#there’s a universe out there that it’s in the top five most popular fandom ships

[ozcarma]

truly, who do I need to pay to write more sigmakane fics.

[starstruckodysseys]

20 questions for 20 writers !!

thank u to @localdisasterisk for tagging me in this! i honestly do not know how many writers i follow so um. ill tag my pibe fic besties @wheelsupin-azarathmetrionzinthos @angelwiththeblue-box @fatestitcherr @incorrect-play-it-by-ear and the rest of u can fight amongst yourselves

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

48. i don’t know if its more concerning that almost half of them are from the past five months or that almost half are play it by ear. its the same almost half but still

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

143,389. woof

3. what fandoms do you write for?

obviously play it by ear. everyone knows that. also d20 occasionally and project sekai. unfortunately

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

toya and mizuki’s step by step guide to romancing a shinonome — i will be so real with you guys i specifically crafted this one to be popular. and then i fell in love with it along the way. but it did start as a science experiment

let me take you with me (just like this) — WHY. this is my second pjsekai fic and my fourth fic ever posted. it’s not at all reflective of my current style. help

kiss it better — yeah. same issue as the other one. this one’s better though lmao

say you miss me (say you want to kiss me) — honestly? just impressed a honakana fic made it up this high. love my girlies

the moon is crumbling (but that’s okay) — yeah everyone pretend to be surprised the ruikasa fic got this high up. it was a new concept for me, though, so i’m pretty proud of that

5. do you respond to comments?

i used to, but not really anymore unfortunately. to be fair, i will point you all to the fact that most of my recent fics are pibe, and then to the discord where we all scream about them together

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i don’t usually. write sad endings. bc i don’t like them. okay that’s not true i just usually don’t. i guess the moon is crumbling?? if i had to choose?? it’s more bittersweet than anything, but people did say they cried, so…

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

99.9% of my fics are getting together fics. it’s just the same ending a million different ways. you tell me

8. do you get hate on your fics?

not publicly!

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

i would simply be too powerful if i could. this is for your safety actually

10. do you write crossovers?

in the sense of characters across universes/media interacting? no. in the sense of “i am going to put my blorbos in every single other setting i slightly enjoy”? absolutely. putting them under a microscope. researching and recording how they react to their surroundings

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge!

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

i simply do not think there is a demand for my fics in other languages. not in like a depressing way, it’s just that i’m writing for like five people including myself, so. yknow

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

no, but if someone wanted to… 👀

14. what’s your all time favorite ship?

i’ve never written for them (yet, at least), but by sheer volume and span of time i have to say souyo persona4. my silly boys. i’ve never scoured the entire tag for a ship multiple times on ao3 like i have for them. i have so many thoughts about them that have never seen the light of day but they exist!!

15. what’s a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

stares awkwardly at feed your anger like fire… i’ve tried!! but it turns out that sometimes you get stuck on clothing designs and stop writing and then lose passion for the project and then stop updating for three years because you were too ambitious and also you hate your old writing style. not that i would know anything about that

16. what are your writing strengths?

i think i’m really good at dialogue, or at least banter. unfortunately this makes me very judgmental but that’s not important. also i can create a vibe well i’ve been told

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

in general? i SUCK at character description, or at least knowing where and when to place it. i also always worry about characterization and if my characters sound too similar

18. thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

i used to read so many fics that centered around using another language (shoutout bmc fandom when i was. in that. a dark period of my life, but alas) and honestly if it’s done well i think it’s cool!! i’m not going to get into the intricacies of bilingualism on account of being an english only speaker but it is rad to me

19. first fandom you wrote for?

wrote for? probably warriors. yes the cats. i had a whole fanfic for my oc. shoutout to… honestly i don’t remember her name but she was a real one! wrote for and posted is another story, by which i mean i don’t remember At All. probably bandori tbh, bc i don’t remember if i posted fanfic on my wattpad

20. favorite fic you’ve written?

either the venn diagram of curses and crushes (which is still my favorite fic title ever) or soaking in the glory. one of them is a 3k word expedition into the play it by ear canon space and the other is a 7k word fever dream i went into a fugue state to write in two days. honorable mention to the like the sweetest cup of chai series which i hold so close to my heart. silliest besties of all time

[perotovar]

twenty questions for fic writers 💖

tagged by @kedsandtubesocks and @nerdieforpedro thank you, loves! ♥

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

technically 4 lol i'm slowly moving my stuff over there. i barely get any traction there compared to tumblr so it's sort of just there in case anyone prefers that format. i like the community i've built over here so i'm not worried about it!

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

apparently 60,272 which is WILD

3. What fandoms do you write for?

the pedro pascal cinematic universe! i've thought about branching out into the bg3 fandom or possibly a couple other games, but the inspiration is with the pedro boys rn ♥

4. Top five fics by kudos

i'll go with the highest number of notes on here i suppose??

baby i'm-a want you (joel x javier p)

into the beat of the night (frankie x oc!river price)

bloody kisses (shane morrissey x tim rockford)

ásjá (pero tovar x ofc!helga)

rebirth (javi g x reader)

5. Do you respond to comments?

i've been really bad about it, but yeah, i certainly try to!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ch1 of bloody kisses ends pretty angsty, but it's got nothing on given to fly, my joel x tess drabble (which i don't think a lot of people even know i wrote lmao)

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

i can tell you right now, itbotn will have a happy ending :)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i don't think i write the popular boys enough for that. and most of my stuff is queer, which has a smaller audience. so, fingers crossed, no not yet

9. Do you write smut?

yep

10. Craziest crossover?

i feel like putting one of the characters in a macho man heist movie into a goth club was a pretty insane crossover lol but probably bloody kisses, too, because it's between a criminal and a detective. who says opposites don't attract? 😉

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of omfg

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no, but that would be cool!

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

yeah, me and @chronically-ghosted work on bloody kisses together! her contribution is my favorite chapter so far, definitely

14. All time favorite ship?

joel/tess has been one of my absolute favorites for years. halsin/astarion is a very close second <3

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

i really wanna write the metal!pero and metal!ezra fic but i'm not sure i'll figure out the plot for it sdflkghjdg they're messing with me a lot

16. What are your writing strengths?

i think i'm good at dialogue? banter?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

interesting descriptions. describing a mood/atmosphere is fucking hard and idk how y'all do it lol

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

i think it's cool! i wish i spoke spanish better than my beginniner duolingo ass can so i can use it more often, but yeah lol

19. First fandom you wrote in?

it was for a band lmao like 10 years ago. i wrote like 2 smutty oneshots and have promptly deleted them off the internet

20. Favorite fic you've written?

god, that's an evil question! tbh it might be a tie between itbotn and bloody kisses. those are my babies and i'm super proud of the universes i created with them!

np tags: @ezrasbirdie @sp00kymulderr @qveerthe0ry @for-a-longlongtime

@goodwithcheese @missredherring @marisferasiop @swiftispunk @mrsmando

@ghostofaboy and anyone else that wants to ♥

[fuckyeahfightlock]

20 questions for fic writers 2023

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

207

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

1.2 million (!!!)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

BBC Sherlock (Sherlock TV, ACD), Doctor Who/Torchwood, Black Sails/Treasure Island, Maurice (film/novel), Raffles/Raffles TV, Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, Dexter, The Sandman (comics), Versailles, The Untamed, MST3K

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The Imposter Art and Nature Boyfriend Material Eight and Fifty Nights Wind and Winter

No surprise three of those are from the same series (my most popular one). I kind of feel like The Imposter is my fandom legacy, which is fine by me; I'm proud of it.

(they're all beauties, in my eyes)

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

I started out responding to every one. I barely do anymore, only because when I was writing long, chaptered fics, it became overwhelming. Lately I get many fewer, so I do respond to some. I tend to reply to comments on non-Sherlock fics more now, because the fandoms are smaller and I like to gas us up a little!

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

Am and Was, the final story in my fight!lock series Bleed So Pretty, ends with a double suicide.

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

Probably All Said and Done, the happy ending for the 1920s stately home series, Dawn Before the Rest of the World. But a lot of my fics have happy endings, even most of the angsty ones.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have! Very early on someone got very angry that AUs even exist, and took it out on one of my stories (maybe it was the first AU she ever read???); she mostly complained that I was writing Them out of character, which is probably true to some extent, but everyone has their own tolerance levels for that kind of stuff, so, whatever. Someone got very angry that one of my missing-scene fics based on a novel included verbatim text at the beginning and end (context being necessary to the bit I wrote in the middle), even though I made that VERY CLEAR in the beginning notes; she was not satisfied and felt I was a plagiarist, which to me is not a concept that even applies to transformative works, so again, whatever.

I don't mind any comment except ones that boil down to "I don't like this," because there's nothing I can do about that. I can fix spellings and punctuation, sew up plot holes, and make other minor adjustments to the technical stuff. But if someone just comments that they don't like the story, I'm helpless.

9. Do you write smut?

Very much so! I have written entire long novels just as set dressing for smut.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Several! I decided as soon as Sherlock came out on BBC that it takes place in the very same universe (London, present day) as Doctor Who/Torchwood (so, aliens exist). So I crossed those over a bunch. Doctor Who/Torchwood also got crossed over with Dexter, and with The Sandman comics. ACD!Holmes crossed over with Raffles, based on a screenplay of a film featured on MST3K. Black Sails is already Treasure Island pastiche, so that counts though I'm not responsible for it.

(this legendary bitch was only a bitch from a legend in Treasure Island)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I was a victim of netscraping of the AO3 by various pay-to-read schemes, twice. But to my knowledge, no one person has like, copy/pasted my fic and put their name on it as the author.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

A couple in Russian, a couple in Chinese.

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

Twice. It's not really my jam.

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

Johnlock.

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

A final story in my Road to Home series, a fix-it fic where Donna gets her memory back (which I began writing in 2013 or 2014). Now that she's got it back in canon, it seems even less likely I'll ever finish it.

(Russell T Davies accepted it maybe a little TOO hard)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Right now, discipline (mine, not in my BDSM AU characters')

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

I've done it, probably not 100% correctly or well, but I try really hard (not just google translate! I consult native speakers!) to get it right. Generally I recommend keeping it to a minimum unless you learn the trick where AO3 lets you hover a cursor over text and you can put the translation in the pop-up. Too few people are multilingual.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote self-insert Duran Duran bandom fic starting when I was 12, in 1984. My first fic on the AO3 was a Sherlock fic.

(my first husband, John Taylor)

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Don't make me choose! I can't choose a favourite child. Today I was writing on One-Man Advantage, so that's a fave because of recency bias, but I was also thinking about Stages, so that's a fave because when I think of it my heart aches. The Re/Formation of Billy Bones is a fave because I love the backstory I created for him and I think I wrote it well. At Depth is a tiny hidden gem. I love all the Christmas ones and all the snowed-in ones. I love the kinky ones and the fluffy ones and the ones with OCs. I love some I've forgotten about. I love'm all.

Thanks for tagging me, @onesmallfamily !

[daddywright]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @samioli ! (late getting to it, happy holidays!)

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

44... so far :)) (not-so-secret: i actually have a second pseud for one-shots in very small, random fandoms, but i don't use it often.)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

ah hah. 682,262. i didn't really publish much before the pandemic, but then suddenly all i ever wanted to do was write, and i found such a community online in different fandoms that i haven't really stopped since!

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've published (written is a different story, haha) fic for a few fandoms: namely ace attorney, different sherlock holmes properties, witcher, dragon age, good omens (before the show), and most recently, metal gear!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

a badge of honor [ace attorney]

plumeria (new beginnings) [enola holmes]

pressure (pushing down on me) [ace attorney]

your heart is cold (but we will warm you) [the hobbit - the first Real Fic i ever published, when i was a kid]

if i woke up (next to you) [ace attorney]

flattering but not surprising that ace attorney is near the top, as far as kudoses go; i joined this fandom in 2020 and it's just EXPLODED since then. it's so cool getting into an older game series and being able to connect with a thriving online community <3

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

I absolutely do! I miss one here and there, on occasion, but i try to say thanks as often as i can. i often return to the comment sections of my more popular fics on rough days when i'm convinced i'm the worst writer in existence kasd;jfalskfjf

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

hm... while i tend to avoid endings that leave readers in pieces, i do enjoy some angst now and then. i wrote a one-shot about john watson reacting to holmes's death in OG sherlock holmes titled 'when good men go to war' that definitely deserved the 'major character death' tag, even if it's one of the most famous fake-out deaths in literature LMAO. i've also written canon compliant lanamia, which just hurts. and a miles edgeworth christmas fic, which is self-explanatory. i also wrote a fic for the animated film Klaus a while back that made me cry writing it, which i don't often do HAHA

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

hmm. 'if i woke up (next to you)' is the epitome of cheesy fix-it for narumitsu, but i think the end of 'pressure (pushing down on me)' was written at a time, for me, when i most desperately wanted to read about a happy ending-- the whole series is a fix-it, but pressure in particular dismantled phoenix's disbarment and brought back characters i missed/wanted more of in a way that was utterly self-indulgent, so for me, that's probably the happiest ending i've ever written. :)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, thankfully. but i've gotten enough of unsolicited crit type comments to piss me off eternally-- though i've gotten better at deleting the ones that hurt rather than engaging. (I stopped writing a witcher fic i really liked because i got a comment that a chapter was boring, and it totally shattered me :///)

9. Do you write smut?

Sure! I have been known to enjoy and write explicit fics. I have an academic interest in sex and education about it, and I think some of the best character study fics in the entire universe are explicit. i also think the saddest fics i've ever read have also included explicit scenes, too.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I have! I love a good, clever crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. (knocks on wood)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, several!

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

Yes! Most recently (published, that is), for pacific rim.

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

OOF. well. i have several, of course. i'll always be attached to classic sherlock holmes x john watson. for fandoms i fell into recently, the bangers are narumitsu, taibani (tiger&bunny, aka narumitsu lite), and newly, otasune (metal gear solid) is THE Moment. the MOMENT, damn it, PLAY METAL GEAR SOLID. and then DM me @solid-snaked because i want to TALK TO YOU ABOUT IT.

some more well-known ships i haven't published fic for over the years but still love: leopika (hxh), kakairu (naruto... YEAH. NARUTO.), kaishin (dmck), and superbat (dc). also, i tend to really gravitate towards platonic/gen fic for different fandoms as well, almost if not more strongly than shipfic.

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

ooooh. toss up between 'call me through thunder' (dragon age), because honestly while i loved writing it, i liked the original writing ideas that came from it more than the actual fic elements and 'when the way is dark' (witcher), because of reasons listed above.

16. What are your writing strengths?

i would like to say my dialogue?? i suppose? i really like writing dialogue and specifically, the framing around dialogue-- i like writing body language and trying to describe facial expressions and tone shifts so that people can hear and see the scene i'm trying to write.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

ahh, i'm definitely guilty of writing intimate/emotional scenes at the cost of pacing, and of favoring tone accomplished by dialogue rather than immersion via setting (i'm bad at like. window dressing and connective tissue between scenes, i think)

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

beyond my skillset, I'm afraid

19. First fandom you wrote for?

supernatural. mmhmm. i was a high school sam girlie. the first fic i ever read, also, was supernatural. destiel at age 13. life-ruiner. but i recovered.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

aaaa. overall, i'd say 'pressure' is a fic i'm quite proud of but it's the series overall that makes it my favorite as a writing and a community experience, one that got me through a really tough time in life. however, as far as my writing skill goes, i'm pretty proud of a fic i wrote on a time crunch for Holmestice, a sherlock holmes exchange, called 'the emerald circle', because i got to reference queer history in a way i really enjoyed while writing it.

feel free to pass along this prompt to yourself, fellow writers <3

[sixofsol]

@johaerys-writes tagged my main (@heypax) for this, but since ive talked about my fics more on this blog i decided to do it here instead !

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

26!

2. What is your AO3 word count?

151,778

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I mean, I haven’t written anything for anything but six of crows since like year back… But! I do miss writing patrochilles, and tsoa is the fandom i’ve written the absolute most for! If we’re looking back, I’ve written hadestown, steven universe, haikyuu!! and a bunch more years ago.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

we were shotgun lovers // I’m a shotgun running away - six of crows, wesper, 772 kudos

like moss climbs a tree - song of achilles, patrochilles, 446

i want someone to try, and let me down easy — six of crows, wesper, 405 kudos

from the outside looking in - the song of achilles, patrochilles, 371 kudos

twisted roots and sunny days, the song of achilles, patrochilles, 363 kudos

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

YES if i dont miss when i get them (i dont have the email motifs on) i always do ! it means so much someone commented and i always love having a lil conversation about this thing that i wrote.

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

as much of an lover i am of hurt no comfort i very rarely write it lmao but a lot of my tsoa fics had sad endings. autumn’s coming around is the first one that popped into mind, but that’s at least slightly open ? i’ll hold your hand while you drown, less so.

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

I feel like a lot of my fics have equally happy endings haha, the one that came to mind was our hair tangled in the breeze, simply because its a happy ending canon complaint tsoa fic which is a feat lmao

8. Do you get hate on fics?

nope the closets ive ever come was when i was 12 and people were like nice story but god your grammar and spelling is terrible! which was fair!

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

nah I’m a fade to black kinda girlie

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

I never anymore but well,, Once upon a time i was 14 and obsessed with glee and sherlock and well….

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not as far as ik

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope !

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

nope, but I would enjoy trying!

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

…this is hard because wesper has been running around in my head for a year but simply cause ive been obsessed with patrochilles longer im still gonna say them

15. What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will?

I’d love to continue for everyone im about to prove wrong, and I think I even have a mostly finished chapter lying around somewhere, but I’ve just not had the inspiration rip.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I’m good at writing characters in general, especially when it’s from their pov. first person pov my beloved.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I’m not really a person who uses a lot of metaphors of writes flowery language, but i wish i was!! i love very beautiful language and poetic writing but i just don’t do that that much im pretty straight forward, which isn’t a bad thing but I wish i could expand a bit more.

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

takes me out the story way too much, it’s fine if it’s like one word every now and then but nah. ive read a couple of young royals fics, and as a swedish speaker its a bit jarring to suddenly have swedish words there lmao

19. First fandom you wrote for?

If non published count, harry potter. if only published, glee!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

i’m gonna be fair to myself and choose one for soc and one for tsoa.

autumn’s coming around for tsoa and a fire died last winter for soc, which ironically are my least popular fics in the respective fandoms!

thank you !! and im tagging @leglesslouie @jackwolfes @wesperbrekkered @deathless--aphrodite

[independence1776]

19 Questions Meme

Supposed to be 20 questions, but one seems to have vanished along the way. Thank you to @spiced-wine-fic for tagging me.

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 120, though some of those are moodboards instead of fic.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 492,336 words. I'm not prolific.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Star Wars, in the Kanan comics niche of the Rebels subfandom but I also work in rather a lot of Prequels-related material and I love the JFO/Survivor era. I also wrote a lot in the Tolkien fandom, Silmarillion side, but I'm only dipping my toes into the fandom at the moment and I'm not sure I'll return in depth.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 

I am not the world's biggest fan of sorting by kudos; kudos doesn't mean best, it simply means popular. And often in the case of AO3, it means "in a popular fandom" so it skews results. There are plenty of fantastic fics that don't have a lot of kudos. And just because they're in the top-5 doesn't mean the author thinks they're their best works.

I'll step off my soapbox now. In order from most to least: To Remake the Universe (MCU), In Deep or In Darkness (MCU-Young Wizards crossover), Never Discussed But Silently Acknowledged (Star Wars), An Unexpected Welcome (Tolkien), Evolving Roles (Star Wars).

5. Do you respond to comments? Always. On one level, it's simply polite to say "thank you" to compliments. On an entirely different level, commenting on fics was how I found fandom friends, especially in my early years in fandom.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? The one where I killed (BBC) Merlin.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? *shrugs* I mostly write happy endings. Readers' choice of which is the happiest. 

8. Do you get hate on fics? A few times. I'm generally able to laugh about it now. There are a couple of hate comments I find truly hilarious.

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

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Love 'em. I write a lot of Star Wars-Tolkien crossovers. I have no idea which one people would think is the most out there.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. The two I know of are on AO3 but there have been a handful of others over the years that people asked if they could translate and I have no idea if they ever were, where they were posted, or (at this end of time) even what stories they were.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? A fic, no, but for a bit, I co-wrote a short-lived series.

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? Elrond/Celebrían for Tolkien. For Star Wars, Han/Leia and Padme/Anakin. Favorite noncanon Star Wars is Owen/Beru/Obi-Wan.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? ...So I posted a WIP a couple of weeks ago. It is the only WIP I've posted because my policy is to only post completed fics. I'd hoped that I'd get some encouragement to write more but I'm honestly not sure anyone realized it was a WIP because I didn't get encouragement to continue or a single "looking forward to more!" type of comment. I lost the little bit of enthusiasm I had because I'd been stalled on the fic for a while (I began writing it in fall 2020!) and it really feels like I could walk away from it and no one would care.

15. What are your writing strengths? I am sadly the type of writer who has a hard time seeing her strengths.

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Description is my go-too weakness. You can probably add writing romance to this.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I prefer not to except for dramatic effect. I'm, for better or worse, monolingual. And I refuse to learn conlangs just to read a fic. If there's too much dialogue in a conlang, I'll hit the back button.

18. First fandom you wrote for? Mutant X.

19. Favourite fic you’ve written? I don't have an answer for that. Or at least a permanent one; there's a handful of fics that rotate through that position depending on mood, time of day, opinion toward the fandom, etc.

[arshipweek]

AR Ship Week - Shipping in 2023

This is the first weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. There's a little over 4 weeks to go!

This week we’re going to look at Alex Rider shipping fandom again, one year after our previous meta on Shipping in 2022.

Another year and a frankly spectacular amount of shipfics later, here we are again, about to look at the state of Alex Rider ship fics.

So what's new in the top five ships this year? Nothing, actually. As expected, the undisputed top ship is Yassen/Alex (1), but the entire top five remains the same, though Yalex is dominating shipping fandom more and more. Yalex now has 10 times more fics than the second most popular ship, up from 7.7 times last year. 

Yalex has added an impressive 192 fics to the count (an increase of 52 percent!), while Yassen/Ian (Yian) has almost overtaken Tom/Alex (Tomlex) for the second ship on the list. Last year, Tomlex was at 48 fics and Yian at 41. Now the count is 56 and 55, which means Yian might overtake Tomlex's spot as the second ship on the list by next year.

Since the rankings remain the same, we decided to dig a little into ratings and tags instead and take a look at what characterises the three most popular ships (also the only ships with more than 50 fics each).

For all three pairings, two of the three most popular tags are 'Hurt/Comfort' and 'Fluff' (2). For Yalex, the third tag - to no one's surprise, presumably - is 'Yassen Gregorovich Lives'. For Tomlex, it's 'Angst', and for Yian, it's an equally unsurprising 'Ian Rider Lives' as the most popular tag for the pairing - a tag that exploded in popularity with the TV show's arrival. The AR ship fandom lives by the motto of 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' and will embrace it to its fullest (3).

The real differences begin to show when we look at the ratings:

Just as Yalex is hands-down the most popular pairing, it's also the horniest. 39 percent of the fics are rated 'Explicit' (4) and another 26 percent are rated 'Mature'. 'Teen And Up Audience' and 'General Audiences' together make up 32 percent.

For Tomlex, 'Teen And Up Audience' is the most popular rating (55 percent) and 'General Audiences' is a distant second at 22 percent, probably as a result of the age of both characters (5).

For Yian, 'Teen And Up Audience' is also the most popular rating (53 percent) but this time followed by 'Mature' and 'Explicit', which makes up a combined 29 percent.

In terms of general stats, there are also noticeable differences:

The average Yalex fic has around 6.6k words, 136 kudos, and just under 1700 hits. This is helped along by a number of multichapter, 50k+ fics as well as the general popularity of the pairing.

The average Tomlex fic is just under 3.2k words, has 91 kudos and around 950 hits. In contrast to Yalex, the pairing has no fics with more than 25k words, which results in the much lower mean wordcount.

The average Yian fic is just under 3.9k words, has 94 kudos, and around 750 hits. Like the Tomlex pairing, there are not yet any longfics with the pairing (the longest is around 15k), but a smaller percentage of fics below 1k words means that the average fic is longer than for Tomlex. Yian also has fewer hits but a slightly higher kudos-count.

Other fun observations:

Yalex, like all three of the most popular pairings, is generally a solo pairing. Out of 563 fics, only 9 of them have Yassen/John as a pairing as well, along with 7 fics that have Alex/OMC. Tom is tagged in 44 fics, Tulip Jones in 39, and Jack in 31.

For Tomlex, the only other pairing of note is Yian (which shows up in 6 of the 56 fics), and Jack is tagged in 11 of the fics.

For Yian, the same 6 fics Tomlex appear. The only other character of note is Alex, who appears in 23 of the 55 fics - almost half of them.

Alexmis fics are generally much more centred in the Artemis universe than the AR universe. No other AR ships commonly occur with Alexmis, and of the top ten characters, all are from the Artemis series, except Jack in 3 fics.

For Helen/John, Alex appears in 30 of the 43 fics, more than two-thirds. That can either be because of the family relation (as Alex is also commonly tagged in Yian fics) or because the tag appears as a background or past pairing in some Alex-focused fics.

There you have it: A brief overview of shipping in the AR fandom in 2023. Next week we will be back with a fresh bunch of shipping recs!

______ 

Notes:

(1) On an impressive note, 89 of the Yalex fics are written by Suzie_Shooter over the course of eleven years. That's 16 percent of the total amount of Yalex fics and includes 6 of the ten most-kudosed fics of the pairing as well as a number of beloved classics.

(2) Definitions of 'fluff' and the 'comfort' part may vary between pairings, so someone looking for delicious, tooth-rotting fluff would probably want to check the rest of the tags on the fics.

(3) Though to be fair, with Ahorz's grasp on continuity and the addition of the TV show, the concept of 'reality' is probably debateable.

(4) This admittedly also covers graphic violence and similar beyond just graphic smut - or in the case of Yalex, sometimes both at the same time - but a glance at the AO3 page will reveal that yes, the fandom is, indeed, horny.

(5) That, or TV!Tom's beanie is just that much of a mood killer. The jury is still out on that.

Disclaimer: All AR-specific data was current as of the writing of this post (February 11th, 2023).

[jafndaegur]

20 Questions for Writers

My beloved @chierafied tagged me in this so obvi I had to do <3

AO3 username: Jafndaegur

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 24 (most of my works are here on Tumblr ^^")

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 244,262

3. What fandoms do you write for? Sesskag (Inuyasha), Mystic Messenger, Wangxian & various Mo Dao Zu Shi ships, Genshin Impact, Thunderbolt Fantasy, and the Hobbit.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Blood Runs Thicker (The Hobbit) - Kudos: 791

Shatter Me (The Hobbit) - Kudos: 383

The Seventh Wonder (WangXian / MDZS) - Kudos: 347

Of Jade and Claw (ZhongItto / Genshin Impact) - Kudos: 247

Gravitational Fairytale (WangXian / MDZS) - Kudos: 209

5. Do you respond to comments? I really do try to. But I have a Goldfish Brain™, and typically forget that I've read a comment and never respond. 🙈

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? The angstiest ending??? I'm going to say it's tied between Blood Runs Thicker (The Hobbit) since it ends with Bilbo completely abandoning a Dwarven-given identity under the pretense that he was never loved and has to move on - and then a time when I'm without you (WangXian / MDZS), where Lan Wangji must deal with the fact that Wei Wuxian is actually dead and there's nothing he can do but grieve alone.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? My happiest ending for a story is probablyyyy where's my angel (Mystic Messenger) or The Seventh Wonder (WangXian / MDZS). Granted if this was my Tumblr fics, there'd be WAY more fluff to pick from - my favorite being Fragile Duetto (Mystic Messenger).

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not really. If I do, any hate is on my old Hobbit fics which were basically abandoned after a serious bout of online bullying back when I was 14. It was a good time lol. I don't really go back to those fics.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Not often, and certainly only on special occasion. Any M-rated smut has never been published, though - and I certainly didn't put any on AO3. Only degenerate papapapapapa stuff here on the hellhole Tumblr platform uwu

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Oh absolutely! I started off fanfiction as a crossover writer on FFnet. My first fic was a very tame How to Train Your Dragon x Rise of the Guardians that got really popular. Since then tho, I think my craziest xover was a Mystic Messenger x Style Savvy crossover? The 2 universes together just make so much sense tho in my head lol.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of rofl I'm neither that good or that wellknown - although I wouldn't be surprised if any of my abandoned stuff got stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Again, not that I've known of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Back in the old days on FFnet, I co-wrote a couple Hobbit stories, and a How to Train Your Dragon x Percy Jackson story. Idk what happened to them, they're in the abyss somewhere.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? All time favorite ship? Objectively WangXian (Wei Wuxian / Lan Wangji). Subjectively? Bagginshield. I just go back to them when I'm depressed - they are a comfort ship for sure.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? As I am retired from fanfic writing, I doubt a lot of my fics will ever actually get finished. But Noise of Rain (Sesskag) is a story I dream of finishing - it's my female rage, villain arc redemption, true anti-hero love child. Maybe one day I'll come back to it.

16. What are your writing strengths? Long ago, I'd say exposition. Now it's definitely transformed into vignette romanticism, and dialogue (this has come from my recent influx of script writing though).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Actually sitting down and writing. It's such a slow process for me and my brain runs too fast sometimes to be able to write something out coherently or the way I want to.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Oh I absolutely adore it! It's a very fantasy trope to have different languages actually written in a story, but I'm HERE for it. I didn't take two years of linguistics to not include bits and pieces in a story.

19. First fandom you wrote for? As I mentioned earlier, it was for How to Train Your Dragon x Rise of the Guardians.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Oh I ABSOLUTELY have a favorite child. It's not popular (or finished, RIP), but I love it most by far - Shattered Euphony (ReZhong / Genshin Impact). I consider it one of my greatest works, both in original and fanfic writing. One day I will finish it.

Tagging @anon-drabble @reifromrfa (no pressure tho) and anyone else who'd like to join <3

[nonbinaryezrabridger]

thanks to @judgeverse for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

177 total! I'm still astonished at that amount tbh

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

480,869

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently: Sg1, sga, and sgu mainly. Star trek but not new trek. Star wars rebels. Mad max, mainly fury road. Pacific rim occasionally. The thing 1982. I've written a ton more fandoms than that but I'm not active in those routinely

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

My highest is an old x men fic at 167 kudos. Only one of my top five is a fandom I'm still in, and that's stargate atlantis at 166.

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

As much as possible. Sometimes I'm simply too drained by real life to answer every comment, but I try to answer all of them if I can. I feel it's important to let my readers know the comments really do impact me, they're really important to keep me motivated and I want other fans to know that. There's been times a single comment convinced me to finish a fic, or write a whole new concept.

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

definitely this she ra fic, posted while the show was coming out, where scorpia tries to reach out to catra, her attempt to help is rejected, and she lets herself be willingly consumed by the world ending magic. Most of my angst always has a happy ending, so this one is perhaps my only 100% angsty fic

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

Probably this the thing 1982 fic, where I take characters from a horror movie where they all die horribly, and instead have them live a happy gay domestic life with no alien monster.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

one fic from a fandom I shall not name got so much hate I deleted it for my own health. Otherwise, I got one angry comment on a she ra fic once

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

no, i've dabbled in it once or twice, but don't like it much. I doubt i'd ever write anything more explicit than suggestive content or sex based jokes

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

I wrote a fic with the get down characters in the mad max universe, but without any crossover of mad max characters. It's just the get down characters in the universe. that's definitely not my most popular fic, but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

nope, but the idea scares me. fortunately I like weird things no one else does, so I think the chances of someone stealing my content is low

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

yes! it was a great experience, would totally do it again as long as I was close with the other person cowriting

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

My top relationships are both from the get down, my first being thizzee. However, my top ship for a fandom that isn't dead is teal'c/daniel/sam from stargate sg1

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

pretty much all my unfinished get down fanfics. I love them all and want to finish them, but it's painful to think about the show with the cancellation and how it canonically ended, and also I don't know if anyone would even read them, so very low priority at this point

16. What are your writing strengths?

internal monologue of characters

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

anything sexy or overly romantic. Kissing is really hard for me

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

I'm not comfortable with messing it up. I deleted a very popular fic of mine because I wasn't happy with the writing of the asl in it. I'm still working on editing it to be better and still hope to post it and finish it this time. However, I'd rather not write something at all than portray it in a harmful way. If it's something I can research and do well, I'll do that, but I feel some things are just not for me to write about and that's fine

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First posted was the lord of the rings movies. First ever written was probably teen titans. Funnily enough, neither of those are still posted and I've never written for those fandoms since. Of my actual posted work, my first fandom was dc's legends of tomorrow, which I no longer write for either, but I left the fics up

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I couldn't choose just one.

So, of my longest fics:

This sga fic, with team sheppard as a queerplatonic quartet raising torren together. They get pulled into an alternate universe and have to save the world (again)

Of my shortest fics:

This space sweepers fic about bub's trans identity. Ends happily with her successful transition

tagging @campgender, if you'd like to! Feel free to ignore if not

[catlady5001]

twenty questions for fic writers

thank you for tagging me @quiets-cradle !! I love tag games

how many works do you have on ao3?

I have 133!

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

465,491 words!

3. what fandoms do you write for?

mostly BNHA (127/133 fics) a few for stranger things (3 fics) and one for mob psycho and one for Spider-Man

4. what are your top five fics by kudos?

Aren’t you a Little Young For This? (6,512 kudos)

Izuku's Notebooks (5,780 kudos)

You Can't Possibly Lift That Much! (5,755 kudos)

Please Say You're Joking… (5,207 kudos)

You’re joking, right? (4,930 kudos)

I’m very lucky to have so many popular works (and all of these 5 are from the BNHA fandom!)

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

when I have the energy to I try to respond to comments (especially if they’re frequent commenters or friends of mine), mainly because I like to comment on fics and I know how awesome it is to get a reply from the author. :)

6. what is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

ooh, good question. I generally like to give my fics happy endings, so while some have been quite angsty throughout, the only fic that ends badly is a BNHA collab I did with Achievingelysium and KookyKosplay called Vanishing Act, where Hagakure and Midoriya swap quirks. permanently.

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

the fic with the most payoff for the happy ending might just be my BNHA fic where mina gets kidnapped with Eri called you gave what I need

8. do you get hate on fics?

I’ve gotten a few rude comments before, but nothing memorable enough that I remember what specifically they said.

9. do you write smut? if so, what kind?

LOL. no

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

I don’t write crossovers. I do enjoy them though

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

yes, unfortunately. at least two of my fics have been reposted to ffn.net before by other people. :/

12. have you ever had a fic translated?

a few of my oneshots have gotten comments asking permission to translate them, and while I have said yes, I don’t believe I’ve ever actually seen a link to a translation before

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

yes!! I love collaborating with other writers!

I have done many fic telephones. I have done a “collaborated universe” with my lovely friend lilly_penwielder where we basically came up with a plot and each wrote a fic from two separate perspectives, which was really cool! I have worked one-on-one with other authors for oneshot, and I actually have a longfic collab in the works with a friend of mine ;)

14. what’s your all-time favorite ship?

i’m absolutely a multi-shipper, so there’s no way I could pick a favorite lol. I will say, I ALWAYS love a good fic focusing on Steve and Robin’s friendship (from stranger things)

15. what’s a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I really want to finish my series Rectifying our Mistakes, but I know it won’t get finished unless I make it a priority, and I have way too many WIPs for this to ever really be a priority. in theory, it shouldn’t take me long to finish, but every time I open the document, I can’t focus on this fic for long unfortunately.

16. what are your writing strengths?

i’m very proud of my dialogue and my ability to make a story angstier! lol

17. what are your writing weaknesses?

fight scenes are NOT my strong suit, and unless I have a specific ending from the get-go, I don’t plot my fics out ahead of time, which means they can get out of hand quickly if I’m not careful. (for my longfics like put your teeth into it, I started with a very vague idea of how I wanted the beginning to go, and as I wrote the first few chapters I got a really clear vision of how I want to end the fic (which I have written down so I don’t forget it lol)

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

I could handle writing Spanish dialogue in a fic, though I’m not yet a strong enough Spanish speaker to write a full fic in Spanish. someday I want to translate some of my own fics into Spanish (or write a fic in Spanish and translate it into English)

19. first fandom you wrote for?

BNHA! I did spend a lot of time in middle school editing one of my friends warrior cats rewrote though lol

20. favorite fic you’ve written?

I really enjoy all of my fics, but the first one that comes to mind is I’ll crawl through to you (whatever it takes), which was my take, early-on, on the deku angst arc

I love tag games so much thank you for including me!! any of my mutuals (or followers) are welcome to participate in this if they would like, but I’m going to tag @starcloud-nova and @rioted-choas :)

[calenlily]

2021 fic year in review

Total # of Completed Works: 30

Total Word Count: 67374 published on AO3 (plus probably quite a bit more on WIPs, but I don’t have a system for tracking those)

Fandoms I’ve Written In: BtVS/AtS, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992 movie), Fairytales & Related Fandoms, Original Work, Stardew Valley

Looking Back, Did You Write More Fic Than You Thought You Would This Year, Less, Or About What You’d Expected?: More. 2020 was an extremely productive writing year for me, and then I ended up in near-complete writer’s block from sometime in mid-November all the way into April 2021. So when I looked back at the end of the year and realized that I’d somehow managed to surpass my 2020 published word count (even if only by a slim margin), I was very surprised and impressed with myself.

What’s Your Own Favorite Story Of The Year?: Gotta be Buffy And Angel Versus Dracula. It’s the first time I’ve done a full episode rewrite like that, and one of the longest and plottiest things I’ve written in a long time (which is admittedly a low bar, but long and plotty are very much not my strengths), and I’m so glad I stretched my writing muscles to do so. Reworking the canon scenes to reflect changes in cast and storyline and provide sufficient context without wholly rehashing canon was a fun puzzle. I got to practice my ensemble writing skills and my action scene skills, and I’m really happy with how it turned out in terms of the balance of action and humor and romance and of plot versus character/relationship focus. And the bite and hurt/comfort scene in Act II (which I consider the emotional core of the fic and originally was going to be the entire story before it started expanding in scope on me) is probably in my top five for my favorite scenes of intimacy I’ve ever written.

Did You Take Any Writing Risks This Year?: I’m not quite sure whether to define them as risks, but I definitely did quite a few things this year that were venturing in new territory for me as a writer. I wrote my first threesome fic (and then within a month and a half wrote three more). I wrote my first explicit BDSM fic, my first explicit noncon fic, and my first major character death fic. I wrote two new-to-me fandoms (Buffy movieverse, and Stardew Valley), and three new POV characters in my Buffyverse fics (Willow, Joyce, and Dawn).

Do You Have Any Fanfic Or Profic Goals For The New Year?: Publish at least one fic per month (on track for January and February so far; this has been my ongoing goal for a few years and I keep coming close but not quite making it). Get more of my non-exchange projects finished and published. Write a broader range of fandoms and pairings, since my 2021 output was vast majority Bangel and even less that wasn’t Buffyverse.

Most Popular Story Of The Year?: By kudos, my most popular was Give Yourself Over. Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow got the most comments.

Story Of Mine Most Under-Appreciated By The Universe, In My Opinion: The Stanford Slaying Society. I mean, it’s Connor&/Dawn pre-ship gen, I knew it wasn’t going to have a huge audience. But I’m still sad it hasn’t gotten more love because I’m really happy with how it turned out.

Most Fun Story To Write: Probably Clearing the Air, which was the fic that finally broke through my writer’s block last spring, and incredibly self-indulgent for a fic that doesn’t include any smut. It’s one part indulging my love of cathartic conversations, and then the whole bit with Buffy being in denial about her attraction to Faith and Angel accidentally calling her out on it just amused me too much not to write.

Most Unintentionally Telling Story: Probably (There’s a Reason Not to Want This) But I Forgot, which is far too rooted in my college relationship drama; both main characters are basically me, except when they’re my best friend and my ex.

Biggest Disappointment: I’d have to give that title to Noble Idiocy. I can’t say it did badly, but it’s lagged in engagement compared to the other E-rated multi-chapter fics in the same series just enough that I can’t help noticing, and it’s especially frustrating to me because it’s one that took a lot of effort to write.

Biggest Surprise: I’ve been blown away by the performance of where’s the girl with the blaze in her eyes? It’s probably the darkest thing I’ve ever written, and between the Major Character Death warning, the weird Buffy/Willow flirting, and being Buffy/Angelus without any smut, I’d expected it to have a fairly small audience. Instead it’s the most bookmarked thing I’ve written this year, has gathered some amazing comments, crested 50 kudos within a few months and still has new kudos coming in fairly regularly, and has a great hits-to-kudos ratio into the hundreds of hits. (It’s also one of my favorite things I’ve written recently, despite having struggled a lot to get the idea into words on a page in the first place, so I’m all the more thrilled that it’s doing so well. There may be sequels in the works.)

Thank you for tagging me @mrs-steve-harrington

Tagging: Whoever wants to do it, since this is belated as hell

[raith-way]

Fic Writer Tag Game

My first AO3 fic was posted back in June, of this year, so some of these answers are going to be embarrassing. Most of my AO3 catalogue is oneshots and drabbles, but let’s do this! Thank you @asirensrage for the tag!!

How many works do you have on AO3?

12

What’s your total AO3 word count?

78,540

How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they?

6 – Bandom (My Chemical Romance, Avenged Sevenfold, Falling In Reverse, Taylor Swift) / Buffy The Vampire Slayer / Fast & Furious / DC Extended Universe (Batman V Superman, Justice League) / (The) Suicide Squad / Marvel (The Avengers)

What are your top five fics by kudos?

Keeping Us Down Is Impossible – The Suicide Squad (2021) / Rick Flag x Reader / Oneshot / Summary: You’re on a mission with a new team, thinking about your original team, only to find out part of that team is here. One thing is clear: You are going to survive this mission, and so is Rick Flag. / Kudos: 42

Things Are Getting A Little Hazy – Buffy The Vampire Slayer / OFC x OMC / WIP / Summary: Grace Blackburn’s great destiny was to give Angel a choice, and his decision sets the future for Sunnydale. With visions of the end and the formation of strange friendships, Grace navigates the new direction her life has taken while trying to convince her new brooding vampire bestie that he can be happy. AU after BTVS Season 3 & ATS doesn’t exist. / Kudos: 5

One Step At A Time – Fast and Furious / Jakob Toretto x OFC / Oneshot / Summary: Everything around them is being destroyed, and all they have is a moment. Just this one moment. / Kudos: 3

Memento Mori – DCEU (Post Justice League) / Bruce Wayne x OFC / WIP / Summary: Ryan Lopez should be six feet under, or at least be reduced to ash along with her former life. Instead she was trapped in the corporate world of Gotham, with nothing but cryptic messages from a grandfather she never knew and a soldier who acted like her butler. Not to mention that there was something very wrong with that Bruce Wayne guy. / Kudos: 2

Mistakes – Suicide Squad / Rick Flag x OFC / Oneshot / Summary: Rev waits at Belle Reve for Rick to return from a meeting, and not just because she wants to see him in his too-tight suit. (But also so she can see the way he looks in his too-tight suit.) / Kudos: 2

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, because I like letting readers know that I read their comments and appreciate that they took the time to leave a comment.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

That would be a oneshot, Washing Away Reality, in the DC (Batman) fandom.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Not really? Two of my fics crossover, but they’re both in the same DC Universe so I don’t think that counts.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don’t have any posted, yet, but I do write it. The kind depends on the fic and the character perspective I’m writing in. Sometimes it’s more vague, some scenes focus more on the emotion of the moment, and others are more graphic.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I’m not even sure how to answer that. Out of all the fandoms? I definitely can’t choose. Out of my current fics? My all-time favorite ship is probably Grace Blackburn (OFC) and Eliot Greenwood (OMC), from my BTVS fic Things Are Getting A Little Hazy. Their relationship is practically destined.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

My band fic, Soundtrack Of The Revolution. It’s planned out, all 400 chapters of it, but I’ve been working on it for a decade. I’m not giving up, but we’ll see if it ever gets completed.

What are your writing strengths? What are your writing weaknesses?

Someone who’s read my stories would have to tell me my strengths, because I have no clue. I just ramble sentences onto a word document and hope that it makes sense. My weaknesses would probably be my descriptions. I overly describe things and occasionally go off on tangents, which causes my chapters to be ridiculously long. I consider that to be a weakness.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I try not to do it, because I’m only fluent in English, but I will write dialogue in another language with the help of Google Translate. If I get it too wrong, hopefully someone will correct me. When I can though, I prefer to just mention that the character is speaking in another language without having to actually write the other language because I don’t want to butcher it.

What was the first fandom you’ve written for?

This question hurts my soul. The very first fandom? It would have to be a band fic, probably Avenged Sevenfold, way back in about 2006. Thankfully, all of those fics have been lost to time and will never be read by anyone ever again. Knowing that helps me sleep at night.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

This is such an unfair question, because how do I pick just one? My favorite fic, that I have personally written, isn’t posted under this name so it’ll have to remain a mystery. My favorite fic that I’ve written under this name, has to be Soundtrack Of The Revolution. Yes, it’s a band fic even though those stopped being popular over a decade ago. I also realize the irony of my favorite fic being the fic that I'm not sure if it'll ever be completed. It’s the most self-indulgent fic that I have ever written, and I’ve been working on it off-and-on since 2009. Seeing how it’s changed and what has remained the same over the years is mind-blowing, and I truly love the story and the characters. So, yeah, it’s my favorite.

Tagging: @wordspin-shares @thecharmedburrowspn-files @lokitrasho @reggiemantleholdmyhand-tle @darknightfrombeyond @stanshollaand @captainrcgers @jinxsflame @jewelswrites-ish @hiddenqveendom

[arshipweek]

AR Ship Week - Shipping in AR Fandom

Banner credit

This is the first weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. Only 4 weeks to go!

This week we’re going to look at the current state of shipping in Alex Rider fandom.

A Not Entirely Scientific Look at the AR Fandom by rirren and pongnosis

AO3's categories provide a good overview of not just the AR fandom but fandoms in general and the sort of fandom content that gets posted on the site. The following two graphs cover the six categories options on AO3, excluding those fics where the author didn't choose a category. Fics can also have multiple categories, e.g. F/F + M/M or F/M + Gen, so the same fic can appear in multiple slices.

The first chart covers categories within the AR fandom (specifically the Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz tag, i.e. not fics that only include the Alex Rider (TV 2020) tag), the second AO3 as a whole:

So what IS the state of the fandom compared to the average?

* Fully half of the fics in the fandom are categorised as Gen. In comparison, the AO3 average is 17 percent.

* The vast majority of shipping fics in AR fandom are M/M (see note 1), which account for 36 percent, where the AO3 average is 45 percent.

These two categories in total account for 86 percent of AR fics, and 62 percent for AO3 as a whole. So what does the rest cover? F/M is 8 percent for AR (22 percent for AO3), Other and Multi both account for 2.5 percent in AR (3 and 4 percent respectively for AO3), and F/F - which appears in 8 percent of AO3 fics in general - appear in 1 percent of AR fics (see note 2). That's ten fics in total. This is probably not a surprise to anyone who's read the books (see note 3), as the only thing that rivals Ahorz's shaky grasp of continuity is his (in)ability to write female characters.

So let's dig a bit deeper and look at the rest of the tags, split into general tags (tags that are not necessarily ship-specific) and shipping tropes:

(see note 4 for methodology)

The Alex Rider fandom, at first glance, is not a ship-heavy fandom and the additional tags only confirm what the categories already showed. There is only a single ship-only trope in the top ten most used tags in the fandom, and that's a nice, general Sexual Content. That one appears 117 times, only just beating out Fluff, which appears in 112 fics (see note 5).

The same is reflected in the fics themselves. Of the most kudos'ed fics in the AR category as of this posting, it's not until the fifth fic on the list (Synergy by Sigma) that we actually meet a shipping fic. Of the top ten most kudos'ed, five are shipping fics - and only four of them are pairings that involve an AR character (the last being a crossover with Sherlock/John Watson - homes out of human beings). Two of the other fics are Yassen/Alex, two are crossovers with Alex/James Bond.

For AR shipping tropes, the top trope - by a wide margin - is Sexual Content in 117 fics, followed by Underage in 58 fics (see note 6). Given that Alex is 14-15 in the books (and 16-ish in the TV show), the second one isn't much of a surprise. Lots of shipping fics age Alex to 18+, but shipping fics set during or right after the books that involve Alex will mean an underage pairing.

The next two shipping tropes are Dubious Consent (45 fics) and Rape/Noncon (31 fics). The midpoint between the two - Extremely Dubious Consent - appears in 10 fics and could arguably be applied to most of Alex's missions, too.

Age Difference is tagged in 27 fics and proves the difficulty of analysing anything across multiple fandoms. To people familiar with the fandom, Yassen/Alex fics have the age difference implied and isn't something most writers would even think to tag. To an outsider unfamiliar with the characters - or a particularly desperate reader in search of a highly specific kink some late Friday night in lockdown - a pairing alone says nothing, and they have only the tag to go by.

So that said, how does this compare with other fandoms? In 2016, the Fansplaining podcast did a survey of fanfiction readers. They got 7,500+ responses and a fun insight into a small chunk of fandom. When we compare those results with AR fandom, we get some equally interesting insights. Now that we have the popular AR shipping tropes, here are the ship-specific ones the 2016 Fansplaining survey found:

The hands-down most popular trope (in general and shipping-related both) was Friends to Lovers. Almost universally beloved, this trope proves a bit of a headache in AR fandom, given that Alex does not have a lot of friends that are actually mentioned in the books, much less ones we see him interact with. The TV show provided a nice departure from that, though, with Tom and the Point Blanc kids' much larger roles. Luckily for the book fans, Enemies/Rivals to Lovers makes it into the top ten of ship-specific tropes from the survey! This really broadens the field, as Alex has an abundance of those.

Interestingly, not a single one of the top ten tropes from the survey appears on the AR top ten as well. The AR top tropes are mostly sexual, the survey ones are mostly romantic. Is the fandom just that kinky? Is it just that horny? Is the source material just that dark? Or are we about to get an influx of softer Tom/Alex thanks to the TV show and get Friends to Lovers or Bedsharing into the top ten?

If you want to dig a little more into classic tropes, including those that don't normally make an appearance in the fandom, Tiermaker has a great fanfic tropes tier list and lets you make a handy chart of your personal HELL YES and NOPE.JPG tropes.

Until next week!

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Notes:

(1) Two-thirds of which (235) are Yassen/Alex, for those keeping count at home. The next one on the list is Tom/Alex with 25 fics. (2) Of the 10 fics, 4 are multi-crossovers. In total, only 2 (!!) have F/F pairings with at least one AR canon character mentioned in the tags that can be positively identified: Kyra Vashenko-Chao/Laura (despite the weltering earth and malevolent alps by laukyra) and Tulip Jones/Julia Rothman (The Rothman Scandal by mediaboy) (3) To the TV show fans, I can only say you're missing out on some quality rants about continuity, villains, and female characters ... which, to be fair, might be good for your blood pressure if you're not reading through nostalgia glasses. (4) Methodology for the additional AR tags: using a data scraper on the additional tags will give the tags but not the synonymous tags that AO3 uses – e.g. ‘Yassen lives’ will be considered a synonym of ‘Yassen Gregorovich Lives’ and filtered with it. For this reason, we have looked at the top ten tags along with the results from the data scraper and then checked a number of them individually as the number in the filter sidebar on AO3 will not be consistent with the search results. As an example: ‘Tom Harris/Alex Rider’ will show 25 tagged fics in the sidebar but will give 26 results when searched for. The last one is tagged ‘Possible Tom Harris/Alex Rider’, a synonymous tag which shows up in the search but not the sidebar-count (and which is also not tagged M/M for the same reason, which accounts for the difference compared to note 1). As a result, we may have missed some in our calculations. (5) Yassen Gregorovich Lives appears in 65 fics, narrowly making it into the top ten. The jury is still out on how many of those Ahorz wrote himself. (6) Given that Alex is fourteen for a lot of the series, that MI6 is screwing his future like a particularly demented rabbit, and Ahorz's kink for Alex whump, it could also be argued that any canon-compliant AR fics should come with 'Underage' marked by default.

(Disclaimer: All AR-specific data was current as of the writing of this post (February 21st, 2021). This is in no way scientific but still a hopefully-fun look at fandom. The authors have no conflicts of interests, but pongnosis is open to bribery and would really, really like to see more fluffy John/Helen fic)

[madeofsplinters]

How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently, 78. Soon to be more once I get my butt in gear and finish Kinktober.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

677,266.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

AO3 seems to think that Star Wars is at least twelve different fandoms, but I disagree. By my count, I have fanfics on AO3 in 4 fandoms: Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. (Also one Original Work.) But really just Star Wars. Everything else is like, one or two short fics when I felt like it at one point.

This is not a full reckoning, since it doesn’t count fan stuff I’ve written privately and not put on AO3, such as the long-ass backstories of several D&D characters.

As you can see, I am a basic bitch, fandom-wise.

What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. “Why Wait” (Baby Yoda Christmas fluff)

2. “In The Faces Of Our Children” (Vader and Tarkin, ruling the galaxy together, when Suddenly Luke)

3. “Holding Vader’s Leash” (the first multi-chapter Vader/Tarkin fic I ever wrote)

4. “Do Not Be Prey” (the short bit of Vader’Tarkin smut that started it all)

5. “I Will Not Let My Body Belong to the Dead” (an even longer Vader/Tarkin fic with lots of trauma and disability and Sith temple bullshit)

One of these things is, clearly, not like the others.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I almost always respond! I love comments! Sometimes it takes a few days to get my head together and figure out what to say, and once in a while there’s something that I don’t know how to respond to at all, but generally I respond.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Gosh, I don’t know. I write a lot of whump. Maybe “endure.”

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Probably “Why Wait,” which might explain why it’s so popular.

Do you write crossovers? If yes, what’s the craziest thing you’ve written?

You know, I don’t think I ever have! I’m not ruling it out one day, but I have no specific plans.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I always expect WAY more hate than I’ve ever gotten, to be honest. I’m always like “ooooh, I’m so edgy, they’re gonna cancel me.” Nobody has ever canceled me yet, to my knowledge. I’ve gotten mildly unfriendly comments a time or two but quite rarely, and nothing at the level where I’d really call it “hate.”

(Most hate I ever got in Star Wars fandom was not for a fic, but for a random Tumblr post where I said the Mandalorian writers didn’t understand childcare. LOL)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes, I love to write smut! I particularly like smut involving BDSM and villain characters. It’s very cathartic to me to take messed-up, morally questionable characters and imagining how they’d approach kink, which means a lot of very complicated emotional dynamics and a lot of stuff that wouldn’t necessarily pass muster as safe, sane, or consensual in real life!

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but “Why Wait” has been made into podfic twice.

Have you ever co-written a fic?

I have not!

What’s your all time favourite ship?

I don’t know about all time favourites. My feelings change over time and that’s fine.

That said, Vader/Tarkin is a fucked up little rarepair that played a role in my life for just over two years that I don’t think any other ship has ever equaled, or maybe will again. I’ve never been obsessed with writing a ship like I was obsessed with writing that one. And then, at the end of “The Madness of Emperor Tarkin,” the muse just suddenly stopped. I’d been using the ship to work through my feelings about a very particular life situation and when my situation changed, suddenly the obsessive urge to write the ship vanished back into the thin air from whence it came.

I still ship it, in a sort of abstract, nostalgic way, but it’s no longer taking up the majority of my brain circuits.

Or, as @taxxxon put it: “[Tarkin’s still] a very compelling character, you’re just not enacting intensive shadow work through him anymore.”

What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

“Don’t Let The Water Drag You Down.” Sorry.

What’s your writing strengths?

I don’t know? Characterization? Imagination? Obsessively writing a lot of words really fast? Don’t ask me to give myself compliments, I won’t do it :D

What’s your writing weaknesses?

Pacing. I would not know proper pacing if it bit me in the ass. I’m not very good at action scenes / battles. Also my characters tend to spend a lot of time sitting around thinking about their own feelings, which I think is a feature, not a bug, but it’s certainly something that polarizes readers. Some love it, some hate it.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

Knock yourself out! There are no rules.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I mean, I wrote a lot of Harry Potter fic starting when I was, like, 12. The stuff I wrote in junior high school has been thankfully lost to the mists of time. We shall not speak of it.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

“I Will Not Let My Body Belong To The Dead.” The entire Vader/Tarkin ship peaked with that fic. It has everything.

Thank you to @cealtrachs for the tag. :) Tagging: @milkmochi, @neumh, @vaderssidechick, @choking-on-your-aspirations

[sassysnowperson]

writer's meme - TY to @r0b0tb0y for the tag!

How many works do you have on AO3?

168 - oh man that's more than I'd realized. I passed 150 and didn't even notice!

What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,133,901

So many.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Since r0b0tb0y and I were just talking about this, I conveniently have a list of all 20 ranked by number of works

134 - Star Wars 7 - Original Works 7 - Marvel 2 - Pirates of The Carribean 2 - The Old Guard 2 - Discworld 1 - Good Omens 1 - Leverage 1 - The Good Place 1 - Avatar: The Last Airbender 1 - Ocean’s 11 1 - Harry Potter 1 - The Goblin Emperor 1 - Gundam Wing 1 - Star Trek: TNG 1 - Hades (Videogame) 1 - Sailor Moon 1 - Russian Doll 1 - Mummy/Wonder Woman crossover

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lol, looking at my top five - it falls into two categories

1. Fics I wrote right at the height of a fandom's popularity that got a massive reader boost because it was the Hot Thing Right Then

2. Star Wars Fix-Its

~

A Series of Better Decisions - A Padme/Obi-Wan/Anakin SW Prequel Trilogy fix-it where Anakin talks to Obi-Wan and spends Revenge of the Sith in a stressed-out bisexual panic instead of becoming a Space Fascist. He winds up fake-poly-dating Obi-Wan to try to bring down Palpatine, and eventually winds up in a better place due to the power of Quitting Your Job and becoming a househusband.

Galactic Response Time - Captain Marvel - an at the time MCU canon-compliant gen fic that ran the universe forward and explained how Carol really TRIED to show up for all those other crises that happened, but it turns out most of the major MCU disasters only lasted like three days and space is real big, y'all. Featuring Nick Fury cathartically bitching with his Space Bestie.

New Lands for the Living - Fix-it where the sequel trilogy ends Even Worse, Poe goes back in time to mercy-kill the timeline, and much to his dismay winds up married to just-before-Original-Trilogy Luke Skywalker. He has an existential crisis about his own existence, meets some competent women, and starts fixing things.

Life's Little Pleasures - The Good Omens fic where I put all my ace feelings, featuring metaphysical bonding and good scotch.

Flustered - Another Padme/Anakin/Obi-Wan SW Prequel Trilogy fix-it, where Order 66 never happens. Anakin gets some therapy and Padme gets a horrible crush on Obi-Wan.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I do! I love getting to talk to people about fics, and I so appreciate people making the effort to comment I want to spend some time with them! It's so much easier not to comment, I know.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm this is not my normal wheelhouse. I usually go angst that gets resolved by the end. Let me look to see what the options are.

Okay, I think we've got two contendors: In Waystation an exhausted Poe Dameron crash-lands in a station where a Bodhi Rook that lived and then hid now lives with Baze and Chirrut. There is a little epilgue that implies they're going to meet again, but the bulk of the fic does end with Poe making the decision to go back to the Resistance, and leaving Bodhi behind. Still, I think it's more wistful, rather than angsty.

Time Enough for Mourning takes it though, I think. Davits Draven/Antoc Merrick, that is entirely about Draven mourning the fact that Antoc has died. The end is still, I think, more cathartic than angsty, but it is overall probably the strongest "break out the waterworks" of my fics.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I do occasionally, usually when someone prompts me and I find something in there that makes my brain go!!! I think the strangest is probably The Face Underneath. It's a Cassian Andor/Elim Garak fic where I drag Garak into the Star Wars Universe for a triple drabble series where he is an old mentor of Cassian's.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Mmm, not proper hate. Realtalk, the most devastating one for me was when I posted a fic that the only comment was a spelling critique.

And yes, there was a spelling error, but still, very crushing to have that be the only feedback. (It has since found a few readers that said nice things, very healing :D)

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes! Uh - consensual, between adults, often M/M adults, tho I have written explicit femslash, hetfic, and poly piles. It's usually affectionate, often plays with power dynamics even if it doesn't go into full dom/sub.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that anyone has made me aware of, I've never looked.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Had a request or two, but never been linked the result - so not sure if it didn't happen or if I just didn't get linked. I welcome it!

I have had several fics podficced, and I LOVE that. What a joy! Making a blanket permission statement that allowed podfic is one of the best decisions I've made as a fic author. Suddenly, Podfic!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Once or twice! I like the idea of doing it, but follow-through is hard. Hoping to do some co-writing soon though, so we will see!

What’s your all time favourite ship?

Sorry, unrepentant multi-shipper here. I like possibilities, and finding the story that will bring people together, more than one specific thing.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don't have ANYTHING I've given up on, but there are a few fics in my unpublished drafts that were beautiful ideas, and really struggled to become contained stories. They all want to be sprawling things, and I have not felt sprawling-thing-writing passionate about those ideas. But, you never know! Inspiration may strike.

What are your writing strengths?

I'd say character voice, along with that, dialogue. Also humor moments that still have real weight and don't undercut the story, as well as straight comedy writing.

What are your writing weaknesses?

You see, I, uh, do this thing where I don't really end a sentence - I think about ending it, I even assume, at some point while I'm writing that I have ended it; I have not and it meanders, persistently, until I have constructed a whole paragraph made out of one chain of words and a hodgepodge of punctuation.

Also the thing where I accidentally use an unusual word five times in one paragraph because my brain has grabbed onto it like an excited puppy and keeps offering it up as the Perfect Word.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I love having multilingual characters. When writing, I tend to keep all the words in English and use dialogue tags to denote language shift - unless I am inventing the language, or have a speaker of that language willing to beta the bits to make sure I don't mess them up too badly.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Actually wrote and posted? Rogue One.

Fandom of my heart my younger self spun out stories in my imagination about? Where if I had my own computer and easy access to a fic archive they almost certainly would have become spectacularly earnest fics?

ReBoot and Sailor Moon. The Sailor Moon was an AU that took place on the sun and they all had kick-ass horses. Baby Sass knew what was up.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

Nope, sorry, can't pick, love them all in different ways for different reasons.

Tagging: @semisweetshadow, @anamelesstraveler, @jules-of-the-crown - and generally if you follow me and want to do it, do so and tag me in it!