#pirates of the Caribbean fan fics

[buckyalpine]

I know it's a tad late for Halloween BUT I had this idea because of last year with this so:

"Nice pirate costume" Sam nodded his head in approval as Bucky approached the bar wearing a dark shirt, half unbuttoned, showing off a very nice view of his chest. His long black coat was belted at his waist along with a bandana tied on top of his head. His sword swayed with his hips, his beard trimmed down.

"I hope so, do I look like Will Turner?" Bucky looked down at his boots again, having already checked his outfit 10 times before leaving, comparing it to the reference photo, "I even waxed my chest"

A series of wolf whistles followed while Bucky patted himself down to make sure he had every bit of his costume in place, you insisted it had to be perfect, how else would people get it Bucky

"Oo, is y/n Elizabeth Swan? That's hot" Tony smirked with a wink while Bucky sighed, "Why do you look stressed, it's a great couples costume-

"HE'S GOT MY EYE! HE WON'T GIVE IT BACK!"

"Jesus"

Bucky could hear the cackling from somewhere in the abyss of people, the sound getting closer and closer.

"Who else could she be, you look terrified Buck, what's-

"I KNOW YOU'RE HERE POPPET"

"Is she-

"Yes. Yes she is"

"Good God"

"Is she Pintel or Ragetti?"

"...both"

"Hello, Poppet" You grinned, scurrying over with a hobble towards your boyfriend, shamelessly eyeing him up and down. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD"

"Baby-

"POPPET"

"I-I need the Rum"

[bg-sparrow]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I'm finally getting around to doing this after @professorsaber, @mythical-bookworm, and @daryfromthefuture tagged me! Sorry for the delay (it's been a week)!

Under the cut because it seems I felt the need to write my life story today as it relates to my body of fan work. :)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I'm currently sitting at 51.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

650,606 (of which 58K are shared with co-authors)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Predominantly Back to the Future with a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean, Iron Man, and National Treasure in my rearview mirror. I've also contributed one-shots/ small works to 19 other fandoms over the years!

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What to Expect When She's Expecting - (137) - Iron Man

Where You Were (Time Circuits #3) - (95) - BttF

Where You're Going (Time Circuits #1) - (72) - Bttf

Principles of Compromise - (70) - Pirates of the Caribbean

A Fracture in the Space-time Continuum - (69) - BttF

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

Most definitely! I love interacting with the people who have taken the time to read and comment on my work, even if it's a simple thank you!

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

Ooo hoo hoo. I might have to poll some people for this one. My first reaction would be There Are No Roads (Time Circuits #2.5), but as the ending is technically an alternate series of events, I'm not sure it counts as an official 'end'. I'm big proud of it, though, because most initial reactions were somewhere along the lines of "oh my GOD." :)

That being the case, Once Upon a Time in the West wins hands down, mostly because I didn't even see the plot twist coming until the fourth chapter of this six-chapter fic! And it delivered an epic sequel!

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

Oof. Don't come at me like this; I'm just now realizing how much angst I really write because I've narrowed it down to maybe two of my Ao3 fics? Sheesh.

I'm going to go with the only 5+1 fic I've ever written, The Manner of Giving. It was five times Marty failed at giving Doc a gift, and the one time (the end) is when he succeeded.

Where You Were (Times Circuits #3) also gets a nod because it's the end of my trilogy rewrite, and I like to think I ended it on the happy note everyone deserved.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never gotten a scathing flame of a review, thank goodness. I did have someone ask me on FFN once why I was writing an OC for Marty when he had Jennifer in canon, and while it was tempting to just say "don't like, don't read," we ended up exchanging a mature and constructive dialogue and respectfully parted ways.

I also once, long ago, before I ever planned to seriously pursue writing, had one of my fics added to a "Worst of the Worst" fandom collection on FFN. It was a terrible fic written by an inexperienced teenager, but I still find something like that distasteful and uncalled for, mostly because, as the author, I wasn't able to remove my work from the collection. And it's still there. And I'm still mad about it. Oddly, it's ensured I hold myself to a high standard and never put anything out there that could be considered for a "Worst of the Worst" collection again. So, screw that guy, and thank you.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No. I've never wanted a tell a story where that was essential to the story. Now, I've recently included/ alluded to more mature situations in the last year for the first time in my 20 years of writing to get me out of my comfort zone, but no graphic, extended scenes.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I have! And the craziest crossover I have is FFHQ. Imagine all the characters in all the fandoms in one giant office park drawing up contracts to appear in fics, meeting with fanfic authors, collaborating on crossovers, etc. It's a lot of paperwork, meaning each character has a secretary. That's a lot of secretaries, so there is a list of "subs" who fill in as floaters when a secretary is out, and this crazy crossover follows three OCs as they bounce around random fandoms each day. This baby is my crackfic, the idea I escaped to in those eight years of depression when I wasn't doing so hot. If you're up for it, I promise it's lots of fun!

Honorable mention goes to the BttF/Elf AU I wrote for our server's Secret Santa exchange last year: Pennies From Heaven.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

*inserts Ben Affleck smoking meme*

Yes. And it's… I'm just very over this form of "flattery".

When I was still in high school, I was writing a pretty successful National Treasure fic when a reader told me they found the story on another site. The person who stole it was writing author notes at the beginning, like "Find out what happens to them next time! I've got great stuff in the works!" I emailed that website, and they kindly took it down and banned that user.

Last year, I had someone on Wattpad steal the Time Circuits Series, rename it the "Flux Capacitor Series", and switched out Emma's name with "Dawn". Two things that had me cackling: When I have Marty call Emma "Em," Marty was calling Dawn "Da," and you could see several places where Emma's name wasn't backspaced all the way out of the text. I confronted the "author", and they wisely took it down, telling me it was just so hard to write it themselves. You bet your ass I have this person still on my alerts list to keep an eye on them, and once a month, I am searching Wattpad for my own fics.

Novel HD/ Novel WW also stole Time Circuts off Wattpad for their website, scrubbed my name from it so that it said it was written by "Anonymous", and put the stories behind paywalls. I caught wind of this about a quarter of the way into the last story and took everything I had off Wattpad. I saved the links but they no longer work, and I can't even access the website anymore. I'm not sure if it's gone or if, because it is a foreign site, they somehow blocked our region from accessing it.

I also had FictionHunt take all of my stuff off FFN! It took several months, but I finally got them to remove my stuff from their site. I might not have minded so much if they had asked me, but that's too hard, I suppose.

There was one website called MovieFanficChains way back in 2005 I gave permission to to host my PotC fics, but aside from FFN and Ao3, that the only place with my permission to have my stuff.

If you see my work elsewhere and it has not been linked back to me, let me know. I'll do the same for you. :)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've done a few roleplays with @daryfromthefuture, where I wrote for Doc and she wrote for Marty. Our most well-known roleplay-turned-fic would be the 1885 scarlet fever sickfic Lean on Me (When You're Not Strong).

I've also been part of the silly blind writing game in our Discord server aptly named Back to the Future: Discord.

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

I don't know. This is hard. I'm a romantic, and I make the excited Andy Dwyer face every time a ship is hinted at. I have so many I love, but the mainstream ones that immediately come to mind are Tony/Pepper (Iron Man), Sherlock/Molly (BBC Sherlock), Jamie/Brienne (Game of Thrones), and Reylo (Star Wars).

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

I wrote a National Treasure story in high school called Another Clue, and it was one of my first real attempts at an OC insert. It did fairly well, given my talents at the time; I incorporated an OC, but I focused on crafting a canon-like treasure hunt more, and a lot of people complimented that.

So I started a sequel, One More Clue. It built a bigger story around the first, highlighting a treasure hunt that required the help of a rival and two friends seemingly trying to out-betray one another. I got about 12 chapters and 69K into One More Clue before life took over. I last updated it on June 1, 2010, and I left it at quite the cliffhanger with Riley turning Ben into the FBI only to learn the FBI guy was working for the rival and UGH, I keep meaning to go back to it. I have all the notes!

The problem is, I would have to rewrite Another Clue at this point because it's a hot high schooler's mess. You could tell as I wrote One More Clue that I was applying what I was learning from my writing classes in college. While Another Clue didn't have that luxury, it showcases some strengths that compelled me to pursue a writing major (AKA I can make a decent history-driven treasure hunt).

So, while I could finish One More Clue if I really wanted to, it would be pointless unless I overhauled Another Clue first. Which I've thought about. Because National Treasure is my guilty pleasure. I'm just fairly certain no one would be around to appreciate it if I put all that work in now. :)

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've consistently been told it's dialogue, and I find myself agreeing with that. The single lines of dialogue that turn a whole story on its head or tell a whole story of their own are what I live for.

This is the DUMBEST example, but there is an episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Mrs. Puff is freaking out because she gave Spongebob his boating license just to finally get him out of her class, and she's spiraling. She arrives at "I'll have to change my name, move to another city, and open another boating school!" or something like that.

And then her voice just goes dead flat and her eyes narrow and she says, "No. Not again."

And I lose it every time! But you know there's a WHOLE story there just by that little bit of dialogue! I love that! And I love implementing it where I can, whether it be in a comedic or dramatic setting.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm wordy. When I give myself a word count goal for a project, it inevitably goes over, but it gets shaved down some in editing.

Thankfully, I got a hard lesson in this in one of my college writing classes. I turned in a prose-y poem I was quite proud of, and in the next class, the professor handed out copies to everyone. We proceeded to workshop (i.e. destroy) my work, whittling the word count down by half when it was all said and done. And while I was mortified at the time, I've since thanked my professor a few times for that day. That one lesson lives in my brain every day, and I am right back in that classroom every time I edit a work, trying to figure out what the most succinct wording is, what is un/necessary, and how to play with my line breaks. Criticism is daunting but so, so worth it if you can find the courage to apply it!

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

I did this for the first time in Once Upon a Time in the South. I have a headcanon that Buford's baby momma is a Spanish actress at a small theater in Pine City, and he had to get something from her. This woman speaks very little English, and it was a challenge to stay true to that because (a) I don't speak Spanish and (b) my brain just struggles a lot with foreign language translations. Me being me, I wanted the most accurate and realistic translations I could get, ones that didn't sound too formal. Then you add in the fact that it's 1893, so there's a time-period language barrier, too. Ultimately, I'm happy with the end result, but I don't see myself going out of my way to do this again.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Pirates of the Caribbean! What a fantastic playground in which to practice storytelling! What really got me hooked on this "I might try writing for real one day" thing was listening to the writer's commentary on The Curse of the Black Pearl DVD when I was 15.

Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio gave excellent insight to this story I was enamored with and how they came up with it! "We had Sparrow and Swann, so we figured we shouldn't give Will a bird name" cracked me up. They covered everything — what challenged them, what rules ("guidelines") they stuck to ("leave the kiss for the end"), stuff like that. But what lit me up was hearing the entire backstory while the credits rolled, about how Barbossa was Jack's first mate until Barbossa committed mutiny and all that jazz. There was so much story to the story! That was a big, big day that influenced me. :)

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oh, gosh. This is tough because the favoritism depends on the reason!

I'll forever love Principles of Compromise because after abandoning it several chapters from the end and not touching it for eight years, it was the first story I came back to and finished before returning to the Time Circuits Series. It was the first plot-heavy story with canon characters I attempted and completed (most of my works up until that point had been rewrites or headlined OCs). Finishing it was the stepping stone to all the writing I've since completed (30-some works)!

Favorite all time though? I'm a mom; you can't just ask me to pick a favorite kid, and this is just as mean. :)

(But for real, it's probably a tie between There Are No Roads (Time Circuits #2.5) and Once Upon a Time in the East )

Tagging @retro-hussy, @jowritesfanfiction, @writingwife-83, and anyone else who wants to play!

Thank you so much for tagging me, friends!! I don't know why, but I love doing these! Sorry again it took so long for me to get to. ❤️

[soleilpirate]

I see people making artwork of fanfiction and I'm so envious. 😟 I wish someone would make art of my words.

[smileysuh]

siren's song - TEASER

🌙 starring. Johnny Suh x afab!Reader

🔮 preview. “That’s the funny thing about trust, isn’t it, Pirate King?” you ask, stepping closer to him. You look up into Johnny’s eyes, and he’s blown away by your natural beauty. “You’ll only find out if the trust is solid, when you’re in a moment of need.” A moment of need… watching your lips right now, Johnny’s in a deep moment of need. 

tw/cw. Unprotected sex, wing kink, multiple reader orgasms, multiple sex positions, dirty talk, praise, worship, pussy eating, slight roughness, size kink, Johnny has a massive cock, inklings of captain kink, etc… I pet names: (hers) Princess. 

👹 rating. 18+ explicit I wc. 9.6k

🍭 aus. Pirate au, siren au, Captain!Johnny etc…

☀️ mlist + an.  so I did a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon last month, and I'm a huge One Piece fan, and I wanted to tackle a pirate au :) I'm super pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you guys can appreciate this fantasy au too!

Like that night by the water’s edge, Johnny doesn’t ask permission, you can tell that he reads your need for him as easily as he had a year ago. His large hand cups your cheek, drawing your lips to his own, and it’s such a familiar feeling-

Something about him just feels right. It feels natural. As if you’ve done this a hundred times before, even though this is only really your second kiss with the young Pirate King.

Regardless, you allow yourself to get lost in him. Your hands begin to explore him as if by muscle memory, and you push at his long dark jacket, exposing the white unbuttoned tunic below. Fucking pirates and their fashion sense- he’s too much of a slut in this fucking shirt, it’s making you feral.

“Someone is eager,” Johnny muses, breaking the kiss to look down at you with a grin.

“Someone is dressed like a whore,” you retort, flicking his hat off his head with one sharp movement.

The Pirate King lets out a whistle. “Wow, Princess, didn’t expect to hear words like that coming out of such a pretty little mouth.”

“Maybe being around you has some of your piracy rubbing off on me,” you suggest, hooking your finger in his gun holster belt to tug him closer.

“Princess, if I’d rubbed one off on you, you’d know it.”

☀️ to read the full fic AND 2.5k bonus NOW, subscribe to my Patreon, then click here

👹 or wait till the fic is posted on tumblr Friday the 15th of November 2024

🔮 see what’s already available to read on my m.list

interact to be tagged when the fic is posted, reblogs and replies will be prioritized

[ffrmc]

Get ready to get reccing! You heard it here first, fellas. This coming December is the first ever Fandom Fic Rec Monthlong Carnivale! There are tons of amazing boat media fanfiction out there. This event is for celebrating their incredible writers, the readers, and the spirit of community and sharing that binds fandoms. 

How it works

Every day for the month of December 2024, there will be a prompt/theme that you can fill with at least one fanfic recommendation. Filling is as easy as making a post with a link to the fic. You can be as simple or creative as you want, as long as the post contains 1) the prompt for the day, 2) a link to the fanfic, and 3) the official hashtag #ffrmc2024.

The prompts

The complete prompt list can be found here. Don’t worry, you don’t have to fill all of them! The idea behind FFRMC is to share to each other the fics that we’ve come to love—no pressure. And if you happen to miss a day but still want to fill that prompt, go right ahead!

Here's an example prompt fill.

Who can join

FFRMC is open to fans of The Terror (2018) and other boat media including but not limited to Black Sails, Our Flag Means Death, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aubrey-Maturin Series, Hornblower Saga, and Polar Explorer RPF. Prompt fills can be posted on Tumblr, Twitter, and Bluesky with the hashtag #ffrmc2024.

The Mod

FFRMC is run by yours truly, @laissezferre 😀 I’ve been a boat media fan since 2019 but if you consider celestial dragons as boats then I guess it’s much earlier. Now—let’s get our hair good and powdered. Happy reccing!

Questions? Signal me a message.

[centrally-unplanned]

Japanese website Forest Page is shutting down ~today, a tragic loss of "Heisei otaku memories", as so many are calling it. Launched in 2003, Forest Page was a "Geocities for mobile", a site that hosted user-created websites and gave them tools to allow non-coders to make them. In practice, it became one of the premiere places for fanfiction in Japan, with the stories hosted on author-created sites.

It wasn't quite the Fanfic.net of Japan, as for one the Japanese fandom just never centralized quite the way the 2000's western one did, instead being spread out over a half dozen or so sites. But additionally, it wasn't initially popular for fanfic so much as cell phone fanfiction, because in 2000's Japan the "cell phone novel" was a specific thing. These websites were being made for flip phones, not smartphones, and not only would people read them on those phones, they would often write them. None of that was very conducive to the creation and consumption of a "traditional" novel; so starting in the 2000's Japanese writers started making stories fit for the medium, namely:

Very short

A huge focus on dialogue and inner thoughts, with no/minimal description or scene detail

Using a limited POV of a specific character

Often employing the medium-as-message, like using emojis, structuring the story as IM's or emails, etc.

Also they all had huge gaps between lines, I'm not really sure what that is about:

Probably for readability on the phone given the small screen size? But it was absolutely part of the genre. A few of these novels actually made it big, got movie adaptations, people wrote articles about the "cultural phenomenon", it was the 2000's so Hiroki Azuma had a take on it of course, and so on. It slotted neatly into the vibe of the time of technology changing culture, paralleling discourse around otaku in the same era.

In fanfic those trends met up, and anyone familiar with fanfiction probably read that list of traits of the cellphone novel and thought "oh, this is perfect for fanfiction". Skipping out on description? I don't need it, I know what they look like already. Focus on conversation and POV? Perfect for shipping fics. Short lengths? Yeah, we are shortcutting to the good stuff, that is the point. Mirroring trends in the west, Forest Page's userbase was ~95% female, and the most common content on the site was romantic or edgy-dramatic stories in the franchises you'd expect. The closure page linked above actually summarizes the site's history by year, and lists the biggest fandoms:

Which is exactly what I would expect from a female otaku fanfiction website. Congrats to Pirates of the Caribbean for making it though, freeaboo's represent.

I do think the fact that the site was a website hoster as opposed to a fic hoster did align with the way the Japanese fandom was more "creator focused" and embraced the media mix more. There were "fic circles" a la doujin circles who made their own pages, people would make fanart, fan video games, and so own to host alongside it, and all of it was centralized to the creator; it made following them-as-a-person just a little bit easier. Most websites were simple text, but others did have the full Geocities experience:

Something that was somewhat common were basic visual novel concepts where the reader could make choices, or even insert their own name so they would be the "MC" of the story:

(Dream novels are in fact their own thing in Japan) My understanding is the site was quite popular through the 2000's and into the 2010's, though over time the "cellphone novel" as a concept fizzled out. People got smartphones, more people got PCs, and the constraints didn't make sense anymore - you can read ebooks and normal websites on your phone now after all. You can probably draw a line between these kind of stories and the webfiction/light novel boom of the late 2000's/2010's, something that was equally born on the internet, that streamlines the novel to "shortcut to the good stuff" but without the need to fit on a flip phone's screen. Though I will admit my own understanding of their histories shows them more as two sides of the same "youth demand for new literature" coin.

In 2017 Forest Page launched Forest Page Plus, a new service fully optimized for the smartphone era; but it did not transfer over all the old content, starting the clock ticking on the original Forest Page. My understanding is that in June they announced Forest Page was officially closing down; and from what I have gathered from reminiscing writers on twitter, they did not provide any easy, one-touch way to save any of the content, so people are archiving Wayback Machine links or sharing tips on how screenshot-save stories (I think the rub is they gave people a way to transfer content to FP+, but most don't want to do that, as places like Twitter & Pixiv are the content kings of this era).

As of tomorrow I would bet the large majority of the content will be gone; quite sad given both the quantity of stories there and how many got sometimes millions of readers. I am sure most of the biggest stories are archived at least, but particularly the early stuff was a very ephemeral genre, one that doesn't make sense to revisit once you aren't a 16 year old teen writing and reading fics on a flip phone in between classes. Which means another legion of the ghosts of the Wired is being born today. May we pour one out for a fellow online community that lived and died!

[cartograffiti]

An intro to the historical Zheng Yi Sao

Ruibo Qian's character in Our Flag Means Death is based on a real person, though like all its real pirates, she is a loose interpretation. In particular, the real Zheng Yi Sao wasn't born until 57 years after the real Blackbeard died!

In real life, she lived from 1775 to 1844. She was known by a variety of names; her birth name is usually given as Shi Yang. Zheng Yi Sao is the name most often used, which literally means "the wife of Zheng Yi" (more on him later), and you may also see variations like Ching Shih or Madam Cheng, depending on transliteration. Calling her Zheng, as Oluwande does, is good, or ZYS in fandom chat, but if fic writers crave a more personal connotation for a scene, Yang is a good choice for a given name consistent with the real woman. It's like the difference between Mr. Buttons and Nathaniel.

She was born in the Guangdong province, and many bios of her claim she worked on one of the boat brothels there, but this is speculation only.

When she married Zheng Yi, he was a successful member of a pirating dynasty, working as a privateer for emperors of Vietnam. The couple collaborated to unite six different pirate fleets operating off the Guangdong coast into a confederation, sealed with an agreement signed by the captains of each. Zheng Yi was informally recognized as the overall leader of the confederation until his death in a storm two years after the signing.

Zheng Yi Sao had the respect of other key figures in the alliance, and her smooth assumption of leadership was followed by a period of huge success and expansion for the pirate confederation, driving the Chinese government to desperation. This is where her reputation as a pirate "queen" comes from in real life, though I'm excited to see where the show goes with her fictional conquest of China!

In 1810, Zheng Yi Sao recognized that the confederation faced internal fractures and additional opposition, as Portuguese and British military forces allied with Chinese ships, so she led the confederation to bow out on a high, and use their immense power to bargain for a peaceful retirement, surrendering ships and weapons for pardons, supplies, and money. Although it's fictional that her crew was predominantly women, when Zheng Yi Sao surrendered, she did so accompanied by a delegation wholly composed of women and children who belonged to the confederation. At that time, the confederation consisted of 226 ships, 24 of which personally reported to Zheng Yi Sao.

If you're doing the math, she was only in her mid-thirties, and was far from done with life. She remarried, to one of her former captains, Zhang Bao, and accompanied him to the Penghu Islands, where he commanded a garrison. After his death, she returned to Guangdong and had another career of twenty-odd years, becoming the owner of a casino until her death at age 68 or 69 (nice).

She was one of the most successful pirates in history, both because of her power and her ability to survive it. I think she's neat as hell, and so have a lot of fiction writers! You might have encountered versions of her, or characters inspired by her, before, in things like Pirates of the Caribbean, the Bloody Jack novels, Assassin's Creed, and Doctor Who. It's fun to see a form of her in this! We can expect her arc to progress differently, but I hope having some context will help.

The most helpful things to note for the rest of the season for ofmd fans will be that Zheng is her surname, she wasn't really a contemporary of the other historical figures, and that her connection to sex work should not be treated as a fact, whether you want to include it in this fictional interpretation or not.

[i-can-read-to-him]

The Wesper Fic Club's Author Spotlight is a post series that aims to feature two to three fic authors a month, randomly selected from a pool of names put forth on our server. The authors are then asked to answer three interview questions, select up to five of their fics for us to feature, and finally, recommend three fics by others in the fandom.

(Note: Our spotlighted fics are not limited to Wesper, though they tend to be a central pairing in most of our authors' featured works.)

This week, we are putting a spotlight on Blackpearl's writing!

Socials: @magicandpizza (Tumblr) | Blackpearl (AO3)

❀

Part One: Author Interview

Q: When did you first start writing? What keeps you going today?

A: I honestly don’t remember when I started writing, but I was very young. I have vague memories of writing some little stories inspired by Beatrix Potter, and at one point I was convinced I was going to write the fifth Harry Potter book. I don’t recall anything else about that one apart from the title - Harry Potter and the Silver Snitch. What was the plot? Who knows.  My first serious fandom was Pirates of the Caribbean, followed by Spooks and BBC Sherlock. I had some of those fanfics published on AO3, but they’ve long since been orphaned. I then didn’t write anything for years and years until I fell into the Six of Crows fandom. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Q: Have you had a chance to interact with the SAB cast? Tell us about your experience(s)?

A: I’ve been lucky enough to meet Jack Wolfe a few times by stage-dooring at Next to Normal, once at the Donmar and three times at Wyndhams. He’s such a genuine, down-to-earth person who really loves his fans. And his eyelashes? Rude. I also met Kit Young after his show Influence. It was about two days after the cancellation announcement and we had a chat about that, as well as what had drawn him to doing a magic show. He was very kind and generous with his time. I’m attending Into The Fold 2 next year - it’ll be my first ever convention so I’m excited for that and the opportunity to meet some more of the cast!

Q: What’s something you wish you could write, but don’t think you ever will?

A: I really wish I was one of those authors who could craft incredible and intricate plot lines, but I never have been and I don’t think I ever will be. I’d love to be able to write a heist or something complicated like that, but all my attempts are half-hearted at best. I should probably just stick to what I do best: fluff and smut.

❀

Part Two: Selected Works

Don't Do Sadness

Mature | 3.1K (Complete) | Wesper 5+1, Wylan Van Eck and his trauma, Violence, Extremely dubious consent (not Wesper)

Blackpearl says: Mind the tags on this one. I really wanted to explore Wylan’s trauma at different ages and how he might cope with it, and also take a step away from the usual stuff I write. I’m very pleased with how this one turned out.

Sky Full of Stars

Explicit | 10.2K (Complete) | Wesper   Famous/celebrity AU, Wylan is a musician, Jesper is an actor, mixed media fic

Blackpearl says: This was an idea I had percolating for a while, and I wanted to play around with writing different kinds of media. I feel this one is a bit under-appreciated but that’s fine, I had fun writing it.

We Keep This Dream Together

Mature | 33.1K (Complete) | Wesper  Coffee shop/university AU, Loosely based on the UK education system, Wesper-centric featuring background Helnik and Kanej, Found Family

Blackpearl says: Who doesn’t love a coffee shop AU? This was very self-indulgent, but I had so much fun with it I’m working on a sequel!

Folding 

Teen | 2.6K (Complete) | Wesper  Jesper’s gambling addiction, Post-canon, Hurt/comfort

Blackpearl says: I don’t think Jesper’s gambling addiction gets addressed enough, and I wanted to explore what it might look like post-canon. 

Tie Me Up

Explicit | 1.7K (Complete) | Wesper Shameless smut, Light bondage, Light dom/sub, bottom!Wylan, top!Jesper

Blackpearl says: It wouldn’t be me without a smut fic, and this is one of my favourites. Featuring slightly subby Jesper and slightly mean Wylan and a tie that neither of them will ever look at the same again.

❀

Part Three: Author's Recs

i’d marry you with paper rings by MaudeAlise

Teen | 11.3K (Complete) | Wesper, Helnik, Kanej Fluff, Established Relationship, Post-Canon, Marriage Proposal

Blackpearl says: Just 11k words of Wylan and Jesper being stupidly in love and wanting to marry each other. This fic makes me grin like an idiot every time I love it. Also just a general shout out to everything that MaudeAlise writes. I’m obsessed with them. 

Obvious Lovebirds by perculiarjuliar 

Teen | 11.6K (Complete) | Wesper, Helnik, minor Kanej POV Multiple, Fluff, Heartbeats, Holding Hands, Hickeys, Kissing

Blackpearl says: Six different outsider perspectives of Wylan and Jesper’s relationship. I love fics like this, and this author did such a great job of getting into the heads of the different characters. 

Keep You Safe by @aphroditestummyrolls

Mature | 42.3K (Complete) | Wesper, Helnik, Kanej, Crows & Colm Post-Canon, Book & Show, Canon Divergence, Protective Crows

Blackpearl says: Six months post-canon in an alternate universe where Jesper took the jurda parem, and Matthias lives. Colm Fahey comes looking for his son. This fic is so so so good and made me feel so many things. I love the deep dive in Jesper and Colm’s relationship, as well as Jesper and Wylan’s. Just perfect.

❀

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[desi2go]

A pirate and the sea

pairings: pirate!Jeongin x reader

Warnings: death, angst, fluff

summary: You were the daughter of a sailesman and after your father's death, you were held captive by pirates. Luckily, you meet a young pirate that will change your life forever.

author's note: Hey guys! I'm a big fan of Pirates of the Caribbean so I thought I would try to write a fic about pirates. I hope you like it even though my knowledge comes from the films and the internet ;-)

The sea is wild. Something you can't tame. Within minutes, the peaceful waves can turn into fearsome beasts that cannot be domesticated.

Yet, the humans explore it and take every opportunity to reach further into the deepest of the sea. They search for gold, for treasures, and for freedom.

Many people try to control it, sailesmen from European colonies claim the sea.

But there are also pirates. They raid and steal from the cities. Their home is the sea, their ship.

Two days ago, a pirate ship docked at the harbour of your town. You were the daughter of a sailesman, someone with money.

In the night, they looted the shops and surprised your father and you. Quickly, your father pushed you behind a cabin so that they couldn't see you.

They picked the lock and four pirates stormed in. Your father tried to bring them to just take the money and go but they knew that this wasn't everything your family owned. They aimed their colts at him. They will shot him, you thought. In your hands was your own colt that your father gave you if you would ever be in danger.

As a sailesman, he had many enemies. Mostly pirates. So, he taught you how to defend yourself. But in this moment, where the guns pointed at your father's chest, you needed to do something. You can't just stand there and hide when your only family member was about to get shot.

You took a deep breath and with shivering fingers, you jumped out of your hideout and aimed one of the pirates. Without hesitation, you pulled the trigger and the pirate fell to the ground while his crew mates turned.

"Daughter, no!" Your father exclaimed as one of the men grabbed your arm and held his gun to your temple.

"Feisty little thing, you are" the pirate behind you whispered into your ear. Due to the smell of his breath you, you tried not to vomit.

Your father pleaded to let you go but they seemed to be fond of you.

Blind from the panic, your father tried to get to you and in that moment the other pirate shot him. The bullet went directly through his chest where blood stained his chemise red.

You tried to escape, to get to him. You needed to help him but the stern grip didn't let you go. You cried and yelled as they dragged you out of your house and to the docks.

Your naked feet burned due to the uneven ground and the cold wind dried your tear streaks.

They dragged you on their ship and threw you in a cell under the deck

...

You didn't know how long you were on that ship. You had cried until the exhaustion made you fall asleep and woke up when the pirates dumped a bucket of water over you.

They laughed and walked up the stairs. The hole to the deck was the only light source while your cell was surrounded with nothing but darkness. The only thing you heard, besides the rustling of the waves, were the footsteps above you.

You didn't know how many time has passed and the constantly rocking of the ship through the waves made you fall into a sleep again and again.

The same dream followed you everywhere. You saw your father dead, murdered by these beasts again and again.

Days passed and you wondered if someone would search for you. If someone had found your father. Maybe you should have stayed in the hideaway. Maybe then your father, your only family that was left, wouldn't be dead.

You felt weak. Although you were used to being on a ship, the absence of food and water made you nauseous. The last time you ate something was in the night, when the pirates attacked your home.

Suddenly, you heard the rapid footsteps above you. Were they in panic? Was a storm about to hit the ship and they were just jumping around to prepare it therefore?

Then, you heard shouting and the noise was louder. What was going on?

It seemed that it were fights due to the sound of swords crashing together and the painful shoutings.

And suddenly, the noisiness stopped and it was nearly completely quiet.

A foot clothed in a brown boot stepped on the first stair down, then the other. The footsteps were heavy and calm as the person went down to where the cells were. Each step revealed more of the person and soon, another person followed. Judging by the footwear, that weren't your father's friends.

You panicked.

It didn't sound like any of the bastards that kidnapped you. With all your strength, you fled to the end of your cell and pushed yourself to the wooden wall behind you. You hoped that the person's, the foreigner wouldn't see you.

If they just took over the complete ship without any hesitation, they would be worse than the murderer.

The two guy, observed the dark room, still alerted with swords and colts in hand if there were other pirates down here.

All you could do was sitting there and hope that they didn't notice you.

But when one of them turned and saw you. He nudged his mates to make him draw attention to you.

They spoke quietly to each other and one went upstairs. Maybe they wouldn't pay you attention at all. Maybe they'll just let you be in that cell.

But another person made his way downstairs. Due to the lack of light, you couldn't see his face and only pressed yourself further into the wall.

"Who do we have here? A little bird" he said and you could nearly hear his smile.

"No need to be afraid little bird." He stated while he pulled out a colt and at first, you thought that this would be the end. Your death but he aimed the lock that kept you in the cell. With a targeted shot, he opened the door to the cell and walked in.

"See? No danger. Come"

You nodded and stood up slowly. Your stance was weak and shaky due to the absence of food and water over the last days. You figured that obeying his commands was the best way to stay alive.

You followed him upstairs into the light. At first, the bright sun made you blind. It was like you could finally breath again after days in that rat hole.

Now, you could observe your rescuer. He was tall and had black hair. You must admit that he was attractive.

"Cap, we've got everything" another one said. He was slightly shorter, approximately your hight and bulkier than the rest of the crew.

Your rescuer seemed to be the captain.

"Alright guys. Thanks for the good trade." The captain exclaimed to the pirates that stood in a corner, circled by three people. He walked over a beam to his ship. His hand held your arm in a firm grip to make sure you follow him. Yet, the grip wasn't hurting.

His crew followed both of you to the bigger ship. Compared to this one, the ship you were captured on was like a small boat. There were wooden boxes stacked, they must have looted them from the pirates.

Some crewmates lifted the beams up and the captain was already behind the ship's steering wheel and stirred the ship away from the other one. While the crew began to bring the boxes under deck, you just stood there. Why did he bring you here?

Where held captive again? Or was that your chance to go home?

When the course was set, the captain let his second-in-command take over. He came to you and shot you a small smile.

"Alright little bird. Welcome on our ship. I'm the Captain and my name is Jeongin. Will you tell me yours?"

You swallowed and tried to wet your lips befor answering. "Y/n"

"A beautiful name. Come, I'll show ya the ship"

Confused you followed him. What did that guy, Jeongin, want from you?

You stepped in a room, it was big and in the middle, there stood a bulky table with some maps scattered on it. Some shelfs stood in front of a wall and a bed was placed in one corner. What would you give to sleep in one now.

"That's my room. And because we don't have any other rooms free, you'll be staying here"

Due to your facial expression, he laughed.

"Little bird, you didn't thought you'll be staying in one of those cells or did you?"

You felt your blood rushing into your cheeks and lowered your view.

He walked to a cabin and digged through it. Then, he pulled out a light brown shirt and a trousers.

"They propabaly wil be too big but try it on, little bird" He held the clothes out to you and you took them hesitantly.

Jeongin left the room to give you some space and quickly, before he could come back, you jumped out of the white dress, well it was once white. You threw over the clothings and he was right, they definitely were too big for you. But you didn't mind because now you wouldn't be nearly naked in front of these men.

You entered the deck and searched for Jeongin. He stood behind the steering wheel and guided the ship. You decided that you shouldn't interrupt him now and walked around the deck. You sat down at the front so that you could see into the ocean. Sighning, you leaned forward on the railing. The sun slowly went down and nearly kissed the ocean while the sky was painted into a beautiful orange-red.

You always loved to be on the sea. Often, you accompanied your father on his trips. He taught you much about ships and sometimes you steered it.

"Hey! I'm Felix!" a deep voice behind you exclaimed. You flinched and turned your head to see a brown haired boy with a friendly smile.

"Hey. I'm Y/n" you replied.

"First time on the sea?" He asked and sat himself down beside you. The friendly smile never left his lips.

"No, my father was a sailesman. He used to take me with him" you explained.

"That's awesome. I'm sure he is on his way to you"

A sad smile danced over your face. You would never see him again. Not in this lifetime.

"Yeah, maybe" you answered with a low voice. You didn't want to tell him that you were the only one left. And you still didn't know why they saved you.

"Come, Felix! You wanted to help me prepare dinner!" A voice exclaimed and Felix shot up.

He bowed to you and quickly left.

...

Only one hour later, Jeongin broke you out of your daydreaming and led you to something that looked like a cooking hob. And honestly, you didn't know what to expect. Your father told you that most of the pirates eat mostly rusk on long journeys and that sometimes worms are in that rusk.

Jeongin saw your sceptical face and nudged you forward.

"Come. I won't poison you"

He took a bowl from Felix and gave it to you. It was filled with some bread and dried meat but no worms in sight at all. You gave him a thankful smile and ate your meal. After eating nothing for so long, you would probably eat everything that they would present you. You sat on a barrel next to Jeongin and shoveled the food into your mouth.

And again you asked yourself why they rescued you. Now they have another hungry person on the ship that isn't even in the crew.

With a full stomach, you leaned back and gave the bowl back to Felix. For a short time, you closed your eyes.

But you shot up when you felt a hand on you lower back. You relaxed when you saw that it was just the captain.

"Come, let's go to bed" he whispered and you followed him to the captain's room. He opened the door for you and let you in. Clueless, you stand in the middle of the room. There was only one bed and just because he seemed okay you couldn't be sure. You knew him for only less than a day.

"Little bird, relax. I'm gonna sleep outside with my crew." He chuckled and was already turning away when you catched the sleeve of his jacket.

You felt bad that you chased him out of his own bed. And if you were honest, you could just hold some distance.

"You can stay. You don't need to sleep outside"

A toothy smile lightened his face and his eyes crinkled. "If you say so, little bird"

He took off his jacket and boots and got into the bed. You took a deep breath, layed next to him with your back facing him. He placed the blanket over your small frame and whispered a good night.

...

Days passed and you still didn't know why they rescued you. But everyone on this ship seemed kind. Some of them hid their friendly nature behind a wall of coldness but if you look closer, you can see the bubbly version of them shining through. Felix turned to a friend within just a few days due to his sunny and helpful personality.

And Jeongin. Still, the captain and you shared one bed at night. And you slept with your back facing him every night even though you usually woke up with your face buried into his chest or his hands circled around your waist. It was awkward to say at least. But luckily he hadn't said anything.

Now, it was already night and most of the crew were already asleep or played a card game under the deck.

You had accompanied them for a while but now, you searched for the captain. You found him on the control deck. Slowly you approached him.

"What are you doing here, little bird?" He asked. You leaned on the railing. "I could ask you the same"

He chuckled and ran his hands over the wood of the railing.

"Jeongin, why did you save me? You could've left me there. You didn't know me at all"

"Because you reminded me of someone. My mom. My father rescued her when she was held captive by sailesmen."

"Thank you. Thank you for saving me" you whispered and layed your hand on his arm.

"I would do it all over again, little bird." He said and his eyes travelled around your face. The moon turned his hair into a silver shade and his dark eyes sparkled.

Sleepy, you leaned your head on his shoulder and you felt his fingers dance over your hand, drawing circles and figures.

That was the last thing you remembered before sleep took over. In the morning, you woke up in bed with the sun on your face. You must've been really tired to sleep so long. The place next to you was cold. Jeongin must be gone a while now.

You entered the deck and you already knew where you would find the captain. He stood behind the ship's steering wheel. On the horizon, you could spot the first houses.

"Are we going on land?" You asked Jeongin and stood beside him.

He just nodded and grabbed the wheel tighter. You pinched your eyes together to get a better image of the approaching town. You definitely knew that town. It was your hometown.

"Wait, what are we doing here?"

"I'm bringing you home and we need some errands" he said and turned his face away from you. He was definitely not up to a conversation now, so you just let it slide. Was he getting rid of you? The thought never crossed your mind that he doesn't want you on the ship. Stupid.

Why should he want you here? It's not that you are a big help either. During the past days, you helped Felix with preparing meals for the crew. But after yesterday night you thought that something had changed.

You couldn't force him to let you stay.

...

Two hours later, you walked down the beam to the mainland followed by Jeongin.

"That's it, then" he said, his hands in the pockets of his jacket and the big hat covered most of his face.

"Yeah, thank you Jeongin" you whispered.

He bid you goodbye and you turned around. You didn't want to see him standing there.

You followed the well-known path to your house. The door wasn't locked so you entered. The house was nearly empty. The most things were stolen and just the significant blood stain on the floor reminded that your father was murdered here only days ago. Luckily, his body wasn't here anymore. That would be cruel and you wouldn't know if you would forget that picture ever again.

Then, you made your way to the cemetery. You walked through the aisles and searched for his name.

Pretty fast you found the grey gravestone with his name chiseled into. You kneeled beside it and let your hand slide over the uneven stone. You never thought that your life would take such a drastic twist.

After your father died, nothing held you here anymore. The thought of staying here, living here in happiness made you sick. The short journey on Jeongin's ship made you forget. You were your true self there and not only that.

You liked Jeongin. As a captain and person. He saved you even though he didn't know you. And within that short time, you developed feelings for him. Sadly, you won't get to tell him that.

But maybe it wasn't too late. He said that they needed some errands before going back to the sea. You placed a kiss on the gravestone and ran through the city. You bumped into so many people but you didn't mind. You prayed that they were still there. It felt like your father's spirit led you.

At the harbour, you searched for the big ship and you were relieved. They seemed to bring the errands on the ship right now. Jeongin stood in front of it and looked through the boxes.

When he heard your footsteps, he looked up and he was surprised.

"Y/n. What are you doing here?" He asked and walked towards you. You needed a second to catch your breath.

"I want to go with you"

"What?"

"Jeongin, being on your ship made me realise that I don't want to live a boring life. I want to stay. On the ship. With you." You brushed your hair back and took another step to him.

His eyes travelled to your lips and he leaned in.

With both hands, he grabbed your face and pressed his lips on yours. The kiss was hard, full of emotions and desire. But it was all you ever wanted. You wanted to be with him. Your pirate and the sea. That's all you ever needed.

[tennessoui]

going completely the opposite direction of water-themed here lol but: “bank the fire, fan the flames” for the fic title ask game?

I gotta respect the dedication to being the opposite!!! Gonna give you a totally water based au tho 😛

for this title I’d write a fic where obi-wan is a pirate captain and he keeps running into first mate!anakin all around the Caribbean and every time he tries to tempt him to join his crew, he could be his cabin boy, wink wink nudge nudge. It’s established banter that they take part in every time they run into each other

and then obi-wan hears on one of his shore leaves that anakin has actually led a mutiny against his old captain and now anakin is captain even though he’s so young and obi-wan’s a bit proud of him, honest, his ferocious little darling pirate captain

still doesn’t change their banter that much when their ships run up against each other. now obi-wan just gets to bemoan that they could have had it all, if only anakin had jumped ship to join obi-wan’s crew

Anakin does not like this teasing because he is a fierce captain now and he’s trying to establish his reputation. He thinks slamming obi-wan up against a wall of some brothel and putting his sword to his neck will intimidate him but honestly captain kenobi is more turned on than he’s ever been before

[melodygatesauthor]

Okay guys, I can't believe it's been a full year since I published the first chapter of my first fanfiction story and I'm still going strong today. - (Side note...it was actually yesterday but I wanted to get all my fics posted to AO3 so I could get an accurate word count and tell you all what I've done so...it took me an extra day)

This is going to be a really long post, and I thank everyone in advance for reading all the way through if you make it. I'm taking a moment to allow myself to talk about my accomplishments over the last year, my goals for this next year, and gas myself up just a bit. As an artist, it's really hard to talk about myself in a positive light without being critical, but I'm going to do it anyway. No one asked, but this is one of the ways I wanna celebrate my ficversary so...I'm gonna do it lol.

My First Fanfic Ever

I'd like to start by sharing my beginnings with writing. If I really think back to the very first fanfiction I wrote, I thought it was a Gorillaz fic (which I still have a handwritten copy of in my closet lol), but it wasn't. I think the very first fanfic I wrote technically was a Pirates of the Caribbean fic when I was 11. I didn't even realize that's what it was, I just knew that I was SO into POTC that I wanted to write about it. It had just come out by the way, so I'm really dating myself. This was...2003.

We had this thing we had to do for school, it was like a writing assignment or something, one of those big ones that they gave you, a standardized whatever. I managed to find a way to spin it into a POTC related thing and I went OFF writing this story. It had its own twists and turns unrelated to POTC, but it was a fanfic through and through.

The Beginning of My Fan Art

When I was 12 I started listening to Good Charlotte, to a point that it was my entire personality. Everyone who knew me, knew I loved them. Every fucking art project I had in middle school (7th and 8th grade) was revolved around this band, particularly Joel Madden.

My love for them has come and gone, but I still remember how I felt at the time (not unlike how I feel toward Oscar Isaac now lol). I mean my art teacher literally had to be like "I want you to branch out, you can't make everything about them." And as an adult, I'm wondering -why the fuck not but- ...I digress.

The First Fanfic I Ever "Published"

When I was 12 (or maybe closer to 13), I became OBSESSED with the Gorillaz. When I say obsessed I mean...I listened to the album Demon Days on repeat until it fucking broke. I changed my G's when I would write by hand to match the G in their logo. I made tons of fan art and it was a damn vibe. This was the first time I really discovered fanfiction and learned what it was.

I remember reading one fanfic from some girl on this website (I'm really dating myself here, some of you will know what site this is...) Quizilla. Quizilla was THE site at the time (other than LiveJournal I think, but I never used LiveJournal and didn't know it existed at the time) for fanfiction and what you would now call "buzzfeed quizzes". This girl's writing inspired me to write my own fanfic, which I handwrote and kept in a green folder which, as I said, I still have to this day sitting in my closet.

My very first fic, and yes at 13, included some romance, some non-con (don't fucking ask me why idk even how I knew about that at 13. I was never exposed to this type of thing as a child fortunately) and other nonsense. I published it on this site, and it made me really happy. I don't remember if anyone ever read it or not tbh, but it will forever hold a place in my heart <3

My Best Friend/Emo Era

I met my best friend in high school when I was about 14. She and I are still close to this day. Not as close, but I can still tell her my most unhinged thoughts and she loves me regardless. We met because we both wrote fanfiction and lost our minds over the fact that we did. Thus started my emo era.

She was into My Chemical Romance, and I was into The Used. 2005 was a time lol. The two of us had either a binder or a composition notebook where we'd handwrite our fics and pass them back and forth between classes. I still have the ones I wrote tucked away in my house. When we'd read them she and I would leave little notes in the margins like we all leave comments today.

Most of these fics never got published, they were just for us to enjoy. I did, however, publish a fic when I was about 15, that I wrote to completion. Quizilla ended up going down, and most of us moved to Mibba.com instead, which is still a website.

Edit: I looked at Mibba, and it looks like the website is still there, but you can't search for anything, so Mibba is gone too. Not gonna lie, broke my nostalgic heart just a bit to see...Some fics I wrote on there will be gone forever. Maybe for the best, but it's still kinda sad.

The Avenged Sevenfold Era

When I tell you that Avenged Sevenfold has been my favorite band since I was 15, I'm dead ass. Are they the best band ever? Not by a long shot, but damn the way I still lose my shit over them is unhinged. Anyone who was around during this time fucking knows...they were fucking HOT. Matt Shadows really had the bulky but not shredded body type going on, they all kinda did, and I'm so here for it.

Why I'll never post any of the fics I wrote during this time, even if I get my hands on them...

I wrote them when I was 15, and I was writing about things 15 year olds shouldn't write about.

You don't know cringe until you've read those fics.

It's about real people and I'm not a fan of rpf anymore. I'm all for writing whatever you want and fiction being fiction but there's something that gives me the ick about real people fiction. No offense to anyone who writes it, that's just my feelings.

The way these guys had a hold on me for the next 5 years was ridiculous. I wrote about them a lot, by hand, on my laptop, however I could. I had so many unhinged ideas and stories it's insane. I loved every minute of it, and I always look back on this as my true start into fanfiction.

The End of an Era

All good things come to an end. After graduation, my best friend and I stayed in touch, but grew apart. I went to college and continued writing fanfic. I was pursuing a major in graphic design with a minor in creative writing. I was convinced that even though I was writing fanfiction, I was going to write a book too and it would be a bestseller.

As time went on, probably when I was about 20 or 21, I kinda stopped writing fanfiction all together. My friend wasn't really writing it anymore, and the community around Avenged Sevenfold was slowing down. I was also in the middle of a breakup and it was a whole thing, so I kinda stopped writing around this time.

I'd also, unfortunately, felt like fanfiction was for kids/teens, so didn't feel the need to continue writing anymore. I didn't want to seem like a loser writing fanfiction in my twenties...so I didn't.

For the record, you're not a loser for writing fanfiction. It's a very valid artform and it's fun. We only live for so long, so enjoy it doing what makes you happy, period. I'll probably be writing in my 50s I fucking hope lol.

Anyway, at that time, that's how I felt. I now know it's bullshit to think that way. So fanfiction fizzled out for me, and I kinda moved on to other things.

My Not-fanfiction Era

What was I doing instead of writing? Going through an emotionally and mentally abusive relationship, working on trying to build what I thought was the 'dream' (marriage, kids, a house, e.t.c.), working and playing video games.

Fortunately that relationship ended. After years of therapy (which he told me I needed because he gaslit me into thinking I was crazy lol), I grew the balls to finally tell him to fuck off and leave. It was the best decision I ever made, especially considering this was JUST before COVID hit. I shudder to this day thinking about the fact that I was almost stuck in a house with that freak during lockdown.

When that relationship ended I moved back to Maine to be with my family. I missed them and had spent basically my entire 20s in another state with some loser.

Back to Fanfiction - Kylo Ren Era

So how did I get back here? How did I get back into writing and creating fan art? The truth is, a switch literally flipped in my brain over this guy right here...

I mean...

The funny thing is, I wasn't SUPER into Star Wars before this. I liked it, I'd seen the sequel trilogy in theaters, but to me it was just a movie series. I was literally watching a Sam Collins video on YouTube where he made fun of a Kylo Ren cosplayer's thirst trap on TikTok and was like...oh that's actually kinda hot.

Thought nothing of it though, just moved on with my day...until I dreamt about him too. And then I felt this spark inside me that I couldn't shake. I literally was like...👀 something is happening here.

So I remembered this feeling from when I was a teen and recognized the impending obsession immediately. I actually googled "is fanfiction still relevant" and "is it ok to write fanfiction as an adult?"

The short answers are - yes - and - of course it is -. This was how I discovered the VERY popular Kylo Ren fic Fix Your Attitude by Kassanovella. I read it in a matter of a week, and in that time I started writing my own fic. I also rewatched ALL the Star Wars movies, and then continued rewatching the sequel trilogy on repeat just so I could get Kylo Ren's character down. I wanted to make sure I captured his voice and personality perfectly. - When I say I watched the sequel trilogy 20 times, it's not an exaggeration, I had it on constantly.-

The fic I wrote was called, Yes, Master

The first chapter of that fic was published on 09/05/2022 (one year ago today), and the last chapter was published on 10/14/2022 with a word count of 100,701. Not only is it the longest fic I've written of all the fics I've done, but it's the one I wrote the fastest. I was posting a chapter a day every day until it was finished. I mean...I literally went OFF on this story. I was so proud of it that I went to lulu.com and made myself a physical copy of it that I intend to read as part of this celebration I'm doing lol.

Wondering if anyone would be interested in me revamping this story (rewriting and updating it) and posting here? I would definitely do it if there was enough interest.

I then wrote a sequel called By Your Side which taught me SO MUCH. Here's what I learned when creating this sequel...

Not everything needs a sequel.

Writing a chapter a day isn't realistic.

I should've planned a full outline before diving into this fic.

I'm not into pregnancy fics/domestic fics all that much as far as longfics go.

It's okay to genuinely dislike something you've written and you should try to learn from that.

By Your Side is still to this day one of my least favorite fics (if not my LEAST favorite). I am still proud of myself for finishing it, (it sits at a hefty 85,599 words). I don't have to love it though. I'm just grateful for what I learned in the process of writing it and proud of myself for finishing it despite being sick of it by chapter 8 and still writing 20 chapters after that.

I also wrote my very first Yandere fic, Just You. It's a bit darker, in my opinion, than The Fractured Moon. This fic was a blast to write, and it felt very freeing to write something so disturbing. It was fun to just let myself get into a dark headspace without holding back and not feeling bad about it. It was more

The Rainbow Six Siege Era

During my time writing for Kylo, I went back to a video game I used to play a lot, Rainbow Six Siege. My Oscar Era bleeds into the Kylo and R6S era a little but I'll talk about that soon.

The Siege fandom was an interesting one...one that I'll probably not go back to much, though I may still write a little fic for it here and there as I feel inspired to. I won't dive too much into this as I know most of you are Oscar fans, but I'll mention my accomplishments here and the things I learned.

I wrote another novel-length fic for this fandom called The Recruit and the Hunter which has another 83,888 words. I actually LOVE this story, and still look back on it fondly. It was a fun one to write, and I really challenged myself to write less smut for it, and I succeeded. It focused heavily on the relationship that built between the main pairing and in my opinion it's one of my better slow-burns I've done.

Why did I leave this fandom?

Well, I'm not going to throw shade, I don't like doing that unless I have to, so I'll keep it brief. The long and the short of it is this...

The readers were getting EXTREMELY demanding. I have comments on RATH of people saying things like "I'm going to be upset if you don't give us a happy ending" and "there better be smut or I swear...". It can get really discouraging as a writer when people seem to say "I love your fic but I'll only continue to love it if you do xyz." It puts us in a dilemma, and makes it hard for us to find a balance between providing fan service, and doing what's fun for us to write. It definitely changed the outcome of RATH and I'm not happy that I gave in like that.

The requests I got were confusing and downright weird. I didn't do some of the really weird ones, and I'm not meaning to kink shame, but it was just very niche things that I couldn't get myself into. I think part of why I felt obligated to provide fan service like I mentioned in the point above, and why I caved and wrote some fanfics for these more unique requests, is because this fandom is very small, and I felt an obligation to provide.

Some of the other writers in the fandom are fucking rude. I'm not going to mention names, like I said, but I had very poor experiences with several writers in the fandom, and since I was also integrating into the Oscar fandom at the time, I could see a stark difference in the way I was being accepted in one, versus the way I was being pushed away in the other. There aren't a lot of x reader writers in the R6S fandom, and I was one of them, and there seems to be some animosity between the people who ship characters, versus the people who write x reader and that's where this mistreatment came from. I don't know, I tried making friends over there, and felt like I was getting pushed out.

So anyway, it's not for me anymore, but I still think back to certain parts of it fondly, and I may write a little more here and there as I see fit.

The Oscar Isaac Era

This really is THE era, isn't it?

As I was working on the last 10 or so chapters of Yes, Master, and after my 12th time rewatching the sequel trilogy movies, I started to fall for Poe Dameron, naturally. How could I not? I mean look at him...

So I decided that I would give Poe a prequel to my Yes, Master story called One Hell of a Pilot. This fic was so fun to write, and it's how I became involved with the Oscar Isaac community in the first place. Immediately I started following Dee, and through her I found Mona, and it was just snowballing from there. Whitney and Romana were some of the first to follow me and my shenanigans.

In December, which is when I started writing One Hell of a Pilot, another novel-length fic that ended with 80,517 words, is when I started reading Dee's fics, along with Mona's and many others. I saw their interactions and felt excited by the prospect of making new friends who were just as into some of this stuff as I was. A place that I could be myself and lose my shit over this idiot and not be judged.

I had no idea what the hell I was getting myself into.

It all started with a fic that Dee had written, I can't remember which one, probably a dbf!Santi fic, and I asked the innocent question of...

What movie is this from?

Oh shit...I didn't realize what the fuck I was getting myself into. After she told me it was Triple Frontier and I should watch it, my brother and I watched it right away. I told him a friend of mine suggested it. The way we spent the entire 1.5 hours laughing at how bad it was is still a memory I hold dear to my heart. I still didn't know at the time that this loser (Oscar my beloved) would hold a place in my heart from that day on.

My first Santi fic was a headcanon about Santi w/ a plussize reader that I called Preciously Plump. A headcanon that later got a full fic, appropriately named Preciously Plump the One-shot.

So then I read something about Moon Knight, and between Dee and Mona shoving me into it (peer pressure ftw) I caved and watched the show.

Phew...

That gave way to the first Moon Knight fic I ever wrote, How Unexpected which came out on January 3rd, 2023 of this year. I was sure that between Steven's adorable nerdy behavior, and Marc's tough exterior, I'd be head over heels for those two. I was nervous to even TOUCH Jake, because I didn't know shit about his character, and the last thing I wanted to do was write a character without it sounding like them.

I was also afraid at the time of writing the Moon Boys with DID because I didn't know anything about it, and I didn't want to misrepresent something like that. After some time went by, I got my bearings, and started working on A Bit Dodgy.

ABD is definitely one of the fics I'm most proud of. I had learned a lot from my past fics I'd written, Yes, Master, e.t.c., and figured out what it was that works best when I'm writing to not only keep myself interested, but to create a good balance between smut for smut's sake, and pushing the story forward.

When I first started writing ABD, I was sure it was going to be a 30-40 chapter fic, but as I started writing it more, I realized quickly that a lot of the chapters were just porn. Is there anything wrong with that? No...but as someone who's written nearly a million words in this past year, I don't feel the need to draw my chaptered fics out with smut just to say I wrote something x chapters or x words wrong.

That's why ABD ended up getting cut down SO MUCH from my original plan. I just made some decisions that I felt maximized the story more and used the smut as a major plot device, rather than the fic revolving around smut as the plot...if that makes any sense lol. I'm happy to say, that as of today, A Bit Dodgy has concluded, though it's the only fic I've ever finished with such a heavy heart.

I was an Oscar stan HARD after that, diving into Sucker Punch and other silly little movies filled with that silly little man whom I love so so much.

Statistics

Numbers aren't important when it comes to kudos (AO3) and likes (Tumblr) so I'm not focusing on those. What I am going to focus on...is my personal accomplishments. Like I said, I don't normally toot my own horn, but I fucking wrote A LOT this year, and I'm going to take a minute to pat myself on the back.

So NOT including my random blurbs (since I'm not bothering to cross-post those)...

My total word count from 09/05/2022-09/05/2023 is (drumroll please):

791,829 words

OH

EM

GEE

I had thought I would've hit a million by now but I am NOT going to complain. By the grace of the horny demon that runs the smut factory in my brain, I've written more than I ever even thought possible.

In the Moon Knight fandom alone, I've written:

238,950 words

I think the only fandom I've written more for is Star Wars, but I'd have to add it all up and I'm not doing that rn haha.

Just kidding it's:

368,566 words

----

I wrote 6 novel-length fics, a total of 147 works, MK holds the record for most fics I've written at a whopping 82 fics!

----

It's shocking to look back and see what I've accomplished, and to look forward to seeing what else I can do. I know that this next year I won't have the same word count, probably not even close.

I'm focusing a lot on drawing now as well as writing, plus I'm working on my first novel that I'd like to publish so things will definitely be slowing down. I'm going to continue writing, but the speed at which I churn out fics will be slower in the future.

In Conclusion

Thank you all for the support throughout this year. There's no way in HELL I would've had the drive and desire to continue writing if not for the amazing community (most the Oscar Isaac community lol) behind me. It's not just the kudos and the reblogs, it's the people who I've grown to know since joining the world of fandom.

I never had a ton of IRL friends, and I live alone (happily btw) with my dog. Being able to make some friends here that I genuinely call friends, not just people I know online, has meant the world to me. I would list everyone out, but I have a fear of accidentally forgetting to tag someone despite how much they mean to me so I'll leave it at...those people know who they are.

And to my readers (I hesitate to use the word "fans", that makes it sound so conceited), thank you to the moon and back. Without out, I wouldn't have had the drive to keep going. Kudos, Likes and Reblogs aren't everything, I can't stress that enough, but they do help keep the drive alive. (Particularly the comments). Without the little boost of excitement I get when I see that other people are just excited about what I'm doing as I am, I probably would've given up ages ago.

You all are the reason that this was even possible.

With all that being said, I have a small celebration planned that I'll announce later tonight. In the mean time, stay amazing. You keep supporting me, and I'll keep providing the fics that you all love so much

Love, Melly

[bg-sparrow]

Ten First Lines (Again)

So, I already went ahead and did my most recent ten first lines here, but as @moonlightandstarshimmer actually tagged me this time, I thought I'd share ten more first lines from fandoms other than Back to the Future that I've written for! All links lead to AO3!

FFHQ (M, multi-fandom: Pirates of the Caribbean, BBC Sherlock, Iron Man, Game of Thrones, Star Wars): “I thought we only needed one sub today?”

Principles of Compromise (T, Pirates of the Caribbean): A figure blew passed the window of the blacksmith's shop in the alley.

Unprecedented Youth (G, Pirates of the Caribbean): Jack stood idle amongst the drunks and wenches of Tortuga’s finest, the bunch that had claimed the Faithful Bride tavern as their own.

The Captain (G, Pirates of the Caribbean): The heavy door slammed off the wall, causing a fine stream of ink to steer across the paper recklessly, marring an excellent display of penmanship.

What to Expect When She's Expecting (T, Iron Man): "Vegas? I thought you were taking Pepper out?"

Perignon & Paleobotany (T, Jurassic World): "In the two years I've been with IBRIS, we've made phenomenal headway with this particular group of raptors."

Vibrations on the Air (G, Copying Beethoven): Eighteen months to the day, Anna Holtz was handed the letter that would change her life.

A Mercy, Tolerant (T, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy): He was the Master of the Knights of Ren.

Extra Dry, Extra Olive (T, Iron Man): It was unacceptable, the way she had just behaved.

Under the Weather (G, Mary Poppins): It was not a day of promise if you looked out the window of Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane.

Thanks again for the tag, my friend! Enjoy!

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

For the ask game: how and when did you get into writing fanfiction? Was it a particular fandom, character… ? Any details you want to share! 😊

ohhh man...

I think I first got into writing it for LOTR - it would have been when the movies first came out. I was ten or eleven years old and created a self-insert OC who was Sauron's daughter and she rode a balrog (then later one of the winged beasts from ROTK) and somehow ended up teaming up with the Fellowship. There was a lot of drama. I think she fell in love with the Witch King of Angmar at one point. It was a blast to write - though, I don't think any of it survives online anymore. It was up on some of the old LOTR fanfic sites that didn't survive, sadly.

Someone harshed my mellow, though, as I got my first flame/really negative review which made me stop writing fic for quite a few years.

I got back into writing it in highschool with both Van Helsing and Pirates of the Caribbean. I was very committed to writing Van Helsing/Dracula and also Mr. Mercer/Lord Beckett slash. The Lord Beckett community on Livejournal, to-date, was one of the best most welcoming fan-communities that I've been in. Everyone was lovely to one another and supported each other. If there was any in-community fighting I missed it entirely. So yeah, that's what got me back in the saddle. A lot of that stuff will still be up, if the livejournal community survives.

From there I was unstoppable. Napoleon/Wellington was big in highschool and on through to university, also back into LOTR with Grima/Eomer and the unfinished Devour a Sunless Day, not to mention Yes Minister fic and a few other niche fandoms.

So yeah, the rest, as they say, is history.

Thank you for the ask!! <3 <3 <3

[ask meme]

[popironrye]

My attempt at a sort of 'meet the artist'.

Hello poppies! I am IronRye.

A female character creator in the states.

While I'm dipping my toes in the selfship community (and I've meet some FANTASTIC fellow people there) my main go to is ocxcanon. I LOVE designing fancharacters with the high priority of fantasizing about them smooching my favorite characters.

I've been making characters in a physical art form for over 15 years. Many of my ocs are created with great care to make stories about them, whether to further the canon story or create a alternate story with the canon characters, rather then primarily used for wish fulfillment romance (not that there's anything wrong with that of course). As well as include those characters in fics I might post eventually.

Be sure to check my secondary blog for a detailed list of my oc ships. I am all for maintaining a positive shipping space between self shippers and oc shippers alike.

Feel free to send me your favorites for me to gush over, or even offer advice or ask questions in any degree.

My asks are always open!

My OC Blog: @ironrye-afterdark

🎀 More About Me 🎀

My pronouns are she/they. I'm a 5'1" cis bisexual with an adoration for fictional old men. My favorite season is Fall and my favorite holiday is a tie with Halloween and Christmas. I love bows and ribbons. My favorite flowers are sunflowers.

I love Disney and Dreamworks movies, Renfield 2023, The Pirates of the Caribbean movies, The Lost Boys, The MCU pre phase 4, and The Mummy 1999. Some of my favorite shows include Gravity Falls, Hellsing, Courage The Cowardly Dog, anything X-Men, and Avatar the Last Airbender. I'm not really into video games, but ones I like are Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil, Overwatch, and Sea of Thieves.

I hyper fixate on one fandom thing to the next and back like crazy. I rarely drop a comfort show or movie I've indulged in, rather it sits in the back of my mind before springing back up.

Other hobbies collecting way too many enamel pins, novelty candles, stuffed animals and the occasional fan merch.

[tipsypenguin31]

Here we go again.

On the way to the beach last week with my sister, I allow her to play DJ. This song came on, and I’m jamming to it and both times I have heard the song, I was stoned. Naturally, when am I not?

Anyways~

It comes on my shuffle a couple of times and I can’t remember what exactly triggered, I believe it was fan art, but I started giggling because it makes me think of Shanks.

Especially when it comes to the fics I read by a lot of you and then fan arts.

Honestly, even though xreaders & OC’s fic are my go to. Bbbuuuttttt I truly truly love reading y’all slut this man out between Mihawk & Buggy.

I really, really love it when y’all ping pong him back and forth between them and it’s even better when he’s being a sneaky fuck about it.

Y’all just write all three of them so well. And the fan art is just hands down, chefs kiss amazing.

My favorite pairing is MiShanks. They remind me of my second ship that I love and adore from Pirates of Caribbean Norrington and Will Turner. They also remind me of Norrington and Jack Sparrow.

So yeah, I need to go to bed. My brain is mush and I have been listening to the same song for last hour and yeah. 🤙🏽 thanks for reading this nonsense.

[seantaeanewgenie]

Explaining the names in Shantae: A New Genie

For those who have read my Shantae fic, you may be wondering where I got the names for certain characters from. I gave these characters names because they usually only had titles beforehand or no names at all, so I wanted something easy to go off.

Mia (NPC) - I don't really remember why I named her this. She just kinda looked like a Mia and I thought it was a cute name for a kid.

The Mayor (Scuttlebutt) - This is a bit of an inverse compared to the others. I made it so Scuttlebutt isn’t actually his name. Shantae simply thought it was, but it’s actually a nickname the mayor hates being called. And to be honest, Scuttlebutt is too ridiculous for a name, even by Shantae standards.

Jack / Johan / The Pirate Master - I'm not entirely sure where I got Jack from. It just kind of fit, and somebody thought I named him after Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. If I did, it must have been subconsciously. I used "Johan" as a fake name for Jack based on Johan Liebert from Naoki Urasawa's manga Monster.

Aaron (Harmony's father) - Not really sure where I got this from. He just seemed like an Aaron.

Emma (Chef Girl) - Based on Emma Stone. I had the Amazing Spider-Man movies on my mind at the time and I was thinking of Gwen Stacy from those films. Since both Gwen and Chef Girl are blondes, I thought it'd be fitting to name the Chef Girl after Gwen's actor.

Serena (Harmony's mother) - I based this name off the word "serenity." Since "serenity" and "harmony" have similar meanings, I figured it would just fit.

Ana (Shantae's mother) - I don't remember where I found it, but I wanted a name that would sound like a Genie's name and I found Ana the most fitting. Generally, I tried to give all the Genies names that would, you know, fit a Genie. It's pronounced "Ahn-uh" for those who were unsure.

Karnov (Shantae’s father) - I basically just wanted to confirm that fan theory from Pirate’s Curse. The one where the Warrior that Shantae meets in the Village of Lost Souls is actually her father, and that this mysterious warrior is actually the video game character Karnov.

Rosa (Human Rottytops) - I basically just thought of this from fanfics I read in the past with human Rotty. Most of the time, people just call her human form Rosa or Rosie. I found Rosa the better of the two in the end.

Iris (Empress Siren) - I thought it was a pretty name and it fit the purple colors you see on Empress Siren’s design in Seven Sirens.

Agnes (Angler Fish Siren) - I wanted to give her an old sounding name since she looks kinda old. I’m not sure where I got Agnes from, maybe The Simpsons.

Molly (Coral Siren) - A friend at the time showed me a drawing of a character they made named Molly. I liked the name and when I saw Coral Siren, it made me think Molly would be a fitting name for her.

Nora (Lobster Siren) - Based on the Norway lobster, and I think Nora is a cute name.

Aja (Vera's mother) - Given the plant-theming that Vera has, I wanted something fitting for her mother as well. In Greek mythology, it means "forest goddess." Her name is pronounced like “Asia.”

Cherami (Harmony’s grandmother) - I had imagined her as a redhead like her granddaughter Harmony, so I wanted a name reminiscent of the color red. I think the name Cherami came to mind from the voice actor for Rotty, Cherami Leigh. The name sounded “reddish” if that makes sense, like a cherry.

Ignatius (Techno Baron) - I don’t remember how I came up with Ignatius exactly, but I wanted a serious name for him since I wanted to make him more ominous than he was in canon.

Esmeralda - I didn’t really plan to do much with this character, but I still wanted to give her a name that fit her status as a Genie. Since I imagined her with green hair, Esmeralda became the name I ultimately chose.