#luckily shadowgast saved me

[erandraws]

Episode 102 was a rough one

[shadowgast-recs-weekly]

Hidden Gems: Less than 150 Kudos

This week, we have one of our recurring rec lists - fics that you might have overlooked. Enjoy 13 fics that involve highly specific AU's, kink, Ludinus being evil, and of course, trips to Aeor. Check them out underneath the cut and of course, remember to comment and kudos if you like them!

Ages Past, Ages Hence by AthenaVine (12589, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Mostly canon-compliant fic series. The slow & careful courtship of Caleb & Essek during their trips to Aeor.

Reccer says: Omniscient perspective & visceral descriptions of the wizards' feelings

I used to hear a simple song by Amiactuallydoingthis (1378, General) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Meet cute in a university library

Reccer says: I liked it!

inked in skin; etched in bone by QuenaSparquea (56047, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Saving the world for a second time had a way of putting things in perspective. An exploration of magic and relationships in 31 pieces

Reccer says: This collection of interconnected stories sheds light on a slightly AU version of the Mighty Nein, in particular the Shadowhand as he navigates his past while planning for his future.

you must first invent the universe by renquise (3466, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

a snippet of a sci-fi take on the pre-aeor mission

Reccer says: Suuuuper fascinating take on the group in a sci-fi world. The interactions btwn Essek and Caleb are so interesting and you call practically feel all the world building even in the short amount of time.

Frozen Ink by Beauteousmajesty (1663, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek’s chronic pain gets worse once winter has arrived in Rexxentrum. Luckily, Caleb is good at fire.

Reccer says: Domestic and sweet ❤️

Golden hour by Technojuicebox (1914, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Essek needs help after an experiment of intimate nature has gone wrong.

Reccer says: I love the sexual tension between them

Suspicions (The Empire Spy) by Im_sorry_dont_judge_me (8249, Explicit) Reccer's Content Notes: Dubcon/Consensual Non Consent

Essek learns of one of Caleb's fantasies and agrees to play it out with him. Then Caleb insists on returning the favor.

Reccer says: I really like that some of the kink negotiation scenes are included - communication is sexy.

farewell star by narspicious (8297, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Choose Not to Warn, Major Character Death

When Caleb Widogast dies in Aeor, Essek vows that not even the gods will stop him from bringing back the man he loves.

Reccer says: I loved the atmosphere and the premise a lot!

so volatile an equation by bloodredribbon (8459, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: Mutual dubcon, manipulation

After Caleb witnesses Essek's conversation with Da'leth, Essek kidnaps him before he can tell the Nein what he saw.

Reccer says: It's so messy, a lovely dark fic of what could have happened had Essek seen Caleb

of things yet to come by ghostsquidswrites (10467, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

Ludinus imprisons Caleb in a sleeping spell to try and get Essek to do his bidding. Essek tries to use magic to figure out a way out of it.

Reccer says: I love it when Essek interacts with the rest of the nein - and here, also other NPCs - and I'm a big fan of the wizards nerding out about spells.

The Icarus to Your Certainty by ithilielthechosenone (14091, Mature) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

In Aeor, just the two of them, there are many things to finally resolve. Not least of all the question of what they could be to one another.

Reccer says: This fic has so many of the things I love about Shadowgast - Essek hanging out with Reani, pining, travels to Aeor, considerations of time travel shenanigans, guilt and learning to love themselves through loving others - it's a fantastic read and deserves to be a classic.

I want you to hold me (don't let me go) by Multifandom_damnation (2316, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: No Content Notes

After the final battle with Trent Ikithon, Caleb goes home to a worried and waiting Essek, who puts him back together as best he can

Reccer says: The soft coda to Echoes of the Solstice that they deserve

some branch of stars we see by SongOfWizardry (1721, Teen) Reccer's Content Notes: WIP

A shadowgast teaching AU where Caleb is training Essek to be a secondary school teacher.

Reccer says: It's a highly specific AU in terms of author's experience, and I love how it also fills in the relationships that Caleb has with the rest of the Nein.

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast.

Check out the previous Hidden Gem Recs Lists here [1] [2] [3] [4]

Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week, we'll be featuring spanking!

[here-be-bec]

20 QUESTIONS FOR FIC WRITERS

thanks @commanderfoxdeservesbetter for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

105! hit 100 over febuwhump.

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

167,182!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

star wars: the clone wars is the main fandom, but i've also written some stuff for alex rider! and a few gift fics for jedi fallen order, marvel, and doctor who.

4. What are you top five fics by kudos?

no. 1 is 'connection is what saves us' (which makes me happy, because it only recently overtook second place and i like to see a fox-centric whump fic on top).

no. 2 is 'the food's too sweet'.

no. 3 is 'an acceptable loss'.

no. 4 is 'no stranger to guilt'.

no. 5 is 'dead men feel no guilt for dying'.

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

yes! sometimes it might take a few days, but i always love the opportunity to ramble about my fics some more!

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

given that 99% of what i write is whump, this one is a tricky one. if you hate major character death then i recently started writing a few fics for the 'kill a character bingo' prompts. but if you, like me, believe in fates worse than death, then i would probably say 'cut abruptly short' had the angstiest ending (lining up with canon in terms of the tragedy of order 66, with an added element of angst from the theme that i used for the fic - "force sensitivity as horror").

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

another tricky one! because despite everything, i've realised that i've actually been pretty good with at least writing a hopeful ending into my fics. so with that in mind i'm going to take the opportunity to plug my favourite (only slightly angsty at the start) crack fic of all time, 'follow the leader'. perhaps the happy ending is more implied than explored, but still, :D

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope!

9. Do you write smut?

not at the minute, i suck ass at writing romance so it would probably only ever be part of some depraved angst bs.

10. Do you write crossovers?

not yet, but i have a few that i'd like to take a stab at one day, if the inspiration strikes. bioshock, batman, doctor who... many possibilities.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

luckily, not that i'm aware of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

i am currently co-writing a fic, but it is a long way off from being published! really really looking forward to sharing it, though, it's going to be a beautiful combination of angst, crack, and time travel :D

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

i don't really ever ship anyone! it just isn't my cup of tea, usually, unless the ship is dangling the carrot of angst in front of me. the only ship i'd say that i ever enjoyed exploring was thoschei (the doctor/the master) from doctor who. lots of potential for a supremely fucked up or fun dynamic, haha. i suppose i should also mention shadowgast from cr2, i was rooting for that throughout the part of that campaign i watched live.

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

well if you want the nice answer, i'll say the isolation au as a whole, but that's because i don't think i'm going to run out of ideas for it any time soon! if you want the less nice answer, then i have been struggling with the long fic sequel to 'dead men feel no guilt for dying' for over a year now. i have loads of cool scenes outlined and fun ideas, but still haven't been able to settle on an overarching plot that i like! it's very annoying. massive kudos to multichapter fic writers!

16. What's your writing strengths?

i think i do well with structuring my fics. i enjoy figuring out how to write things that flow together, or mirror other scenes. one of my favourite fics to write was 'reiterate, relearn', which i think is a prime example of this!

17. What's your writing weaknesses?

hate writing dialogue! very rarely does it come naturally, which i think is because i characterise everyone sliiiiightly different in most of the fics i write, depending on the au that they're in. most of these guys also don't have much in the way of canon dialogue to go by!

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

hahaha, mando'a is really something i should have tried to incorporate more of! i like it as a fandom/legends trait for the clones, but it would require me putting actually thought and planning into my fics.... and alas!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

if we're counting before i knew fanfic was a thing, i guess it would be pokemon mystery dungeon oc fics in a notebook when i was like, 8. if you're talking fic that i've intentionally written, is was for the jse ego fandom; a bit of a niche community surrounding certain arg-like videos by jacksepticeye!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

oh boy.... too many choices. as a i say above, i think 'follow the leader' was definitely one of my favourites to write, but i think my favourite as a whole has to be 'in thanks they will keep him forever'. not putting something from the isolation au here was a tough call, because those first three fics were genuinely a blast to write, but 'in thanks' was such fun to plot out, and so self indulgent - wait! that means i totally have done a crossover fic, technically! but i won't count it, because 'in thanks' only contains a single monster from doctor who, adapted to star wars for coruscant guard horror purposes. as i say, very niche, very self-indulgent, and i definitely i want to write more stuff like it in the future!

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okay, this was a bunch of fun, i always like the excuse to read back through old fics! if @stardustloki, or @amberskyyking want to do this, or anyone else who thinks this looks fun, then here you go!

[blairsanne]

📓📖📚

The plot of a fanfiction that I haven't written but daydream about?

Critical Role C2 fanfic I'll never write:

Thought up mid-C2 where the M9 end up in a small kingdom/city that's cut off from most of the world, because people keep entering the city and never leaving, so people think it's cursed.

They go into the city and a couple of the party members immediately fall under the magic that makes most people completely loyal to the king.

They find out that the princess has been kidnapped, king is looking for anyone willing to help. They offer their aid.

They leave the city and go to the place where the princess is being held hostage, they free her, and she helps them kill the people responsible; turns out she's a cleric tied to Catha (one of the moons). Her abilities change somewhat depending on the moon phase.

She questions their reasons for helping her, find out that at least some of them are 'loyal to the king.'

On their way back to the city, she trails behind a bit to talk to Caddy, uses a spell to immobilize him as she tries to flee before the party can catch her.

Party succeeds at cornering her, and unwilling to seriously injure any of them, she basically gives up when she realizes they're not going to give up.

Naturally the party is confused by her behaviour, so she eventually confesses that she had discovered the weird thing going on in town and that her father was behind it; originally she actually ran away, but the criminals who found her on the road saw the opportunity to demand ransom.

The M9 decide to go fight the king and free the city.

Long story short, they succeed, the older brother of the princess (the prince) takes the throne. He insists that the M9 stay a few days as it's almost time for a ritual that the princess is slated to do to on the full moon to become the 'avatar of Catha' as part of her devotion.

They stay, but during the ritual, piece together that the prince/new king is under some kind of illusion, and not the same race as the princess, very sus.

The new king makes a move to attack the princess and they get into combat.

During combat, princess dies when using her abilities to take damage in order to protect Nott from taking a fatal blow.

Her death seems to trigger something, the final piece of the ritual, and she becomes the avatar of Catha as Catha revives her.

New king is stoked because his whole plan was to take her power.

Luckily the party eventually defeats him, everything is revealed that actually the old king wasn't even evil, he was just being controlled by the fake prince, etc. This had been going on decades, and the princess had no idea he wasn't her brother, etc.

Princess now becomes queen, she is distraught about how they killed her father when he was a victim as well. Cad suggests they speak with dead and dead king assures princess he's not upset with her etc.

Caleb visits her that night, they have a heart to heart about how she doesn't want to be in the city anymore, doesn't feel like she should be in charge, etc.

Next day she sets up a council to take over being in charge and basically peaces out to join the M9.

Other plots included her developing romantic feelings for Caleb and them getting into a big fight when she calls him out on wanting to use time magic to save his parents with no regard to how that would undo everything else the M9 had accomplished, etc. That culminated in them actually carrying out a plan similar to what Caleb canonically considered.

Scrapped project because Shadowgast is perfect, no need for fix it fic for C2, Caleb and the time travel dilemma getting a perfect wrap canonically, etc.

I know I've never posted fanfic for CritRole before so this may be like "WTF are you talking about" to everyone who follows me haha.

Thanks for the ask!!