Complete | Histroical AU | Regency | Class difference | marriage of convenience | Strangers to friends to lovers | Friend group dynamic | Weddings | Loss of virginity | Multi POV | Lord Ben Solo has no interest in the ladies of his degree. After years of associating with them and corresponding with even more, he fails to find a potential partner in any of the women he's met. In need of (and desperately wanting for) a wife, someone to care for and adore, he publishes an advertisement in the paper. Miss Rey Jackson, a woman of low social standing and no family of her own, decides to take a chance and inquire. At the very least, if he refuses her for a wife, she can see if there's a scullery maid position, right? | So soft and romantic!
Hanging On A Star by Yours_Truly_Commander_Shepard | Explicit | 81k | complete | Modern AU | Musicians | Music Industry | eniemes to lovers | non-linear storytelling | angst | falling in love | breakups | mechanic!Rey | viral YouTube sensation Rey | Musician!Ben Solo | minor drug/alchohol use | road trip | minor finn/Rose | HEA | Rey POV | "Today, Rey Johnson is a breakout star with a rising single, a major label contract, and a five-year-old photograph of her kissing the lead singer of the Knights of Ren that she just can't shake. Five years ago, Ben Solo was a lonely American musician on extended holiday in the West Midlands without a working car, new material, or a friend in the world." | Angsty and delicious with a HEA and engaging prose that I had to finished it that night. Just a brilliant story. Emotional and raw with fantastic smut!
baby, it will bury us by diasterisms @kylorenvevo | Explicit | 82k | complete | Modern AU | Paris | Class difference | Sugar Daddy | Daddy kink | Falling in love | Angst/break ups | HEA | Steamy AF smut | Ben POV | Businessman Ben meets waitress/college student Rey, and even though they have very different lives, sparks fly. Despite their powerful chemistry Ben is afraid of getting in too deep so he settles for an arrangement with Rey ... how long he can go without breaking his own rules remains to be seen. | Insanley hot. A wonderful flavour of Paris!
May Divorce Be With You by SpaceWaffleHouse | Explicit | 83k | Complete | Modern AU | Strangers to friends to lovers | Bets and wagers | Wedding planner!Ben Solo | Divorce Lawyer!Rey | Weddings | Romance | Wedding!Porn (think Four Weddings) | Side Rose/Jannah | Rey POV | Drinking buddies Rey and Ben make a wager about whether true love really exists. As Ben takes her to more and more weddings that he has planned Rey's cynical view of love (shaped by being a divorce lawyer) takes a sharp left turn. She is without-a-doubt going to lose this bet... because she is falling hopelessly in love with Ben Solo. | Fluffy and sweet with great chemistry. Slower paced. Love this characterization of Ben! No angst or pain.
9 pints by tigbit | Explicit | 83k | Complete | Modern AU | Magical Realism | Porn Industy | Supernatural/mythical beings | Vampires | Humor | Sexual Tension | Roommates-vibes | Falling in love | Rey POV | Rey gets suckered into shooting Porn with a vampire for Poe's porn studio | So fucking amazing! So well written! Snappy, delightful dialogue! So many laugh-out-loud moments. Creative world building and did I mention the dialogue!?
Mitan, Midi by animal | @ao3animal | Explicit | 83k | Complete | Modern AU | French Countryside | Strangers to lovers | Language barrier | Depression | Angst | Rey needs a hug | British!Rey | French!Ben Solo | Rey POV | "After a French notary contacts Rey to inform her she's inherited a house in the Drôme (France), she decides from one day to the next to quit her job and move there. The house is pretty secluded, there's no service, no internet, no way to reach other people aside from the landline in the living-room. Ideal conditions, by her standards, as those theoretically should allow her to be perfectly alone. Theoretically." | Angsty and delicious - Nobody writes quite like Animal!
The Lady and the Devil by TypeSomeSenseToMe | @typesomesensetome | Explict | 86k | Complete | Historic AU | Medieval | Arranged marriage | Lord!Kylo Ren | Slow-ish burn | Blindness | Physical Abuse | Injury Recovery | DRAH-MA | miscommunications | Angst | Plots/Secrets | Pregnancy | HEA | Multi POV | Homely Rey is married off to a fearsome warlord, only to find that his devilish reputation might be a slight exaggeration. Instead she finds a proud and broken man, who she slowly comes to love. | Heavily inspired by 'This Is All I Ask' by Lynn Kurland. I went out of my way to go read the original book this was based on and honestly this fic improves a lot of the side plots and characters. Delicious and angsty!
The Games We Play by CaptainCabinets | @captaincabinetsao3 | Explicit | 89k | Modern AU | Missed connections | the-one-that-got-away | New York City | Infidelity | pining | ANGST | Drah-ma | Guilty conscience | Rey needs a hug | poe/rey | ben/kaydal | Multi POV | After a chance meeting in college they reunite years later- both married to other people. They start an affair that both destroys and heals their lives. | *snorts this fic like cocaine* So angsty and delicious! I love the angsty/guilty thought process they both go through. And how the author humanizes their spouses. Engaging prose, with a tension that keeps you hooked!
Children and Other Wild Animals by Virginia_Tradescant | @silmarilliant | Explicit | 90k | Complete | Modern AU | Multi POV | FBI | Witness Protection | Bodyguard | Organized Crime | Undercover agen!Ben Solo | Hitman!Kylo Ren | Teacher!Rey | Schools/Children | Forbidden relationship | Pining | Drama | Action/violence | Angst | All-aboard-the-pain-train | HEA | Multi POV | Ben Solo's return to field work should be easy, but a sting operation to draw out a mole within the FBI, disguised as Witness Protection will test his every resolve and push him to his limits. Caught in the crossfire is Rey Niima, a early childhood educator who is just trying to teach children and not fall in love with her very own special agent. | Fucking brilliant. Great chemistry between all characters, engaging prose. Love the multi POV (It really added to the drama/angst). Never have I read a fic, where (almost) every chapter I wanted to comment "it hurts so good!". Defintly a Pain Train, but with a super satisfying HEA that makes it worth it.
Comfort Zones by Emmyjean | @emmyjeanb | Explicit | 101k | Complete | Modern AU | Strangers to friends to lovers | Porn star!Kylo Ren | Awkward!Ben Solo | Anxiety/depression | Dating | The Friend Zone | Drama | Past substance abuse | Angst | Multi POV | Rey finds herself working behind the scenes of a porno - and just her luck to run into one of the main stars at her other job as a bartender. Drawn together over their shared love of literature Ben and Rey embark on a rocky road to happiness. | Some *chef kiss* angst! Really cool exploration of the "friendzone" dynamic. Fascinating charcterization of Rey! Absolutley loved Ben and Luke's history and closure.
I Was Lost (For You To Find) by LadyReylo | Explicit | 90k | Complete | Modern AU | Adoption | Single Parent!Rey | Strangers to friends to lovers | Co-parenting | Angst | Class difference | Rey POV | After unfathomable circumstances bring Ex-marine Ben into Single Mom Rey and her son Rian's lives, Ben and Rey must figure out how to co-parent while dancing around their attraction to each other. | Urgh, so angsty and delicious! Some Marriage Story vibes.
the world shifts (and I am better here) by lachesisgrimm | @lachesisgrimm | Explcit | 102k | Complete | Modern AU | Fantasy AU | Fairy Tale elements | Magic | Prophecy | Quest | Sleeping beauty elements | Devoted Reylo | Action/Drama | HEA | Rey POV | Rey stumbles from the modern world into a fantasy where she must save a sleeping prince and discover her own magic.
Kohelet 3:16 (Call Me A Cab) by LinearA | @linearla | Explicit | 108k | Complete | Modern AU | Politics | Social Justice | Protesting | NYC | Everybody is Jewish | Undocumented!Rey | Cop!Kylo | Secret identity (Jewish!Ben Solo) | Blackmail | Enemies to lovers | Rough Sex | Lawyers/trials | Corruption | Angst | Tragic back story | Falling in love | Bisexual!Rey | Past Rey/Rose | Bisexual!Ben | Bendemption | Multi POV | "Rey and Finn go out on a cold night to participate in the grand New York Jewish tradition of Banging These Bastards A Kettle About It, and the police, they don't like it so much. Caught with a fake ID and no residency papers, Rey is dragged into a scheme to infiltrate and spy on activist groups. Detective Kyle O'Ryan, who would very much prefer you didn't inquire too closely about his legal name or his family background or why he never seems to mind working on Christmas, is supposed to be her police liaison, but his badge is getting heavier every day." | Fucking brilliant. Engrossing story. Heartbreaking. So well written. Main POVs are Kylo, Rey and Finn. Finn has a storyline to himself (and it's heartbreaking and meaningful).
Only If You Want To by Violetwilson | @violetwilson | Mature | 111k | Complete | Modern AU | Modern AU | Bikers | Drug dealers | Gangs | Crime | Waitress/drug runner!Rey | Private security consultant!Kylo Ren | slow burn | Drama/violence | Personal healing/growth | drug abuse | Alternating POV | "Personal security expert (and occasional under-the-table hitman) Kylo Ren has a strong feeling about the cute dive bar waitress with the strange bruises and the vicious wit. She's either a victim or the weirdest criminal he's ever met. Possibly both. And yeah, maybe his hands aren't the cleanest, but damn if he isn't tying to help. Now if he could only get her to put down the switchblade..." | Engrossing characterizations with enjoyable prose!
The Heart of Hate by SevenBetter | Explicit | 119k | Complete | Modern AU | Multi POV | Enemies to Lovers | Hate Sex | Neighbors | Small Buisness Owners | Rey owns an Ice Cream Parlor | Ben makes Whiskey | Secret Relationship(s) | Ben is a terrible communicator | Rey is aggressively cheerful | Family Drama | Angst | Personal Growth | Falling in Love | Dramatic Family Thanksgiving | 80s Prom | Secrets revealed! | HEA | Side pairings: Hux/Phasma, Finn/Rose, Poe/Zorii | "Rey and Ben are each hard-working small business owners in a quiet beach town, determined to succeed, whose feuding and fighting lead to one other F-word that they also do together." | Phenomenal characterizations for Ben and Rey with an great buildup and organic transition from enemies-to-lovers. I love to liken my favourite fics to movies, but this is one story where the written word is absolutley the best medium.
go i know not whither and fetch i know not what by voicedimplosives | @voicedimplosives | Explicit | 119k | Complete | 1990s, | Russia | New York | Russian mafia/organized crime | Strangers to lovers | Roadtrip | Criminal!kylo | Drama |Graphic depiction of violence | Angst | Redemption | Witness Protection | Long-ass chapters | Multi POV | 1994, Rey travels to Russia to learn about her biological mother. She gets tangled up with Russian Mobster Kyril Ren. Sexy roadtrip ensure but ultimately ends in heart break as Rey returns to the US and Kyril and the Russia mob shorty follow -- to kill Rey's adoptive father Luke. | Engaging prose with dynamic chemistry. Fascinating characterization! Steamy AF. So detailed. Learn from my mistakes: do not binge in one night
we could plant a house, we could build a tree by Like_A_Dove | @likeadove | Explcit | 124k | Complete | Modern AU | Growing up together | Artists | Slow Burn | Ode to 90s music | Drama | Angst | Bendemption | HEA | Rey POV | 7 year old Rey is an orphan taking art lessons at Luke's studio where she become friends with his moody teenage nephew. The story of their lives over the course of 20 years. Friendship, love, loss, consequences and finally redemption and forgiveness. | There is a reason why people rave about this story: Incredible characterization. What a journey of Rey growing up and her complicated relationship with Ben. Fucking incredible.
The Mechanic by DaytonBay | Explicit | 122k | Complete | Modern AU | London | Europe | One-night-stand | Unexpected Pregnancy | Strangers to lovers | Poverty | Organized Crime | Violence/action | Drama | Mechanic!Rey | Mafioso!Kylo Ren | Rey is a cinnamonbun | Kylo does not nice things to protect Rey | Found family vibes | OC's | Breaking the law has consequences | HEA | Multi POV | After a memorable one-night-stand Rey finds herself in a spot of trouble-- pregnant with the child of the 2nd of command of The First Order, one of the most powerful organized crime syndicates on the continent. Rey's life will never be the same as she's unwittingly pulled into the high stakes world of Kylo Ren. | So. Fucking. Good. Right off the bat the prose grabs you and immerses you in this engrossing story! Brilliant characterization - especially Rey, so heartbreaking and well written! Fascinating story/plot! Great writting! Love Rey and Kylo*cough*Ben*cough*'s chemistry/dynamic! Lots of steamy; satisfying smut. Interesting, fleshed out OC's that enhance and don't detract. Some crazy dramatics that make it an addicting read! The author does a great job of invoking the setting of London/Europe which I really enjoyed! I repeat: So. Fucking. Good. You know what? A testament to how good this fic is, everytime I come across this fic in my bookmarks I want to read it again!
(won’t you let me) walk you home from school by somethingdifferent | Explicit | 130k | complete | Modern AU | Teachers | Co-workers | Enemies-to-lovers | Hate-to-love | slow burn | fuck buddies | idiots in love | Ben POV | Ben Solo is an asshole. A former lawyer, turned high school councilor who works at the prestigious private school that he, himself, was expelled from. Rey is an adorable art teacher who is everything he despises and who does not take his shit. They clash to say the least. He hates her. Then he wants to fuck her. Then he falls in love with her. If he plays his cards right he might get everything he never knew he wanted. | This might be the greatest enemies-to-lovers I have ever read! The prose is top notch, the characterization is fascinating, the slow transition from hate-to-attraction-to-love is so brilliantly done.
The Witch in the Wood by HarpiaHarpyja and Inmyownidiom | @thisgarbagepicker | Explicit | 138k | Complete | Medieval/Fantasy AU | Enemies to Lovers | Knight!Kylo Ren | Witch!Rey | Magic | Witchcraft | Graphic depiction of violence | Animal Sacrifice | Falling in Love | Loss of Virginity | Oh hey some plot | AND WHAT A PLOT IT IS | Demons | Angst | Despair | HEA | Alternating POV | Knight Kylo Ren has spent his life slaying demons and killing witches, now he finds himself at the mercy of Rey, a witch who simply wants to live alone, in her forest at peace. The very foundations of Kylo's world-view are shaken as he falls in love with The Witch in the Wood. | Brilliant. Just brilliant. Gorgeous world building. Gripping plot. Fantastic charcterizstion. Delicious dynamic. Copious amounts of steamy AF smut!
Unravel Me by UnderTheCancerMoon | Explicit | 145k | Complete | Modern AU | Restaurant AU | Chef!Ben Solo | Server/Bartender!Rey | Friendgroup dynamic | Friendship | Friends to Lovers | Secret Relationship | Casual Relationship | Long Distance | Breakups | Pining | Celebrity Chef!Ben Solo | Angst | Blackmail | Ben and Rey stay friends after they break up | Ben and Rey date other people | Rey x Mitaka | Ben x Bazine | ALL ABOARD THE PAIN TRAIN! | Awkward public love confessions | HEA | Multi POV | Rey starts working at a restaurant and she makes great new friends and finds herself a secret beau in moody chef Ben Solo. Life fic, covering almost 10 years, Ben and Rey's on and off relationship and his rising status as a celebrity chef. Highs and lows as the friend group finds love, loss and sings plenty of karaoke. | Great prose. Love all the details of restaurant life. Loving the friend group dynamic. The characterizations are awesome (especially Finn, Poe, Rose). So many great details that bring the story to life!
Friday Special Comes With Something Sweet by deathbyhumidity | Explicit | 160k | Complete | Modern AU | Small Town | Strangers to friends to lovers | Character study | Angst | Drama. So much drama. Mostly internal | Rey needs a hug | Ben needs a kick in the ass | Ben POV | "Being Chewie’s kitchen assistant at his dad’s diner wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to Ben Solo after he went back home from university with his tail between his legs, but in typical spectacular fashion, he managed to ruin the peace with his runaway mouth just three weeks in. Really, he should have remembered there was a good reason Han kept him out back, but at least now the memory of wide, wet eyes spitting fireballs at him made sure that he won’t likely forget again anytime soon." | Good god this is great. Interesting prose, great charcterization for Ben -- I can so relate to this version of him. A depth that you only see in a good long fic. Juicy and dramatic. AND ANGSTY 😘👌
The Trail Bride by SecretReyloTrash | @lyresandlasers | Explict | 160k | Complete | Western AU | Oregon Trail | Strangers to lovers | Marriage of convenience | secrets/lies | outlaws | angst | action/violence/drama | Rey POV | Rey Niima's husband dies on the Oregon Trail. She settles on marrying the mysterious Ben Solo to continue the journey. They might have come togther by chance but their chemistry and devotion are undeniable. But of course Ben has a past - he is not a respectable banker, but the outlaw Kylo Ren and Rey has gotten caught up in one of his schemes. After seemingly freeing him from the First Order Rey must seek out her own happiness -- even if that mean leaving her husband behind. | Its languid place allows for beautiful characterization and build up-- never slowing to point of distraction, peppering teases of future plot to keep you reading. After the "climax" it slows to a snail's pace but ends beautifully. Brilliantly written. Smut as hot as the surface of Venus.
This Mess Is Mine by LyricalRiot | Explicit | 211k | Complete | Modern AU | Friends-with-benefits to lovers | Accidental Pregnancy | Pregnancy/Childbirth | Pining | Fluff | Marriage | Friend group dynamic | HEA | reylo baby | Smut | Multi POV | Opps. Friends-with-benefits Ben and Rey make a quarentine baby! Fic follows conception to birth and the romantic journey of the parents as they get their shit togther and get their heads out of their asses and find their HEA. | Okay, this fic is set in an AU where the covid pandemic was WAY less of a big deal than it has been IRL, so there is only a bit of covid/quarantine/pandemic in the beginning. | Ahhhhhh! This is perfection! So well written with brilliant characterization! It's not overly dramatic or angsty but there is a realness in the details that makes it so compelling to read and so enjoyable!
WIPs
It's a Long Way to the Top by mzladybird | @mzladybird | Explicit | 139k | WIP: last updated 2022-02-21 | Modern AU | Musicians | Bandmates | Fame | Drugs, Sex & Rock n Roll | Drummer!Rey | Canon age difference | Mutual Pining | No-strings-attached (Sure Jan) | Falling in love | Size kink | Drama | Angst | Multi POV | Rey's journey drumming with the Tie-Fighters and her tumultuous relationship with guitarist Ben Solo. Fame isnt all it's cut out to be. | Fantastic prose, super interesting characterizations! Love the friendship between the bandmates. Smut as hot as the surface of Venus 🥵
One Above All by AquaWolfGirl | @aquawolfgirl | Explicit | 149k | WIP: Last updated 2022-01-26 | Historical AU | Conquerors/emperors | Forced marriage | Enemies to friends to lovers | Slow burn | Romance | Politics | Action/Drama | Mention of past abuse | no smut yet | Multi POV | Rey didn't expect her arranged union to Emperor Snoke to be happy, considering her parents sold her hand in marriage for a decent sum of gold, but she didn't expect it to end this soon, either. Married to a tyrant, Rey isn't surprised when the people of his empire come to see his blood spilled. But she is surprised when Kylo Ren, named 'king killer', becomes emperor and decides to not only keep her alive, but take her as his own empress. | Phenomenal world building! The slowest of slow burns!
Across Six Septembers by bluetoast | @blue-toast17 | Explicit | 407k | WIP: Last updated 2021- 12-14 | Historic AU | 1860's | American Frontier | Strangers to lovers | Multiple storylines | Many OC's | Weddings | Babies | Drama | Charcter death (multiple) | Fluff | Domesticity | Multi POV | The story of a blacksmith, his mail order bride and the many interweaving stories of their families -- spanning years and continents. | Massive, and detailed with sprawling, interconnecting storylines.
Enjoy!
After telling my sister about this list she was all but I like short ones too! So I guess I'm making a short n sweet rec list too now ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Quite awhile back, I was tagged by @dragonologist-phd in a fic writing ask meme! Thanks so much for thinking of me <3
I tagged some people further down in this post, so consider yourself tagged if you’re seeing this notification now! Also if you’re seeing this on your dash and want to do this, sincerely just go for it, toot your own horn.
How many works do you have on AO3?
Sixteen works, including two fics for the 2021 Black Emporium rare pair exchange that were just made un-anonymous ;D
What’s your total AO3 words count?
Holy shit, somehow recently hit over 100k? 100,909 words.
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
5. Elder City - Extremely proud of this Zevran & Morrigan character study, not gonna lie.
4. Across a Crow'ded Room - Crowt3 longfic my beloved.
3. Break A Sweat - I’m happy this has so many kudos, since it’s Gen! A fic focused on the Locked Tomb siblings Ianthe and Coronabeth, written for an exchange.
2. Undone by Teeth or Temper - It is porn, so I’m not surprised by its high view count, but it is a femslash rare pair including a pretty widely disliked character, so I have to admit I’m pleased by the high views/kudos ratio.
1. Stupendous Work of a Titty Nature - I got in on the ground floor of the Locked Tomb fandom (pre-ordered GtN because I was a fan of the author’s previous work) and this was one of the earliest fics on AO3 for the series. Also it is silly teenage Gideon/Harrow shenanigans, so I see why people like it.
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
Always! It amazes me when people take the time to comment on my stories, so I like to say thanks and start a conversation if I can :)
Also I met my literal, irl girlfriend through AO3 comments, so ~you never know~
What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Considering I love to read angst, I haven’t written much of it. Arguably Test of Faith, which needs a second chapter one day.
What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
Not that many people out there read Discworld fanfic, but No Rest for the Witches, Granny Weatherwax’s Very Stressful Day, is extremely wholesome.
Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?
Crossovers aren’t my thing.
Have you ever received hate on a fic?
I live in fear of being cancelled for romanticizing shitty relationships via my Zevran/Rinna/Taliesen stories, but nope, no hate yet. Just for the record: I think their relationship is bad, tragic, and should not be emulated in any form. I am against girlfriend murder!! Also, I think their pain is entertaining and aspects of their story have the potential to be very funny.
Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I’ve written a modest amount of smut. My only smut fic to ever see the light of day so far is Undone by Teeth or Temper, though.
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Thank goodness, no.
Have you ever had a fic translated?
Nope. Hmu if you want to, though!
Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Not officially. But several fics have been brainstormed by me and other people, like many of the jokes in A Little Light Reading were thought up in a conversation with @aubergion, @rlainarin, and @m-m-m-myysurana. And @snarky-warden has to hear every single crowt3 thought that enters my head, so she should get some co-credit for those, as well as giving me ideas for the very charming Zevran/Shianni fic I wrote for 2021 Black Emporium.
What’s your all-time favourite ship?
Zevwarden, of course. Zevran/Rinna/Taliesen comes second. Third is “every other conceivable relationship involving two or more dragon age women.”
What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
I’m a clown who sincerely thinks they will finish all their WIPs one day.
What are your writing strengths?
I think I’m good at consistent character voice, and dialogue overall. It’s very flattering when people say they like my plots and stories, because I work hard at those, but I have a long way to go.
What are your writing weaknesses?
I love a good sword fight but I hate writing sword fights. My greatest weakness, however, is when a character has to stand up from a chair and walk from one place to another. Why is getting characters from place to place so vexing??
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
Unpopular opinion but, personally I usually find it cringey. Just say, “She said, in Elvish,” or whatever. I also don’t like using real-world languages as stand-ins for fictional foreign languages. (e.g. French for Orlesian, or Italian for Antivan.) (I do this in my own fic, though, so I am a hypocrite.)
What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Uhh technically it may have been Neopets?? But if you count “something I wrote that I mentally classified as fan fiction while I was writing it” I think it would be R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt books. RIP 2 me.
What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
Across a Crow'ded Room <3 What a wild display of hubris and ambition to decide I could write complicated longfic when I had literally never written anything longer than about 1000 words. Still going to finish it, though!
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20 [Fanfic Writer] Questions Game
Thank you so much for tagging me, @lemony-snickers! This is tons of fun, I love answering these kinds of big questionnaires 😂💕 Also putting mine under a cut because there’s a lot of questions and I like to ramble.
Also gonna go ahead and just tag whoever wants to do this! 😅💕
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
As of August 27, 2021, I have a total of 77 works on my AO3!
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
Funny enough, I was just looking at this, specifically, earlier today and kind of laughing about it. Right now, my total word count across all my works is 1,148,941 😬
3. How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?
Apparently 12, but some of them I don’t really consider “big” in my fandom repertoire. Naruto is my greatest fandom with a total of 60 fics so far, followed by The Chronicles of Narnia and Rise of the Guardians. The rest are ones I either did crossover fics with or just did one-off little pieces with--The Incredibles, Tangled, Brave, How to Train Your Dragon, Arthurian Mythology, Disney Princesses, Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, Back to the Future, and Frozen.
4. What are your Top Five fics by kudos?
The Scarecrow and The Bell (Naruto) - 470 kudos The Day Kakashi’s Mask Slipped (Naruto) - 139 kudos Sunflowers (Naruto) - 92 kudos Sakumo the House Husband (Naruto) - 81 kudos Someone to Lean On (Naruto) - 67 kudos
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I always try to respond to comments, because I like to acknowledge when people respond to my work. I cherish comments like nobody’s business, especially when they’re kind and reactionary. I just really love seeing/hearing what people think of the way a story is progressing, or what they thought of a one-shot. Comments keep me going especially when it comes to longfic so I want to be able to let readers know that I do in fact see their comments, that I’m acknowledging what they’re saying, and that I appreciate them. Plus, it can be kind of fun to tease upcoming events in a fic through responses to people’s comments, too. Because I’m mean.
6. What fic have you written with the angstiest ending?
Definitely Hothouse (Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles; Jack Frost x Violet Parr; American Horror Story AU). This was the first multi-chaptered fic I ever wrote to completion and I honestly cringe when I remember it exists both because it’s so poorly organized (and full of nasty plot holes) and because I just went ham on the gore factor. It definitely has a really bittersweet and heartbreaking ending to it, too.
7. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
I think I’ll definitely have to say Temptation. The story itself was kind of a ride, and it’s only the first installment in a series, but it follows the plot of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe but remixed due to the presence of an original character, but the ending is still roughly the same as the original: they defeat the evil, the Pevensies are all crowned kings and queens, happy days. Reading the last few paragraphs of the last chapter honestly still gets me all up in my feelings.
8. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?
I used to be more of a crossover writer due to one of my main ships being a crossover ship. They weren’t super crazy, though, because they were both CGI-animated films. The craziest crossover I’ve ever written is an in-progress/unfinished multichapter piece, Kakashi, Enchanted, that sees our favorite Copy Ninja get kamui’d into the Disney princess dimension and has to help the likes of Snow White, Cinderella, and Rapunzel on his journey to find a way back to his own world. It’s a super weird premise but definitely one of my more lighthearted works and fun to revisit when I need to decompress.
9. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
I don’t think I’ve ever received hate so much as I’ve received criticism. The closest I ever got to hate on a fic, I think, was someone left an overly personal and mentally disturbed comment on a chapter of my main fic that made me convinced they needed to seek therapy and deal with their own personal issues rather than take it out on a fanfic about animated ninjas.
10. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Maybe 👀 I’m super vanilla when it comes to smut, though. I think the wildest thing I’ve ever written in smut is breeding kink.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of, and I hope I never will.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Not yet! I had someone ask to translate a one-shot of mine in Russian but I never got a response back when I laid out my terms and conditions.
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
I have not! I used to do paragraph-style roleplay which was kind of like cowriting fanfiction but writing is so personal and sacred to me that I don’t know if I could ever actually cowrite a fic with someone. I like brainstorming with other people, but writing for me is more of a deeply personal and independent endeavour.
14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?
Oh god, this is a tricky question because it depends on fandom. I absolutely love New Dream (Rapunzel x Eugene, Tangled) and have for the past ten years, and my love for them as only grown since watching Tangled: The Series/Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. I don’t write or even really read a ton of fanfiction for them, though. I’m also still highly dedicated to my favorite crossover crackship, Frostfield (Jack Frost x Violet Parr, Rise of the Guardians/The Incredibles) and to this day, if you search for that ship on AO3, I am the sole provider of every single fic about them so far. I’m not as active with them as I used to be, but they got me through some really rough times back in the day and still mean so much to me. A lot of my favorite ships across fandoms, though, are honestly canon x OC ships of mine because I am a self-indulgent bitch who needs to project. So Peter Pevensie x Eilonwy (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Kakashi Hatake x Rei Natsuki (Naruto) are really important to me and I’ve poured so much of myself specifically into their stories. I think it’s safe to say Kakashi and Rei is my all-time favorite ship across all fandoms, though, just because of how much their story means to me. The Scarecrow and The Bell is my magnum opus, my pride and joy, and I’m sure it will be my biggest fandom footprint of my entire life. I’ve dedicated the past three years to this story and these characters and I intend to continue doing it until it no longer brings me joy (which I hope it always will). There’s just so much I could say about this story and Kakashi and Rei’s relationship but I don’t think we have enough time or space in this post for that 😅 Just know that they mean the world to me and I will always hold them in the highest regard as a beautifully messy, flawed, passionate, soulmate-y ship that I love with all of my heart 🥺
EDIT: I also feel obligated to tack on some of my absolute favorite Naruto ships because I may not have written for all of them (yet) but they still make me unbelievably happy or I find them really compelling and enjoy the idea of exploring them:
Naruhina is precious happy sunshine and The Last honestly felt like a wonderful Disney princess movie to me, it was so cute and the romance was so on-point, Naruhina just makes me so incredibly happy and I love them with all my heart.
MinaKushi also gets me all up in my feels and I adore them with every fiber of my being. Their romance also gave me Disney princess movie vibes which I love, their story is just so damn sweet as is their character dynamic and I am still so heartbroken that they never got to be a happy family with Naruto because you know what? It’s what they deserved!
SasuSaku is so compelling to me and I really feel like we were cheated out of seeing their relationship develop and evolve postwar in the same way The Last did for Naruhina. They’re my favorite angst ship and while I don’t think they were written that well in canon, I love the possibility and potential of them together and am excited to explore them more in-depth in my own writing.
NejiTen is just too cute, I really love the way Neji and Tenten’s personalities compliment each other? I don’t have much else to say about them except that I really love them together and think they have so much untapped potential that I also can’t wait to explore in more depth in my own writing.
15. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
Paper Hearts and Impromptu Bookmarks, probably. I love the premise of this story a lot and I have so many interesting ideas for it but at the same time, it also feels kind of cheap and cringey to me, in a way? It takes all of these ideas I probably would have had if I had been into Naruto when I was a kid and kind of compiles them all into one big story. Kakashi and Aiko’s relationship and story is still really important to me and I want to continue it someday but for right now, I just haven’t had the motivation or desire to write any more of it. I think I’m just so overwhelmingly preoccupied with writing Kakashi and Rei’s story that I can’t imagine writing any other Kakashi x OC fics right now.
16. What are your writing strengths?
I want to say that I’m really good at capturing complex emotion? I don’t know, I write a lot of angst and mental upheaval in my fics which can be really difficult to try and capture, but I think I do a decent enough job of it? And just writing difficult subjects in general. I think it’s really important to address difficult topics such as mental illness and relationship difficulties and everything but I also want to try and write those topics in a way that is both authentic to the experience while also still tasteful. I don’t want to drive readers away with heavy subject matter but rather present a situation that feels real and authentic while also still being digestible. I may not be doing a very good job of that during the current arc of my fic that I’m working on, but I’m trying haha
EDIT 2: I also want to add onto this to say that I’m really proud of my organizational techniques for writing longfic. It’s not necessarily a strength in terms of the prose itself but it’s something that’s taken me years to really get a grasp on and find a method that works perfectly for me and so far, it’s been extremely helpful and beneficial to me. I don’t know where I would be now as a writer without these essential tools in my pocket.
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
I feel like I do a really bad job of the “show, don’t tell” thing. It can be really hard to balance descriptive prose with straightforward writing that moves things along. I don’t want to dwell on mental dialogue to the point where you lose track of what’s going on, but I also don’t want my stuff to read like “Character A did xyz. Character B said abc. They went to 123″, whatever. Another thing I struggle with is sentence variation. I always fall into the same patterns when I’m writing prose and I get really self-conscious about it because I don’t want to sound repetitive or disrupt the flow of the writing. One of my favorite things about prose is focusing on the cadence of the words, I think it’s one of the most beautiful things about writing in general, but it can just be really difficult to get a good grip on that. I’ve been told in the past that I apparently have a really good grasp/control of the language or whatever but sometimes I just find that really hard to believe when I look at my work with such scrutiny. I think one of my biggest pet peeves with my own writing, too, is feeling like I start all of my sentences the same five different ways. I’ll read other people’s works and they’ll write sentences like “Glass-blue water lapped against the shores of a deserted beach as a lonely woman gazed off into the distance” and I can just never figure out how to realistically write sentences that start like that in the context of my prose and it drives me fucking crazy, like I’m definitely jealous 😅
18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I’ve never really thought much about it before, but I think there are pros and cons! For bilingual/multilingual readers, I think it can be a really enriching reading experience because they know what’s being said in both languages. For people who only know one language, however, unless a translation is provided, I feel like it can be really alienating. I think the best use of that for both worlds is using it as a means for miscommunication humor. Other than that, I think it can be a slippery slope that depends on what kind of reader you are and how it’s written.
19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
The Chronicles of Narnia! My very first fanfiction was a Narnia fanfic that I barely remember except that it laid the basis for Temptation and my Narnia fanfic series as a whole. I never posted this first iteration anyway, but I remember it was 2008/2009 and I wrote a solid 80 pages (which was wild for me at the time) and had gotten halfway through remixing the events of Prince Caspian when my computer crashed and I lost absolutely everything. I’m still heartbroken that it’s gone forever, not because I’d want to go back and read it necessarily (since I’m sure it was actually hot garbage) but at least for nostalgia’s sake. Either way, like I said, this long-lost fic laid the basis for the very first fanfiction I ever posted, the first published (and never finished) iteration of Temptation back in 2011 on deviantART and the since-defunct Figment. I fell out of the fandom around 2012/2013 and left the story alone for a while before ultimately deciding to completely redux and rewrite the story when the fixation swung back around again between 2016 and 2018.
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
Despite the fact that it’s still in-progress, definitely The Scarecrow and The Bell. This fic just genuinely means so damn much to me and I will cherish it for the rest of my life because of how much it’s given me, how much love and passion and time and even parts of myself that I have poured into this, and also just how expansive of a story this is. Not only does it touch on some very dark and heavy topics, but I’ve also created so much of my own characters and meta for this story that it’s almost an entire universe in and of itself. I’ve just contributed so much additional world-building and created so many new OCs to fill important roles in this story and in Rei’s life, and they’ve all become so deeply important to me as they’ve developed further over the years. I’ve come up with so many interesting ideas for everyone and their lives, which are all slowly becoming so rich and varied. Not to mention that it’s my most popular fic to date as well as my longest fic at 632k and counting. I’ve really just genuinely poured so much of my heart and soul into this story, it’s my absolute favorite thing I’ve ever done and I really mean it when I say that I will cherish it for the rest of my life.
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For the Ask Game! 🧑 favorite character to write? And/Or 📒any fics planned?
Sorry for the delay on these - my heat exhaustion has left me knocked out for a while.
🧑 Favorite character to write:
Short answer: Harvest Moon's Cliff (all incarnations)
Long answer: I don't think it's really any secret that my favorite Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons characters to write for are the ones that reside at Doug's Inn. I see Doug, Ann, Gray, Kai, and Cliff as a large, dysfunctional family – AKA Doug and all of his children, haha. There are so many different personalities in one small space playing off of one another, and there's so much fun to be had. I loved how all the guys in shared a room in the GBA version of Mineral Town. It kinda reminds me of those cheesy sitcoms where clashing personalities all reside under the same roof. That being said, there is a particular shy, reclusive young man who blossoms with confidence as he finds purpose in his life. Bonus: he comes with a vague, tragic past that has tons of potential for exploration. I have a hard time resisting woobie-type characters.
📒 Any Fics Planned?
Short answer: Yes. I also plan to bring more of my stories over from ffn to Ao3.
Long answer under the cut, heheh. I rambled quite a bit.
Ask me about my writing processes and stories!
I have so many WIPs that haven't been touched in years that I'd like to finish, so new planned fics aren't posted yet. Some of them have more adult themes than most of the stuff I've been writing, so I get flustered sharing them. I've been at a crossroads, as I feel that you can't have growth without changing things up. On the other hand, I feel like a lot of my readers associate my works with a specific “wholesome” feel-good mood. It's kinda nice to be known for something, although that might just be my ego talking, thinking that people recognize my work as a “type”.
Regardless, in the end, I feel growth is necessary.
I don't want to leave a lot of unfinished WIPs waiting because they stress me out and I have too many of them already, so I'd like to have a bulk of my new stories with a good chunk written before I decide to post them.
Among those include:
A longfic featuring Pete's farm in Forget-Me-Not Valley (A blend of HMDS with the FoMT plugin and AWL). It takes place in the same universe as The Shy Newcomer (Claire in Mineral Town) and there are a few overlapping moments, although Pete's story starts first. Pete's personality is verrry different from Claire's, and his story was kind of supposed to be the yang to TSN's yin. Pete's best friends in his story are Ruby (not sure if I'm adding Tim yet), Nami, and Rock. Readers will be treated to a poorly-socialized pre-Mineral Town Cliff (if you think he was bad at the beginning of TSN, well... heh... he's a wreck here).
Another planned unpublished story is a crossover of Harvest Moon and the movie “In This Corner of the World”, based on a manga of the same name by Fumiyo Kouno. It was written as a gift for a friend. I have the entire outline figured out and have slowly been filling it in. My friend asked for an AU where Claire and Cliff have an arranged marriage and live with his family in Akiyama, the hometown I had created for Cliff in The Shy Newcomer. I took the opportunity to expand the characters in his family. I have it written during the same time period and society as “In This Corner of the World”, but had decided to write a spreading disease as an allegory for war, but then COVID happened and some parts of it just got really hard to write. There are also a lot of sexually explicit content as Claire slowly grows and learns from her spouse that it's okay to express what she wants despite sex being a taboo issue. If there's enough interest in the story, I'll post it, but I worry it's a little too niche for there to be many people into it.
Pastor Carter and Doctor Trent are one of my favorite rare pair ships. I've had a partial draft for a story about them for a few years now, especially focusing on Trent growing up and acknowledging that he has an unhealthy addiction for things that he knows he can't have. There are some more adult/sexual themes in this piece, too, including the main character lusting after a married woman (who also happens to be his patient) and some lemons. (Does anyone call it that anymore or is it just referred to as “smut” nowadays? Haha) I always feel so bad for neglecting the folks at the clinic in-game and wanted to write a piece that focused more on them, Trent specifically. It's a multi-chap fic, but I don't think I'm going to let it get as long as some of my other pieces.
I also really want to write a short romantic oneshot for every marriage candidate in Mineral Town, around 1,000 words each. So far, I have one for Cliff and one for Gray. I want to write Claire with everyone, because I think it would be fun to explore all the different personalities.
I have more installments planned for A Single Day, including a day in the life of the following characters, all with drafts in varying degrees of progress:
Anna
Doug
Nora (yes, I'm writing from the point of view of the cat living at the inn)
More to come – I think Lillia and Thomas would be especially interesting to explore
I do still have that Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask piece I've been pondering where Link befriends the soul of the deku scrub child while possessed by the mask. I don't have much written about it, but I really love the world of Majora's Mask. Such a fun game.
I also think about the lead carpenter's son in Ocarina of Time and that weird side quest involving the blue chicken and the son being lost to the forest. Then that unique-looking kokiri girl explaining that all who get taken in the lost woods become stalfos. Like, did the guy die? Was he sick? Did he want to die? There's just so much going on there that would be fun to explore.
I also have played OMORI recently and have like... A LOT of feelings about it. I don't know what I'd write, but I'm still damn impressed at how well the characters are developed in such a short game.
Other games I've had vague ideas about writing for include the following:
The Flame in the Flood: I'm thinking a survivalist/action story fleshing out Scout's backstory a bit more and her thoughts as she's traveling. I feel like she's a very lonely person, but isn't given the chance to really dwell on it.
Night In the Woods: I'd love to write more about Mae's dreams and what they mean to her. She doesn't really talk to anyone about them openly, so it's really hard to tell her feelings about them in some regards. We know that she's distressed about them, but I'd like to dive a little deeper. Do the nightmares end after the games does? What about Bea's new nightmares?
Hades (Supergiant Games): I think it would be fun to write more about the events that take place before the game starts, like Zagreus's duties in the house of Hades, and expand on the strained relationship with his father.
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fanfic tag game <3
ah @zet-sway thanks a bundle!! anybody who wants to join in, consider yourselves tagged! 320,301! cheesy pleasy that’s wild.
How many works do you have on AO3?
13 of varying lengths!
What’s your total AO3 word count?
320,301! cheesy pleasy that’s wild.
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe - a fallout 4, deacon/female sole survivor long-fic
our wide eyes burn blind - a dragon age, krem/female mage trevelyan long(ish)-fic
lionhearted - a mass effect, thane krios/female shepard long-fic
black magic on the holy drive - a fallout 4, deacon/female sole survivor mini-series
Hurt - an until dawn, samjosh one-shot
Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
i REALLY try hard to even though i am not always successful. i appreciate them so much and i want people to know how much they mean to me.
What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
treason is a deacon/female sole survivor one-shot where the sole survivor betrays him and the railroad and joins the institute. i think i also find it sadder because it’s the same main character as features in my fallout 4 longfic.
What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
most of my fics have happy endings! the one that’s outright the happiest is a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe. my good guys win and nobody dies :)
Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the strangest one you’ve written?
no,i don’t.
Have you ever received hate on a fic?
i don’t know if i’d call it outright hate, but i very recently had someone extremely unhappy about the way i write garrus (which, to their credit, is pretty different from most of fandom at large). what can i say? i like him a lot more like a snarky little brother than most people i guess.
other than that, it’s been a long time since i’ve gotten much in the way of unkind feedback.
Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
most of my fics have an... erotic element. the long-fics, anyway.
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
not as far as I know!
Have you ever had a fic translated?
yes! someone unbelievably kind translated my until dawn fic, Hurt, into russian! the translation is here.
Have you ever co-written a fic before?
in high school, my best friend and i used to e-mail a fic back and forth! we wrote quite a chunk of fic for the prince of tennis and fullmetal alchemist fandoms ^^; if you see this, lissa, i miss those days! <3
What’s your all-time favorite ship?
it’s tough for me to pick; i’m a little fickle and i jump around too often to ever be a BNF! it’s between deacon/female sole survivor and shrios, simply because those are the worlds i’ve probably lived in the most.
What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
i actually don’t think i have one! i finish almost everything i start (or at least everything that makes its way online).
What are your writing strengths?
god if i ain’t the man at writing dialogue. i feel like i have a real strength for knowing the ins and outs of a character and bringing them to life. in fact, i would go so far as to say that a surefire way to make me write fic is to introduce a character with great potential that’s either spoiled or wasted (deacon and thane are my obvious examples, but krem, kal’reegar, james vega, irikah, ashley williams, and sera are others)
What are your writing weaknesses?
what the fuck is a plot. i’m out here writing novelizations of media. plot is, bar none, my greatest weakness, even though i think i’ve grown lightyears with it recently.
What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
i did this frequently in a sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe; my sole survivor was a dane recently transplanted to the US before the bombs dropped, and it was a lot of fun to write her fish-out-of-water story. i probably wouldn’t do it for any language i don’t speak, because it has a real potential to break bad if you come to have a reader who does speak that language.
What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Naruto. haaaaaaaaaaaaa :’)
What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
literally impossible question. as far as the best product i’ve ever made, it’s probably lionhearted (even though it’s not done yet). it’s by far my most mature (as in not immature) fic.
the true, honest answer though is probably that i’m proudest of the first fic i ever published, which was a death note one-shot when i was fourteen. that was the first time i was ever brave enough to share something i wrote with strangers, and i think THAT is what i’m really proudest of. even now i get butterflies when i post. that teenager was courageous as hell.
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writing tag game
Thanks @kitepiper for the tag!
how many works do you have on Ao3?
43
(Edit: why is this turning up so big, I’ve literally deleted this section and rewritten it??)
what’s your total Ao3 word count?
550,064 (wow)
what are your top 5 fics by kudos?
The Undeserving - Zero surprise there, I started this fic probably during the height of Rebels popularity
A Quiet Night - holy crap this oneshot?? Mando fics really do do well comparatively
Footsteps of the Forgotten - also not a surprise, my only other truly long fic
Nothing More Important - I love that this is has done so well, so many people bitter about the Mando S2 finale haha
Family Boundaries - Probably my shortest fic (182 words) but it’s talk about found family and Mando traditions so...
So 3 of my top five are Mando related and oneshots, and the other two are just my two longfics (long being REALLY long). That’s kinda funny haha
do you respond to comments, why or why not?
No, very rarely. Maybe as a holdover from ffnet, I tend to use comments as a gauge for how well my fic is doing, but I don’t want to reply and inflate those numbers ‘unfairly’
what’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
Well certainly lots of happy oneshots. And I try to end all my fics on a relatively happy note. Although I’m not sure I have any multi-chapter fics that are 100% happy, there’s always some amount of ‘potentially happy future’ or ‘hopeful future’ if not right now to them. I have trouble tying everything up completely nicely, real world never truly ends so I struggle to make solid endings in fic.
what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Exhales. Well, certainly many installments of my and @stardustgirl-writes werewolf!AU. AltEzra’s ending is gonna be pretty angsty. And Footsteps of the Fallen is likely to end on a pseudo cliffhanger ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
do you write crossovers?
Outside of Star Wars canon not really. Unless you count using the idea of daemons from His Dark Materials for my daiima AU. Not strictly against it just haven’t had the inspiration.
have you ever received hate on a fic?
In other fandoms on ffnet, yes. Some people have accused me of stealing (we just happened to come up with a vaguely similar concept) or have slammed me for a certain pairing. I don’t think I have in the Rebels fandom... I’ve definitely received comments that are rude or bizarre but I can’t recall anything I’d strictly define as ‘hate’
do you write smut? if so, what kind?
For myself, quite frequently. In previous fandoms, I published it a lot more, but it was almost exclusively noncon since I was basically trying to process my own trauma. The only smut I’ve published for Rebels is the aptly named Good Hard Pleasure Kanera fic
have you ever had a fic stolen?
In a previous fandom, yes. The premise and powers I have certain characters was identical to my fic, including the general plot progression. Never said anything since mine was way more popular anyway.
have you ever had a fic translated?
Nope
have you ever co-written a fic before?
Yup the werewolf AU series with stardustgirl-writes
what’s your all-time favourite ship?
Huh, hard to say. I love Kanera of course. And recently turning into a big garashir stan.
what’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
I’d like to finish all of them. The one that is haunting me the most is the last ATLA fic I had been writing in ffnet. It was actually hugely popular, but then Rebels pulled me away. I really want to finish it someday T^T
what are your writing strengths?
Dialogue (not to just echo kitepiper, but this has been true my whole life haha)
what are your writing weaknesses?
Describing visual stuff. Whether it’s environment, someone’s appearance, body language... I’m just not a visual person so I often forget to do it in writing.
what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
Depends on the context. Is it a conlang or ficitional language or a real one? I’ve used french as a stand in for twi’lek before. If it’s a full conversation, I’m more likely to say “they chattered in x language” or something to that nature.
what was the first fandom you wrote for?
Supernatural (yes, I was a hardcore spn fan for seasons 1-7, then I got bored with it haha)
what’s your favourite fic you’ve written?
Hmm hard to say. I am proud of The Undeserving, a lot of effort went into it. I also really love my daiima series, although I’m getting burnt out on it (which is unfortunate because I’m only like halfway through the intended plot x_x).
Oh actually, Gudiya Raja (which kitepiper actually helped me pick a lullaby and title for). My mind tends to drift to this one pretty often. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and it was a good way for me to work out my feelings for both Jedi Night and with the whitewashing and racism that happens in the fandom.
Tagging: @stardustgirl-writes, @isaakandreyevs, @bedlamsbard, and anyone else who wants to join in^^
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okay trying again because the wifi cut out the first time but! i really want to know about numbers 5, 6, 15, and 19 -hazel
hello hazel thx for stopping by the ol' ask box! i hope you're having a good day :)))
5. show me your favorite under-appreciated fic; why do you wish it got more attention? what if i'm weak (and i need you tonight?) was my fic with the lowest number of kudos at twelve until literally yesterday when it tied with my drabble and canoeing malum (and now that place is being taken by it's sequel lol) which kinda surprised me? i mean the responses i've gotten have been lovely but it's probably my favorite au i've written other than maybe the road not taken lashton universe, and now that it's part of a series i wish it had a touch more interaction so i can feel more confident if i decide to write more in that world (which hopefully i will unless my other wips kidnap me and hold me for ransom lol). i'm always going to write what i want and not what's popular/what other people might prefer but its always good to know new projects will be well received.
6. what fic is on your back burner, waiting to be written when you feel your skill matches its potential? ohhh there are a few but the one that i'm saving until i'm a stronger writer (and until i finish my first longfic) is this muke-centered series i think has real potential. it'd be in two (or maybe more) parts, the first being an another place by bastille songfic which would be a fwb situation where luke thinks they're just doing it to have fun and get out of their heads but michael's slowly falling in love with him (needless to say it'd be an angst fic) and then the next installment would be a fourth of july by fob songfic that'd be half flashbacks about how a few months after another place fic they ended up kinda dating but they weren't on the same page about what the relationship is (luke's leaving once the summer ends and thinks it's more a lighthearted, fun relationship before he leaves for idk what yet and michael thinks of it as a more serious relationship) and half somewhere in the future when luke's haunted by the realization that michael's actually the only person he ever loved and he just didn't realize it at the time and michael's trying to move on and they meet up again and have to deal with everything.
it's obviously a lot and tbh idk if i'll ever have the skill level to write it but i'd really really love to bc i think it has huge potential and i wouldn't trust anyone else to write it (no offense meant, i'd just hate for it to turn out different than what's in my head and then i wouldn't like it and offend whoever wrote it). it'd be a huge challenge not just bc it'd be hella long and i still have lots of plot issues to iron out but also i think it'd be better if it leaned towards an M rating (like obvs no smut bc i'm me but def some implied stuff and maybe a couple make out scenes) and right now i can't even write a detailed kissing scene much less anything M rated (it certainly doesn't help that i've never kissed anyone lol) so. my writing would have to improve by leaps and bounds. sorry that's probably way to detailed an answer than you wanted lkjsfkjds
15. what are some of your favorite tropes to write? do they match the ones you read? if you haven't noticed i love writing hurt/comfort and mutual pining in part bc they're both easy mindsets for me to slip into (for various reasons lol). idk if it's a trope but i also love concepts that are more,, out there ig? like i have a lot more fun writing something that's not necessarily your usual fic plot bc those tend to be the ideas i get the most and also there's more freedom if people don't have specific expectations. funnily enough, i don't really read a lot of hurt/comfort, esp ones dealing with physical injuries bc while i can write it i can't always read it (yes that makes no sense my brain is weird) i do love reading mutual pining but i'm usually more a fan of ones where they get together in the end while when i write it's usually pre-slash. i adore reading outlandish plots tho and am obsessed with other people's hyperspecific aus bc they tend to have extra passion from the writer that just bleeds into the fic itself.
19. do you prefer writing dialogue, description, or some other part? why? i think dialogue tends to be easier for me to write, and it can also be helpful bc the characters tend to run off in their own direction which can sometimes help me figure out what the heck the fic is about (it can also be annoying but that's a different problem). description writing is only fun when i come up with a funky fresh simile to describe a feeling and other than that it's struggle central lol
#gosh my answer to 6 is so fucking long i'm so sorry skldfjsdkjl#i just love talking about my fic ideas it's so much easier than actually writing them#if i could just talk about my ideas instead of writing them;; that would be the dream#skfjlkdsjflkgdjkgjf#ask games#hazel#answering mail
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For the writer asks: 1, 2, 11, 22? :)
1Tell us about your current project(s) – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?
I have 3 ongoing WIPs with multiple chapters with some shorter pieces I’ve been toying around with. I also am working on my piece for the Smutquisition which I won’t speak about too much, but I will say it’s a pairing I never really thought of before, but it has so much potential!
My ongoing and probably favorite project is In Waking Dreams, my Cullen and Circle mage quiz longfic. I finished it in 2018 I think at the final battle with Corypheus but always wanted to continue till past tresspasser, I just got involved with other fandoms and such in that gap of time. I also wasn’t emotionally ready? I tried to write it and it never seemed to work until recently. Fitting since i finished a week before starting graduate school, and this year I finish. (KNOCK ON WOOD PLEASE)
I feel like everyone has that one OTP that stands out, and Cullen and Lydia are mine, and it’s nice writing them in a time in their lives where they have finally chilled the hell down, lol.
Second project is my Warden and Morrigan fic, which is slow to update I’ll admit, but I have an outline and looking forward to the rest! I always wanted to explore this pairing and am glad I get to.
And finally I have a Seventies girl in thedas story...might drop the first chapter soon, just making sure I have some buffer chapters and a plan, lol.
2.Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project
Mild spoiler but Cullen gets injured, and I can finally do the one trope I’m a sucker for but could never wedge into my longfic before, the good old hurt/comfort/tending injury. He also meets an old friend, :p
Also...there’s going to be some angst coming up separate from that, very excited :)
11. What do you envy in other writers?
I’m happy with my own unique writing style, improving where I can through practice. I used to be jealous of Donna Tartt for being effortlessly eloquent with literally every single sentence, and now I’m really appreciating the ability some writers have to say things simply, as I can get pretty long winded.
22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them?
Well, I reread the entirety of In Waking Dreams because I figured there’d be a few typos I would want to clean up, (and I was toying with going back and needed a refresher on what happened) and what do you know...I got into it. It’s a slowburn that hits my buttons including but not limited to: romantic drama, a couple who works through their issues, an imperfect heroine, and smut. So I say... mission accomplished. I was lowkey sad there wasn’t more, and perhaps that’s another reason I started writing again, lol.
I used to think maybe rereading your fics for pure enjoyment was kind of odd, but then I was like...wait, you wrote the story you would want to read dummy!
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Wednesday Update, Jan 20th
Alright, so, to start the update - Tumblr is fucking with me again and I can’t see my pinned post unless I go directly to my blog from a visitor perspective, can anyone else see it? Onto actual writing updates: This week’s fic is going to be a bit shorter than the last few - a last chatty somnophilia-ish fic with Obey Me’s Belphegor and some abstract dream state stuff. It was a spur of the moment idea that came to me while trying to sleep so I ran with it for this week. Next week will be a birthday smut fic for Tohru Adachi’s birthday (another excuse to write more for the bastard). The week after that? I’m not quite sure yet. I’ve started on the dialogue for Danger Seeker with Akabayashi, but the Ares/Priest of Athena! Reader is also fleshing itself out more for me (I want to get around to the other Adachi requests still, too, but I still want to try not to do the same character multiple weeks in a row anymore). Still adding to my requests and such as well! Recently a request was made that once again touched on a concept I already had in my notes, so that concept has crept up in priority over my other concepts - but I also have concepts just more prominently in mind that sounds fun - A third chapter for Under His Thumb for example, or several other fics involving other Durarara!! characters like Izaya, Shiki, and Walker. Really, it’s a toss-up for the week after next, but I’ll talk about that more then! As a final note, I have started the first chapter of what may be a potential Reader/Adachi longfic. However, my plan is not to upload any of it until it’s complete, so I don’t leave anyone hanging! This will be my first time trying out something like this, so wish me luck! Thanks for reading and I’ll see y’all later this week for the upload of the Belphegor fic on Friday!
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Oh Mighty Word Wrangler, bestow upon me your wisdom!! ♥ What do you think makes your amazing fics so popular? Apart from your OBVIOUS talent and writing ability, of course ;) Is it frequency of posting? The pairings? Amount of smut? I'm curious :D
HAHAHAH THANK YOU FOR THAT COMPLIMENT YOU SNUCK IN THERE but also I’M PANIC at the thought of trying to answer this question lol?? I mean, this is the question for the ages, right? What makes a fic popular, and how do we boost the engagement with our own work?
Let me preface this reply by saying it is based just on my experiences and hypothesizing, and NOT on anything systematic. Trust me, I’d study this like a science if I could, but then I wouldn’t be writing. HAHA. Also, I’ll mostly focus on popularity on AO3 and not on Tumblr, since I would argue that I’m only “known as a writer” on Tumblr because people followed me here from AO3.
First of all, I want to highlight the fact that popularity does not equal quality, and vice versa. I’ve read some fics that are AMAZING but have little engagement. Some examples are Last Call by @galadrieljones (Ameridan/Lavellan) and this very short Fenris fic that I just read recently. On the other hand, I’ve tried to read some fics that are extremely popular with tons of hits/kudos/comments, but my judgmental ass thinks they’re poorly written and/or poorly characterized. There really is not a clear linear relationship between the quality of a fic and its popularity. (Anyone who is discouraged by the lack of engagement with their work: please keep this in mind.)
Another thing to consider: what do we even mean by popularity? On AO3, is the most popular fic the one with the most hits? The most comments? The most kudos? Even then, a longfic that’s been updated weekly for a year is going to have more hits than a completed oneshot, just by virtue of its length. Frequently updated fics will show up week after week in search results, since AO3’s search results show the most recently updated fics by default. So when I think about popularity… ehhh, I guess I’m thinking about a vague combination of all three of these things – hits, kudos, and comments – while keeping the length of the fic in mind. Given all of this, in the grand scheme of things, my DA fics really aren’t that popular. I didn’t actually do a search because I didn’t want to make myself sad, but if you search my DA pairings (e.g. Fenris/female Hawke) on AO3 by number of hits/comments/kudos, I won’t come up on the first few pages of search results. We’ll come back to the topic of search results later.
ANYWAY. Let’s pretend I’m relatively popular, leaving out the Big Names™ in DA fanfic (whom I won’t tag here because I don’t want to annoy them with a random tag lol). What do I think make my fics somewhat popular? I can think of four things:
Frequency of posting
The combination of fandom and pairing: filling a gap
Varying lengths of fics for a single pairing: something for everyone
I have no idea
Frequency of posting
The most obvious factor that jumps out to me is that I post regularly and frequently. Currently, I update my two ongoing longfics weekly or every other week. When I first got really heavily into Fenris/Rynne Hawke, I was updating almost every day. As I mentioned before, AO3’s search results are shown by the most recently updated fics by default. So if I’m posting regularly, that means my fic is regularly appearing at the top of the list of search results when people search my tags or pairings, which means a higher chance of new readers seeing it and deciding to dive in week after week.
Fandom and pairing: filling a gap
For this point, I’m going to call back to the fandom where I first became “well-known”, which is Horizon Zero Dawn. I’ve written a number of ships for that game, but my OTP is Aloy/Nil. My fic Stormbirds and Stalkers is the second most kudos’ed fic if you search for that pairing on AO3, and the #1 most kudos’ed fic if you exclude fics that are multi-ship (i.e. shipping Aloy with multiple people in a single fic, which is common in the HZD fandom). Importantly, this was a popular pairing in a very small fandom. There weren’t many fics for this pairing at the time, and there weren’t any fics that did what I was doing: a monogamous love story, with explicit smut, that was actually being updated.
Funnily enough, though, my second most popular fic in the HZD fandom is my fic for Aloy/Ikrie. This is an extreme rarepair even within a small fandom, with only 19 Aloy/Ikrie fics on AO3, but my fic for this pairing is the one with the most hits/kudos/comment and is also my one fic with the most subscribers on AO3. Clearly people were excited about this fic and wanted to see more of this pairing.
So what’s the logic here? A rarepair in a small fandom, a popular pairing in a small fandom… what’s the pattern? From what I can tell, a fic will be more popular if people are starved for that content. If a fic falls into that gap where people clearly want MOAR, but MOAR doesn’t yet exist, it’s going to get more engagement. Popular pairings in a small fandom fall perfectly into that gap, as do highly-coveted rarepairs with little existing content. A Dragon Age example of this is my little Cole/Lavellan romance fic. Colemances are quite rare, sexual ones even more so, and I think the reason for my Colemance fic’s popularity is because it fills that gap.
If we return to the rest of my Dragon Age fic, however… [nervous laugh] the logic I just outlined above doesn’t really apply. That takes me to the third factor.
Varying fic lengths for a single pairing: a little something for everyone
Most of my Dragon Age work is for the most popular pairings for the games I’ve played: FenHawke for DA2, and Solavellan for DA:I. (Yes, yes, Cullen is even more popular, but I’ll leave my Cullen/Inquisitor work out of this analysis because I think it’s a special case.) I’ve heard that it’s notoriously difficult to get engagement when you’re writing a popular ship for a bigger fandom, since readers get inundated with choice and your fic can get lost in the shuffle. I would in no way say I’m “popular” for the pairings I write, considering that the most popular Solavellan fics have like… tens of thousands of hits and thousands of comments. Still, I have been surprised and thrilled by the engagement I have gotten in this fandom, especially since I’m kind of a noob to the DA world.
One of the reasons my DA work might be relatively popular is that I write fics of varying lengths and types for my pairings. For Fen and Rynne in particular, I’ve got everything from non-smut oneshots to smutty oneshots to smutty longfics to AUs. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone, and I suspect that someone who was like “I just want a oneshot” might get interested enough by the one thing they read to check out my other work, even if they didn’t start out looking for more than a oneshot. Similarly for Solavellan, and also for Abelas/Lavellan, I’ve got oneshots and a multichapter drabble collection, so there’s something both for the people who are searching for a quick oneshot and for those who are searching for multichapter fics. In short: more variety means more potential to show up in AO3 search results.
Don’t get me wrong; some of my Dragon Age stuff has fallen flat, namely my Blackwall/Lavellan work. That was actually the first DA ship I ever wrote for. The smutty oneshot collection has been relatively popular in terms of hits and kudos, but the two little multichapter mini-fics I wrote for Baewall have had very little attention, and I don’t really know why. Baewall isn’t the most popular ship in the fandom, I know, but it still doesn’t really explain the popularity of the smutty oneshots versus the mini-fics, which are also smutty.
Which brings me to my final point…
I have no idea.
LOL. Seriously though. I’m sure there are other things at play that I’m not aware of, so maybe this can open a little discussion! What do you guys think? Any other theories on why some fics get more popular than others?
Thanks for the interesting ask, Elvenybae! I definitely spent too much time thinking about this today, LOL!! 😂 😘
- Love from your friendly neighbourhood Pikapeppa xoxo
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what are your favorite mxtx ships overall?
I’ll split this up by book:
SV:
I am incredibly soft for liushen,,, incredibly,,,,, I’ve probably lushly imagined like 5 liushen fics in my head that will never meet the light of day just because thinking about them without the labor of writing them down is part of the comfort xD
I like the gremlin energy of moshang and the angst of qijiu, but liushen is definitely my fave SV ship. I also enjoy the idea of the harem sans b/nghe just having a grand ol’ time together. Oh, and 🥒 ✈️ has excellent comedy potential, I think–their ship dynamic is basically just literal fandom wank xD
MDZS:
Love wangxian. Especially from LWJ’s pov. Also love nielan–that’s a comfort ship much like liushen for me, but with more angst. I’m an eldest sibling, so I really like the chemistry of nielan shouldering responsibilities as they grow up and supporting one another as best they can.
Let’s see, other than that I also enjoy YZY/Madame Jin. I like lesbian ships with WQ, although I tend to pair her with OCs, bc I feel like the chemistry isn’t quite right with the other female mdzs characters. I could see her and Mianmian, but haven’t thought much about it tbh.
I like songxiao, wish there were more content for them. CQL turned me on to xiyao and nieyao, but I’m honestly on the fence with them, generally only read something with those pairings if I like the fic author’s other work. I’m okay with xuexiao as an angst pairing, but I’m v picky about that ship’s content.
TGCF:
Oh boy, I have a lot of favorite tgcf ships. This is also a different situation, because I actively write tgcf fics, so I have less distance–I’m simultaneously more passionate about certain characters, and more picky about their treatment. Anyway, here goes:
Lately I’ve been very much on my junmei shit (yes each of those links goes to a different fic), and I’ve written a meta about why I like them. That being said, I’m picky about characterization–I really don’t like Jun Wu being a dom daddy, for one.
YUWEN! (That’s LW/YS) I think they have a lot of enemies-to-lovers potential, and I think YS could provide a lot of stability for LW. See this post by @thisworldgodonlyknows which discusses the foiling between LW & YS. At some point I am planning to write a postcanon getting-together longfic for them, where they fight over mentorship of the person who is destined to be the next Wind Master.
God I love beefleaf… I have written a 128k postcanon fic for them, btw, if anyone’s looking for a slowburn fic with heavy plot and lots of feels to read while cooped up at home :P I also wrote a lil essay about why I like them here. This is another ship, however, where I am a bit picky about characterization–for fics that are canon compliant, I don’t think it should be very easy for them to get back together–my own fic involves SQX reincarnating into an OC for it to happen, for instance.
I like hualian, but I tend to view tgcf as a closed loop for them–they’re all nice and resolved, so there’s not much I have to say about them, y’know? Usually when I write stuff about them, it’s either smut or more about their relationships with other characters.
Also, plug for my pet rarepair: Muyin, ie. MQ/YY. Hear me out:
2 salty & judgmental boys
Parallel unrequited crushes on half of hualian
Frustration when people don’t follow advice
YY learns to accept his judgmentalness, MQ learns tact
They write a burn book together (with some help with LW, of course 😌)
I would like to write a postcanon Muyin longfic at some point, although I’ll have to have a lot of momentum for it since I’ve basically invented the ship 😅
Other ships: I’m fine with 3 Tumors and fengqing, but generally prefer them being just friends, and only really ship them in crack settings.
Hmm, think that’s it! Thanks for the ask ^^
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1-30 hehehe
Anon you’re a ballsy motherfucker and I love you. BUT you didn’t choose a fic for 24-28, or a word for 29!
What was the first fandom and/or pairing that you wrote fic for? Uh, probably Danny Phantom when I was like twelve 😂
Do you participate in any writing events or challenges throughout the year? If so, what do you like about them? Nope bc this is a small fandom and we don’t do many of those.
Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around? I usually start at the start and then when I get stuck I’ll just skip that part, keep going, and come back to it later. If I have an idea and I’m afraid I’ll forget it, I might also skip ahead and write it.
Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline? I love outlining more that actually writing lmao, the longer the fic the more I outline. I usually stick to it pretty closely, which isn’t aways good for my writing...
What is the perfect environment for you to write in? Quiet and private. Other than that I haven’t figured out the tricks to getting myself to focus :(
If you’re really concentrating, how many words can you write in a day? Occasionally when I’m really inspired I’ll write like 1000, but more often I just write a paragraph or two.
Which part of writing do you struggle with most? Too many ideas, too little actual writing capacity. It’s hard to focus on finishing fics bc I get too distracted by my other ideas, and I rarely write sequels bc there’s so much I haven’t gotten to share yet.
Do you listen to music while you write? If so, share a song that’s been inspiring you lately. Nope, can’t write with music, I get too distracted.
Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic? AUs!!!
Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most? Probably dialogue? Exposition is great bc I get to explain the AU, but It’s not good for the flow of the fic. Dialogue can be really satisfying to write when you get in a groove with it.
If you could only write angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your life, which would it be? Fluff!
Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to? Oh god so many. I have notes on tons of tropes I’d like to write... I’d like to do a college AU (and I meant to do it while I was actually in college but oops). I posted a soulmate AU once but I’d like to do another. Oh and I have lots of ideas for crossover AUs and I’m still deciding how to handle those.
Is there a trope you wouldn’t write if it was the last trope on earth? Honestly probably not. I’m not huge on character death, genderbends, or reader inserts, for example, but I have ideas for fics involving all of those.
If you were stuck on a desert island with only two characters, which would you pick? No one from gnr that’s for sure, that’d be a disaster. How about... Percy Jackson and idk Wonder Woman?
A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics. Which fic would you want it to be? Hmm out of the fics that I’ve posted... maybe Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ actually? I abandoned that poor fic but I still really like the plot. And there’s plenty of longer, more plot-heavy fics I have outlined that would be cool to see as films. In general I often imagine concepts visually instead of with words.
What is your most underrated fic? Saving Grace didn’t get a lot of notes and I get why – it’s kinda niche and there’s no actual romance. But I think it’s well-written and I’m proud of it.
What fic are you most proud of? Maybe the whole cat!slash universe? I don’t think it’s my best writing per se, but I’m still really attached to the concept and it was a pleasant surprise that other people seemed to like it too.
What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene. I’ve always been partial to the paragraph in Sweetness that ends with “Their coffee has long gone cold (and so has Duff’s spine - snakes give him the heebie-jeebies), but Slash’s enthusiasm is sweeter than the Duff’s half-eaten bowl of melted ice cream, and Duff is eating it up with a spoon.” Just... the coffee is cold and so is Duff’s spine, Slash is sweet and so is the ice cream, and using “eating it up with a spoon” idiomatically while it’s also thematically relevant to a sentence about dessert... I really like to layer meaning when I can.
Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why? Slash tends to be the center in most of my writing, but actually I think it’s easier to write from Duff’s pov. Maybe bc when I’m writing sluff I can just channel my crush on Slash through Duff lmao. Interesting tho bc when it comes to the real people, I find Slash much more relatable than Duff or the others.
What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written? Hah maybe Slash in the funeral home AU, it’s a duzzy ficlet so he’s just a side character but I got a kick out of writing his and Steven’s background antics.
What is the one fic that got away? Well, I really wish I’d finished Sumthin’ for Nuthin’ before I kinda lost interest in Motley Crue, that fic was gonna get more dramatic from there. Would it be worth it to just post the outline? Plus there’s a few potential longfic ideas that I’ve put a lot of love into, but I doubt they’ll ever be posted or completed considering the way I can’t seem to focus on one idea long enough to write more than a one-shot :( But hey I guess you never know.
Have you cried while writing a fic? Nope. I do have some angsty ideas though, hopefully they’ll surface someday.
If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it? Someday I’d like to rewrite the cat!Slash fic from the beginning, make it a real multichap or at least a proper series of vignettes. Id also be interesting in a darker version of that AU, since there’s definitely potential for that in the concept. But I’m pretty attached to the fluffy little universe I made, so I’d probably prefer to explore those darker themes in a different (but maybe similar) universe – I have a few ideas.
How did you come up with title for [x fic]? Most of my fics have self-explanatory titles or none at all, the only one I have much to say about is Saving Grace. Duff needed a miracle to get out of his situation, Slash was his saving grace. But also, Grace is the name of Duff’s oldest daughter, and Duff’s motive in the story is trying to “save” her. Despite the double meaning in the title, I avoided referring to the child by name or as Duff’s “daughter”/explaining how they ended up together. I wanted to maintain some of the mystery of the apocalyptic genre: characters with mysterious origins, found families, aliases, etc. That’s definitely one of the ways that Mad Max and DOOM influenced this fic. (Oh, also Serpentine is a dick joke via a wttj reference: “My serpentine.” That’s it tho, the rest are pretty straightforward.)
Which idea came to you first in [x fic]? Feel free to send a fic for any/all of the next few questions! Generally speaking, my ideas are character driven, I want to portray a character or relationship a certain way and I build a world that allows me to do that.
Which part of [x fic] was the hardest to write? Always the end.
If you were ever to do a sequel to [x fic], what do you think might happen in it? Whichever fic you have in mind, there’s a very high chance I have ideas.
In [x fic], what is a happy, post-fic headcanon you have about [pairing]? Same as above!
Send me a word. If it’s in your WIPs, include the sentence and a short summary of the fic. – Send me a word anon!
Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future. Ok, so I have three main longfic ideas, but the easiest one to explain is an AU set in a version of the 1980s where ancient greek deities exist, Axl’s life is parallel to that of Perseus, and Slash is cursed like Medusa. Lots of drama, lots of influence from greek theater, untrustworthy gods, unrequited feelings, dramatic irony... fuck I hope I write it someday.
Alright mad respect for anyone who got through all that! Thanks for the ask, and feel free specify a fic for those last few questions if you wanna
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