#still about my own fanfic

[bumblebeehug]

ooooh my god nalu are just about to reinvent french kissing, soooo glad i left myself this treat last night

[artemisdesari-blog]

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.

[verynonyideas]

[wickjump]

im gonna start posting fanfic recs btw whenever i find good ones. both here and my (awfully barren) 18+ account. because there are so many good fics out there with so few hits and fewer kudos and sometimes no comments period and it SUCKS because i REALLY LIKE THEM A LOT.. and i hope that by linking them here and yelling at everyone to COMMENT DAMMIT they might actually do it

seriously though any comment means a lot. most people who read a fic don’t even give a kudos. even if the fic wasn’t top tier, if you didn’t dislike it, hand over some kudos!! and if you liked it, comment!!!! even if the comment is one singular heart emoji it will be appreciated. if the comment just says “great fic!” the author will be happy. your comment doesn’t have to be this long winded gushing or analysis.

so many authors quit writing or lose motivation because the comments are few and far in between or just sometimes nonexistent. trust me when i say authors don’t care about how long or cool or smart sounding your comment is i promise!!!

i hope that mmmaybe recommending fics and telling people to comment might help fics i really like get more support maybe. and i, points at you reading this, hope that you will listen!!!at least a little….at least sum kudos….

[thelaurenshippen]

I know we love the “you only get two” triangles, but idk that I’ve seen one that is, like, the grand theory of fandom, like, you know—

you only get two. do you see my vision?

[oneluckydragon]

✨🌸 Sunshine on your skin, flowers in my soul 🌸✨

🌊🫧Summary → In the midst of his reconciliation with Team Wish, Dusknoir begins coughing up flowers. This unfortunate brand of bad luck should be a cosmic joke. A spiteful punishment that the world has brought down on him out of malice, out of vengeance for his past deeds. A cruel, agonizing curse manifested with the single unjustified purpose of preventing him from realizing happiness, ever seeking redemption, ever righting his multitudes of wrongs and moving on with his life. But that's not true, and he knows it deep down. Knows it in the very core of his soul like the flood of petals building in this throat.

This is his fault because he is a coward, and that's all he has ever been. A backstabbing, lonely coward.

And now he is going to die because of it.

[AO3]

[CH. I -- Word Count -- 13,290]

🌒💫 Return → the act of going back to a place, person, or memory

[CH. II -- TBA]

[unsat-and-strange]

i stayed up later than i should have to draw them

if anyone knows what books i need to read to get the Lore™ please let me know

[justaz]

once merlin puts arthur to rest, the world around him disappears and he’s in ealdor staring at his mother’s back. his sobs from the lake grow worse at the sight of his mother and he wails like he’s a child again, calling repeatedly for his ma. she spins around and finds him, without asking any questions she dashes forward and pulls him into a hug, holding his weight as he falls apart in her grasp, choking out nonsensical words and soaking her dress with tears, snot, and drool, his overwhelming grief causing him to ignore any sense of shame he might’ve felt at such a scene.

he doesn’t remember explaining anything to her, frankly he doesn’t remember much beyond the cries he pressed into her shoulder, but she says he’s been in ealdor for a week. she’s clearly worried and asks, no, begs him to eat or drink but he doesn’t feel the need or desire to, and even if he did, he simply doesn’t have the energy to bring the sustenance to his mouth. she cradles his head in her lap and runs her finger through his hair like she did when he had a nightmare when he was younger. it’s almost enough to make the entire thing seem like a horrible, horrible dream. but theres blood on his tunic where he held arthur’s body to his own so he knows it’s not true.

his mother doesn’t ask any questions, the look in her eyes telling him that she knows anyway. perhaps his nonsensical babble created a clear enough image for her to understand. maybe she just saw the broken look in his eyes and came to the conclusion on her own. she doesn’t mention him. merlin isn’t sure if he’s relieved about that or not. in the end, he brings it up, he asks how she was able to go on after balinor left. he asks how she was able to pick herself back up on her own two feet and carry on life as normal after receiving his letter informing her of his passing. she says sometimes she can’t, sometimes she lays in bed and listens to the birds sing and can’t help but hate them. she says she lives on for him anyway. she pushes herself up and makes food and works in the fields even when she hate the world around her.

merlin tries to relate, tries to understand, tries to imagine himself getting up every morning and living on in his name. he can’t. his parents loved each other, he knows that, but they were their own people and were able to stand the years apart. merlin…merlin is arthur’s, even in death. everything he is, everything he’s done, has been for arthur. he is half of merlin’s soul, the center of merlin’s world. how can anyone expect him to move on as if he’s capable of being alone? how can anyone expect him to function as if half of his soul, half of himself, isn’t dead in a lake? merlin can’t do it, he can’t imagine living a life without arthur. he barely got through the week and that’s only because he was passed out for a majority of it. how could he make it a year, much less another fifty?

he can’t. he can’t do it. he can’t breathe, he’s in agony, the world around him doesn’t exist anymore. not without arthur.

he’s back at the lake now, tears still streaming down his face despite the pounding headache from dehydration yet it doesn’t matter, not anymore. none of it does. he stumbles into the lake and sends his magic into the water to tug excalibur from the depths. he can feel freya pulling the sword back, but his magic overpowers hers easily and the sword springs from the lake, gleaming in the afternoon sun. freya’s face appears in the ripples of the water next to him, her expression pleading and sorrowful. merlin whispers an apology before turning back to the sword, staring at the sharp point of the blade. he brings it closer to hover just over his heart, the metal pressing against his skin but not enough to draw blood just yet.

peace washes over him. the sun warms his skin and the water cools him to keep it from being unbearable. the birds sing in the trees as the wind whistles through the leaves. merlin stares up at the brilliant blue sky and pure white clouds roll by, images of bunnies and birds and crowns and horses staring down at him. he wonders if avalon will be this peaceful, if he and arthur could lay out in a field for eternity, basking in the sun and laughing as they point out misshapen clouds that supposedly look like the other.

he plunges the sword into his chest, right through his heart, and falls back into the water. bubbles trail out of his mouth up towards the surface, blood spills from his wound and mixes with the water. he closes his eyes as he sinks further and further. he knows when he opens them, he’ll be with arthur once more. it’ll all be okay. he doesn’t feel his body hit the bottom before blackness fills his mind.

arthur awakens from his fitful slumber in a bed that is not his own. he squints at the room, or rather hut, around him and finds an old man hunched over a book in the corner. arthur tries to speak but all that comes out is a squeak of air, his throat too dry to speak. the man hears and whirls around to begin treating him once more, prattling on and on about how he found arthur in the woods outside his village donning shiny clothes which he discarded bc of the blood staining them yet he couldn’t find a wound. arthur’s hand reaches up to his side but there’s no stab wound there, not anymore, though he does sport the scar. he remembers how he got it, he remembers stumbling away from the battlefield, he remembers being found by merlin- merlin.

he asks the man about him but he seems confused and denies ever knowing someone by that name. arthur climbs out of the bed (the flash of golden eyes) and hastily pulls on his armor (“i’m a sorcerer. i have magic.”). he’s out the door before the old man can protest. he’s in a village he doesn’t recognize, they must not be anywhere near camelot (“i’m still the same person.”). he turns to the old man hobbling out of the hut and demands directs to camelot. the man stares at him oddly and scratches his ear before informing him that he’s never heard of a camelot before (“you’re my friend and i don’t want to lose you.”).

he instead asks for directions to the woods where he was found and sets off in that direction, the old man shuffling after him (“me, i was born to serve you, arthur.”). it doesn’t take long to reach where he was found. if the old man had carried him home it couldn’t’ve been much of a hike (“and i’m proud of that.”). he steps into a clearing where the man panted that he found him here (“and i wouldn’t change a thing.”). it’s no where near the lake where merlin held him as he took his last breath, it’s no where near camelot. the man didn’t even recognize the name of his kingdom (“it’s not why i do it.”).

arthur sits in the grass as he thinks on his next move and the man who watched over him sits next to him (“i’m not going to change now.”). he speaks lowly of a prophecy about a man from a time long forgotten sent on a journey, a quest, to retrieve what has been lost. he says how the prophecy led many to a sword lodged in stone (“i’m not going to lose you.”) but no one could pull it free. he points out arthur’s armor and calls it odd, he mentions camelot, a kingdom of which he’s never heard, and gestures around the clearing where he found the mystery man. he concludes that perhaps the prophecy spoke of him (“i can’t lose him.”).

arthur, with no other options, follows the man’s directions to a lake. not exactly lake avalon but close enough. theres a small island in the center that seems more like a hill. the sword, his sword, excalibur is buried in a stone covered in moss, misshaping it’s actual form. arthur wades across the water and climbs the hill. he wraps his hands around the hilt of excalibur and closes his eyes. he imagines merlin confident and reassuring expression as they and all his men stood in the woods around this damn sword in a different stone however long ago it was. he breathes in and out (“he’s my friend.”) and pulls.

excalibur comes free just as it did before. arthur watches the metal pull free and as it does, the moss on the stone falls away revealing its form. it looks like a collapsed figure, excalibur having been lodged in it’s chest, right where it’s heart would be. arthur squints at what looks like the head and feels a flash of familiarity. the stone slowly fades away from the hole where excalibur was all the way to the hill. as the stone fades, it leaves behind skin and clothes and hair and…merlin.

arthur drops excalibur and falls to his knees to hold up merlin’s limp form. he feels warm, as if he didn’t just spend however long with a sword in his chest as a stone. he’s not breathing. why isn’t he breathing? arthur grasps around, shifting his clothes out of the way to find the wound where excalibur had once been. the skin is stitching itself together with tiny golden threads. arthur looks back up at merlin’s lax face as the wound fully closes. he inhales sharply as his eyes fly open, glowing gold, and all around him it seemed the world finally inhaled after suffocating for millennia.

merlin exhales and golden sparks shoot from his lips to flurry around in the air. the grass under them grows longer and curls around both his and merlin’s body where they rest against the ground. the water around their island clears from the murky brown to a blindingly clear blue. the air is crisp and clean, the sun brighter and warmer, and one soul finally whole again.

[lemonycranberries]

if i had a nickel for every time one specific fandom i'm in had a fanfic-based scandal which ended up spreading way beyond the fandom itself, pissing off a lot of people and permanently changing something about the functioning of fanfiction website archive of our own, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot but it's absolutely fucking wild that it happened twice

[some-pers0n]

Never forgiving Valve for giving Engineer the most in-depth and story-relevant backstory, having him be the grandfather of the creator of the life-extender machines, the son of the TFC Engineer, and establishing a key connection between the Conaghers and Elizabeth/Helen/Mann family, only to then relegate him to a supporting character, have him appear for only 10 pages in the main comics, and then never say or do anything

[loregoddess]

fic writers are insane (compliment) bc that shit's hard

[itsmuffiiee]

What are your favorite DCA fics? Some of mine are Solar Lunacy, LDR, and Sleuth Jesters! :D

OKAY!! so I don’t think I have a favorite? I have fanfics I’m currently excited to see update though!! (Which is.. almost every fic I read but I’ll try to include some I’m ESPECIALLY excited about!!)

Enjoy some silly notes about each Fic Below!! ・・・★

Flaring Rays and Ivory Crescents

By @surrealkunstlerin

- Moon has a silly stupid laugh but let him have it..! he deserves it!

- How y/n spending isn’t giving them anxiety is beyond me- I think you gotta trust the robots to be financially intelligent

- I would just sort of lay in moons arm all day before they both got mad at me for not doing anything 😞

- Self indulgent.. my dream: sun and moon would be helpers that help me live a better life )::

Red sky

By Kettle_fish

- “I want two boyfriends, and I want by boyfriends to be boyfriends”

- 257k my beloved

- I really enjoyed the moments of y/n bonding with sun and moon in the cell ::3c

An Introvert Meets the Devil at the End of the World

By Kassykins

- post apocalyptic time!!

- sun is so traumatized

- Should of listended to y/n smh

- interactions between the bots and y/n … 12/10… the other humans though make me question humanity- I think however that’s is the point to be off put and disgusted by them

- I enjoy moon protecting y/n as their source of life and is trying to get sun not to FUCK IT UP

He’s a little confused but he got the spirit

By @midnight-mourning

- I can’t wait to see sun stare in the mirror and realize “oh god, I like them, oh god, oh no.. THAT THING IS WHAT I FALL FOR? You got to be kidding me!!”

- The Sun is burning out and is stressed )::

- Beloved moon in this fic, I hope he gets everything he wants and more

- Fanart MIGHT be in progress.. I am excited to draw these goobers

There Are Many Benefits (To Rethinking This Career Path)

By @moonliched

- Nessa x Chica was not on my 2024 bingo

- I need to see sun and moon get jealous more often

- Author please, please, let them have a sleep over someway somehow

- “I need to go into the ocean, I need to be in there” - y/n probably

- the little extra bits at the end of each chapter DO make me smile and brighten up my day immensely

If ongoing fics aren’t your style !! And you prefer completed stories I also have: Claw at the Stars by @vivisols !!

- NON HUMAN Y/N BELOVED !!

- more mermaids.. ::3

- I love all their fics sm.. ‹𝟹

> I have so many more fics to share (to ramble about).. so..so many but I’ll leave it here for now!! Thank you for asking!! Please be mindful of tags before reading! ::)

[screamingwiththewolves]

I generally don't make posts like this, cause I don't wanna start an argument or disagreement, but I do find the "Is Hyde really a person?" discourse, a bit odd...I know it's a comic, and maybe I'll be proved horribly incorrect but...

Does he have emotions, with personality traits and preferences? Yes.

Does he insist he's a person? Yes.

Then he is, in fact, a person.

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

[Previous post for October 30th] [First post for October 30th]

He finally manages to hunt down the error Kirijo had pointed out and wrangle the equation into submission. Which means he can– for now at least– put math behind him, where it belongs.

He pushes the worksheets towards Kirijo and rolls out his wrists and shoulders while she shuffles them into order and tucks them neatly away. She immediately produces a new stack of paper, flourishing a little like she’s doing some kind of magic trick. And hell, maybe she is– he’s got no idea how she never seems to run out of fresh work to throw at him.

Shinjiro can only sigh in defeat. He did ask for this, after all.

Okay, so not nearly as bad as it could be. That might explain her little burst of showmanship, actually, if she’s presenting him with something that might have a chance to be interesting.

He’s joking, mostly, but Kirijo sighs with real disappointment.

He takes the packet from her and starts to read– it’s mostly about the political pissing contests of various Roman emperors. Not as exciting as he’d hoped; he’s always been interested in what regular people were up to more than anyone who lived in a palace, but he’ll definitely still take it over math. 

As he gets to work, Shinjiro finds himself dwelling on how nice it is, having their verbal fencing matches again. 

Back when S.E.E.S had been brand new, he’d found it incredibly annoying how Kirijo always seemed to have a prim and witty response to anything he might say. He'd thought at first that she just couldn’t stand for anyone else to get the last word, then that she couldn’t stand to let him, specifically, have it. 

It had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to clue in to the fact that that was just how she played. Sure, he and Aki bickered for fun more than a little often, but usually as more of a lead-up to a good, hands-on scrap. For Kirijo, though, trading banter back and forth was the whole entire game.

Once he’d figured out that he was supposed to play along, chasing after the upper hand in a conversation became fun instead of frustrating. Knowing that it was always a toss-up whether his teasing would get deftly parried or if he could manage to land the hit and fluster her enough to disrupt her pristine image– it was all part of the game to him. 

He’d tried not to let himself settle into that rhythm again when he’d come back to the dorms, and he’d done an even worse job of it than he had of avoiding his other old habits. Kirijo’s just too good at pushing his buttons, just like Aki. 

But now– Now that he doesn’t feel the need to keep himself at arm’s length anymore, falling right back into step is the easiest damn thing in the world. He doesn’t even need to think about it.

It feels good to have this back. Living his life, whatever’s left of it, means building connections and rebuilding the ones he had purposefully bulldozed before. He’s lucky Kirijo is even giving him a second chance at friendship at all, so he’s not about to waste it. 

There’s absolutely no way he’ll ever say that out loud, though. Especially not to her. 

“Given you’re reading about Rome, that reminds me.” Her voice is a little too light and airy. Someone who hadn’t been on the scheming end of that tone before might have missed it, but Shinjiro can tell right away that she’s trying to get something out of him. 

“Akihiko mentioned that you found his second awakening to be quite amusing,” she continues.

“Yeah, Aki didn’t get it,” he snorts, unable to help himself. “Bet you did, though.”

“There is a certain irony present, yes.” The face she puts on is demure, but the way she flicks a little of her hair over her shoulder looks suspiciously like preening to him. He has to squash down a smile. “You could have filled him in yourself, you know.”

“Sure. But where’d the fun in that be?” The grin he was fighting off wins and Kirijo lowers herself enough to roll her eyes at him in response.

“Yamagishi’s new Persona is Roman as well,” she tries again, casting another line. “Juno.” When he laughs, she frowns at him, apparently not a fan of his reaction. “What’s so funny, Aragaki?”

“Nothin’ at Yamagishi’s expense,” he says. “I just wouldn’t’ve guessed that for her. The whole ‘queen of the gods’ thing would’ve made me think of you, actually.”

Kirijo clears her throat a bit and pointedly does not preen again, just like how he does not feel stupidly pleased with himself over the reaction that she definitely didn’t have.

“Guess it does make sense though," he continues. "If you think about the whole ‘eyes of Argus’ thing. She have peacock feathers?”

“After a fashion, yes.” Kirijo purses her lips thoughtfully. “They are… somewhat abstracted.”

“Well yeah. Almost wouldn’t be a Persona if it didn’t get a little weird with the details, right?”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” She flashes another short-lived smile and then goes back to looking thoughtful. He can practically hear gears turning as she weighs whether or not to make another attempt. “Amada’s was something of a surprise. She's called Kala-Nemi.”

He wracks his brain and comes up empty. “Don’t recognize that one. Doesn’t sound like a Roman name, though.”

“I was unfamiliar as well. And you’re correct– she’s from Bronze Age India, from a tradition that predates Hinduism. It took quite a bit of effort to find any information about her, actually. She shares her name with two other male figures from Hindu texts, and references to them are far more plentiful. From what I understand, though, she was a spirit associated with the Wheel of Time and the changing of the seasons. 

“As a Persona, she excels in healing and protection magic. The new Theurgy Amada gained from awakening to her is– it’s extraordinary.” The way Kirijo says the word makes it clear that it’s a gigantic understatement.

Healing and protection, huh? 

“That’s better for him,” Shinjiro says softly. The image of Amada from the other day, hunkered in on himself with guilt and nerves, is still fresh in his mind.

“It is,” Kirijo murmurs. She’s silent for another few seconds, clearly hoping that he’ll take his cue at last. 

And sure, he could talk about his new Persona, like she’s been nudging him to. He could also speculate about whether he’s got his own new Theurgy. But what would be the point? The next full moon is just four days away, and then none of it is going to matter anymore.

Kirijo sighs, accepting defeat. “Pardon me for distracting you from your reading. I’ll let you get back to it.”

“No worries.” He means it, too. Kirijo might push, but unlike Aki, she does know when to call it quits.

It’s yet another thing Shinjiro appreciates about her.

[galaxywarp]

I wrote more of my self indulgent fanfic today I’m really proud of myself