#once in a while I go back to ff.net and try to find that lotr fic

[waterditinfears]

Last fic that made you cry? ☺️

So I'm not really a crier (at least not with fiction stuff) but Anthem for Doomed Youth (Star Wars WWI AU, here) got me. The setting and the inevitability of it all did me in. I unfortunately have a lit degree and one of my profs was obsessed with WWI poetry, so this hit a weak spot.

Honorable mentions to Oh the Things We Left Behind (I didn't care about DinLuke until I read this, here), Two Truths and a Lie (Hux defects, here) for making me misty eyed. To Forge A Double-Edged Sword (Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, here) is what I read when I like, want to purposefully make myself sad.

These are all Star Wars because that's what I've been reading lately, but the Fic That Has Made Me Saddest, Ever is actually a Lord of the Rings fic that I read almost two decades ago about two Australian women who get zapped into Middle Earth by a lightning storm and make a pact to avoid becoming Mary Sues. I have never been able to find it again, but I do remember it ending SO sadly that it scarred me (in a good way) forever.

HOW COULD I FORGET what is potentially one of my all time favorites, The God Abandons Anthony (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, here) which is so beautifully written that I weep whenever I read it.

[recurring-polynya]

Fanfic Weekly Roundup 9/14/2020:

Okay, it’s been, like, 2 months since I did one of these, and I apologize for that, but also, August was like... really dry at the old fanfic well? And I’ve been working my ass off for the last three week (at... what, exactly, Polynya? It is hard to say) Anyway, here’s some fanfics that I liked. Hopefully, it won’t take another 2 months before we have another.

I think I missed this one when it first came out (otherwise, it would have made the last roundup... I write these by going back through my AO3 history), but The Bet, by @lethanwolf was really cute! It was by an author who doesn’t usually go for RenRuki, but wrote it for a friend, and I really respect stretching like that, and they did a great job!

I was here first by tasteoftheforbidden is a Byakuya/Soi Fon story and I cannot imagine why I clicked on it in the first place, but it was really cute??? Like, at first they are really grumpy, and then they are like, “ah, I respect what a grump you are” and then they eat snacks. It worked. I was delighted by it, perhaps you will be as well.

Here We Meet Again by @marlasinger93-blog is just getting started, but the first chapter is really, really cute! It’s a Rukia and Renji awkwardly reconnecting after the Soul Society Arc, which I will openly admit I have an endless appetite for. I helped translate it, and I hope there will be more eventually!

I feel like I mentioned Captivate, by before @kissedbynightshade, but I couldn’t find it, so I will mention it now! It’s a little bit high concept-- it’s a modern AU where Izuru has the power to jump back in time-- usually a few minutes-- to prevent tragedy from occurring. However, after Rangiku is killed, he jumps all the way back to his teenhood, where he has the possibility to prevent deaths of Renji, Momo, and Shuuhei. It’s not actually very hard to follow, and it is an amazing mood piece. Just really chewy, poetic, melancholy Izuru (who is trans in this story; it is just sort of slid in there very naturally and it works), with a heavy dose of mystery. It is, as they say, my jam.

Is it time for the @kazeshini-s section of the roundup? We have two this time!:

Personal Questions features Orihime digging into those burning questions about how shinigami function that we all want the answer to.

Cut a Deal (We’re All Gonna Die Anyway) is Advance Team Arc fic about Orihime going to Soul Society to train with Rukia and I admit I requested it and I don’t care it was SO GOOD. Features both Orihime & Renji bonding AND Orihime & Rukia bonding, what more could you ask for???

These two are not on AO3, but do not sleep on this one where Chad Makes Renji a Burrito or this Karakura Kids Cuddle Puddle.

time in a bottle by atlntyda is a fairly short, Orihime introspection piece, but I really liked it!

Somebody to Someone by @jkrobertson Excuse me, did someone say lieutenant friendship fic? This is my love language.

Squad 4's Pregnancy Guide for the Unwed Shinigami  by manonlechat is a very silly fic where Gin is a gremlin and Matsumoto is like “well, this might as well happen.” I got a good laugh out of it.

In Between Days by @spyder-m Renji birthday fic! Renji birthday fic! Renji reflects on 40 years worth of birthdays, with and without Rukia.

the one to someone by @shamelessllamapeanutthing After the Soul Society Arc, Rukia chews over who she wants to be and who she wants to be with. Ugh, I loved this one. Great character work on Rukia, and very good and sexy banter with Renji. I am extremely bad at writing sexual tension, and I am jealous of the chemistry here. (I am very good at two-halves-of-one-idiot, and I am thankful for that, but every once in a while, it would be nice...sigh)

Icy Summits by Chaotic Dreamer was a very cute story about Renji and Rukia going on a mission as lieutenants together, shortly after they start dating. What I liked about this, is that the tension of the story is based on them both trying to do what they think is best, and they talk it out in a really healthy way, and that shit clears my pores and whitens my teeth.

Anchor and Vulnerable by squeaker_deaker. Renruki family drabbles. Real, actual-100-words drabbles. I could never. How.

We all know how I feel about ByaRen fic-- I don’t care for the pairing very extremely specific reasons, but I like both characters so much that I will occasionally read one if I think the characterization is gonna be real good (shippers be doin’ characterization, I said it). Anyway, I saw the tags “scenery porn” and “samurai do samurai things” on Heart Tangled by Grizmelder (there is a grizmelder on Tumblr who I think might be the same person, but I am afraid to tag them in case they aren’t although I just followed them because as I was scrolling thru their blog, I found both Brendan Frasier content and the LOTR Volvo meme, so obvs they are cool and I really hope they don’t click on my blog and say “who is this anime weirdo?”). Anyway, look, if you are a Period Drama Slut like me, you gotta read this. Friends, I shipped it.  It’s an AU, of course, and it somehow manages to circumvent all my canon ByaRen hangups and I don’t know who I am any more. It’s just... costumes and hair and archery and poetry and longing and sexiness. The latest chapter was epistolary. Oh, right, there is actual porn in it also, you have been warned. (also period-accurate homophobia and suicide refs, it’s a pretty serious and heart-wrenching story)

I know I am always on here, shilling The Thin Red Line. The last few chapters were absolute fire, and it was absolutely the high point of my week when a new one went up. The author, who is A_Fine_Piece on AO3 and Crimson Bttrfly on ff.net, recently announced she is discontinuing it after she got some harsh comments, and also deleted her Tumblr. I am absolutely devastated by this. She wasn’t someone I knew super-well, but we responded to each other’s comments and I really liked her. This was actually the second time this week I heard about someone getting negative fanfic comments, and all I’ll say about that is, if you’re reading a fanfic and you hate everything about it, why don’t you give yourself the gift of closing the tab and not saying anything at all? I can’t even imagine what someone could criticize about this fic, it is so well-crafted and beautifully written. I am so, so mad about this. Please leave a kind comment for an author you love this week, if you can. Writing fanfic is pretty thankless compared to the amount of effort that goes into it, we gotta protect and cherish our authors (and artists, too, for that matter!). My poor, weak heart cannot take any more of my faves quitting.

[incomprehensiblelentils]

@swiftjolras tagged me in this fic writer meme, thanks buddy! Also because B and I do a lot of cowriting, I’m going to try to stick to the ones that only I have written for this meme. I guess if somebody wants I can do one about our cowritten stuff separately...? but I feel like this is a fair restriction.

Name: Megan

Fandoms: I mean. Do you want my like, current fandoms I write for or all the fandoms I’ve written for EVER? Actually the latter might be fun let’s do that! I think of my fanfic writing life as having 3 phases: the stuff I wrote when I was a little kid and didn’t know what fanfic was (Winnie the Pooh, Aladdin); the stuff I wrote as a middle/high schooler on ff.net (Cyberchase, The Princess Diaries, The Incredibles, LOTR, X-Men, Pirates of the Caribbean); and the stuff I’ve posted on AO3 in college and beyond (Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Alphas, RPF*, MCU - particularly Agents of SHIELD and Daredevil, Firefly, Once Upon a Time, Kingsman, Wreck-it-Ralph, Terminator: Dark Fate). I actually used to be a BNF in Incredibles fandom, which is hilarious in retrospect as my fic was very bad BUT it was an incredible ego boost for a fourteen-year-old who loved writing! At the moment I mostly write for SHIELD and Dark Fate, with detours into other random gay shit as I feel like it.

*cancel me for my T-rated stories from 2013 I DARE YOU

Where You Post: my AO3 is here and I have a writing blog here that I link stuff from although I’m bad at updating it lol

Most Popular One-Shot: According to hits, by a hair it’s you are the ditch I tumbled into running blind, the first Skimmons fic I ever wrote AND the first Skimmons fic posted on AO3. Although my high school AU has a couple hundred more kudos. They are both 7 years old! That’s wild.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: Again, taking out mallverse which is cowritten and would be the obvious winner at over 40k hits over 6 years, it’s and for once you let go of your fears and your ghosts, which is my Victoria/Isabelle fix-it. It has over 800 hits and 47 kudos, which for a femslash ship in this fandom that isn’t popular at all is pretty damn good! (I wish it was my Kara fix-it, but what can you do when fandom is bad lol.)

Favorite Story You’ve Written: I talk about say you will, the Endgame Natasha/Laura fix-it, a lot, because it took me months to write and was born out of not only my hatred of Endgame but years of pent-up anger and frustration at how Natasha is treated in both canon and fandom. It’s probably my most personal fic - I wrote it as both a redemptive tribute for this character that I’ve loved for almost a decade and a goodbye to her. I got to fill in the blanks of Laura’s character that canon didn’t bother to address, and I made all three Barton kids autistic and gave them all traits that I and my brother and my friends have. I also had to write a lot of very uncomfortable emotions that I haven’t really dealt with in my writing too much and that was interesting and challenging. I know it won’t ever get the attention I’d like it to, but I still love it so much.

Story You Were Nervous to Post: lol all the Terminator porn, I’m not linking it again, y’all can find it, porn is scary bye

How You Choose Your Titles: I am shameless and steal lyrics. Terminator fics all have Carly Rae Jepsen lyrics, I also use TSwift and Marian Call a lot.

Complete: 50 exactly! And a couple dozen more I cowrote with B as well (mostly one-shots).

Incomplete: 5, at least one of which I should really go back and mark complete just because it’s a billion years old and I’ll probably never go back to it lol. But Three Lawyers and a Little Lady will definitely get updated someday because I love my Daredevil Accidental Baby Acquisition AU! And I have a shitton ongoing that B and I are working on together as well.

Do You Outline: Not usually for one-shots, but like, I ran into a real problem with say you will where I kept thinking of scenes that needed to be added and having to write them, and there were a couple of scenes that I had to sort of Frankenstein in because I’d written them early on and I wanted to include them real bad but they didn’t “technically” fit anywhere (I wonder if readers can tell lol). So I try to outline for long-running stuff because if I don’t it just goes extremely off the rails.

Coming Soon / Not Yet Started: I am in the middle of two right now: a Star Wars Jannah/Rose horse girls fic where they bond while riding orbaks and also kiss, and Halt and Catch Fire Donna/Cameron where Donna drags Cam to a PFLAG meeting to try and figure out how to talk to her lesbian daughter and everyone thinks they’re a couple (spoiler: they don’t know they are yet). These are the random gay shit detours I mentioned earlier. More on brand, I have at least one more Terminator porn in my brain and also a fluffy one where Grace proposes to Dani and Carl officiates their wedding. OH I FORGOT i was supposed to write a Charlie’s Angels 2019 fic where Sabina brought home a dog and the other two were like ????. I feel like that one will be pretty easily once I just sit down and do it because their voices seem pretty straightforward

Do You Accept Prompts: Um, I’m not like...I don’t want to say I’ll never do prompts, I once wrote Steve/Bucky as quarterback/cheerleader AU because my friend asked me to. But I don’t typically solicit them. The shit I like writing is usually way too random for people to think of lol.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited To Write: This is a someday-fic, but I swear I will write an epic redemption story for my beloved monster child Ruby Hale where she lives and becomes the Zuko of the group and also Daisy’s weird little protege and she and Elena are never like, close, and Elena doesn’t have to forgive her, and that’s okay. I just feel like they set her up as a perfect Ward foil and then really dropped the ball.

tagging uhhhh @unwind-myself @swashbucklery @amidalleia @allofthefeelings I forget which of my friends write fanfic anymore lololol if I tag you in this and you don’t VERY SORRY MY BAD also like, if you want to do this and pretend I tagged you please do!