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5ummit · 5 months

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AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

#ao3 #ao3 stats #psa #my words #fandom #I doubt anyone is even going to read this but I needed to get it out of my system and at least try to stop this from spreading #if you know me #you know I get Big Mad about misinformation #don't take anything at face value #do your own research

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thousand-winters · 9 days

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HI!

🎱🥤🧩

Hello!!! Always nice to see you!!! 😄

🎱 ⇢ Post your AO3 total stats

Awww, I hadn't checked in a while and checked like a week ago and I had 100 subscriptions then, who left me? What did I do? 😔 /j

🥤 ⇢ Recommend an author or fanfic you love

Omg, okay.

So I'm doing a bunch of different fandom fics for variety:

Magic Blankets: A Star Wars fic in which the power of a very silly droid teaching Anakin to crochet saves the galaxy. Including this part that makes me weep like a baby every single time, this is such a soothing fic: "Love is the most dangerous and beautiful thing in the universe. Anakin loves deeply and even the most darkest of people cannot stand against such love."

Weight in Scales: An incredible Fire Emblem Heroes fic that explores the disaster waiting to happen that is to reunite people from different universes that work with different rules in the same place. Aka, Soren's latent dragon blood activates due to Ninian's dragonstone. Featuring the whole breakdown from that revelation, the alliance and friendship of the half-dragons and a lot of comedy really well executed.

Empty Graves: When I tell you I don't even go here??? I'm not in any superhero media fandom and yet this fanfic delivered so well it couldn't not be one of my favorites. The premise is that time travelers try to murder Superman when he was a baby but Martha Kent is NOT having anybody murder her kid. It's SO good.

Area Hysteria: I'm a simple woman with simple wishes and this MP100 fic hits the nail on all of them. Basically a freak accident happens and Reigen is half on his way to dying while buried under a crumbled building, with Dimple helping keep him alive. Features: Dimple being the best little spirit in the world ever, Ritsu not coping with still being kinda scared of his own brother, all the kids trying to deal with the fact they all felt Reigen as kind of a reliable presence in their lives and now he's just not there and they don't know what to do, and Serizawa realizing that oh, no, he's the adult in charge of all of these overeager children now and he has to step up to the plate.

love will hurt you, but love will never mean to: Just the title makes me want to cry, ngl. It's such a beautifully written fic about how Hunter gets used to his new life and to the feeling of being loved. My mind always jumps to this one when asked about fic recommendations because it makes me feel things, you just have to read it.

🧩 ⇢ What will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

I answered this one already with 1st person POV, which is true, but for another thing I can't take is definitely when being faced with a block of text. I said I could power through the formatting problem at times and while that's true, it really depends on motivation an energy and most of the times it's a no anyway.

Thank you for the questions!!! From this ask game

#ask games

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marchivists · 4 years

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not the place to fall in love: chapter one

read on ao3! [i didn’t format anything below the “keep reading”, so it’ll probably be easier to read on ao3]

Iwaizumi was stuck, perhaps perpetually, on level fifteen of Candy Crush.

Once, as a child, he’d dedicated an entire afternoon to climbing an unclimbable tree in his backyard. He’d grown quite a bit since then and a lot had changed, but the addicting taste of chasing a difficult victory bubbled in his stomach now just as it had under that tall tree so many years ago. The stakes were higher than they probably seemed from the outside; Iwaizumi’s honor waited at the finish line and his pride danced around the colorful screen, following his finger as it swiped left and right, up and down.

He’d had an audience that afternoon by the tree and he had the same one now. Oikawa leaned against Iwaizumi’s side, head resting on his shoulder. He seemed to understand how much rode on Iwaizumi’s performance; he oohed and aahed over each move, offering words of encouragement and advice which Iwaizumi would rather have done without.

Though Iwaizumi didn’t realize it in any way that he could express with words, a bubble of sorts had formed around the pair, as it often did when they were together. Passerbys skirted around it without consciously deciding to do so, as if they too understood on some unspeakable level that Oikawa and Iwaizumi, or more accurately, OikawaandIwaizumi, lived slightly apart from everyone else. Outside the borders of the bubble, the airport waiting area produced airport noises. Hidden speakers made booming announcements, feet clicked and clacked towards unknown destinations, babies voiced their dislike for the whole business of airports, and adults coughed and sniffed as they waited for time to pass and flights to arrive. Oikawa and Iwaizumi had claimed a corner of the airport waiting area, opting to relax picnic-style on the floor instead of in two of the many empty chairs nearby.

Iwaizumi made one final swipe before slumping against the wall in despair. You failed! flashed across his phone in bright colors.

“Ah well,” Oikawa sighed, giving Iwaizumi two pats on the shoulder. He slunk down too, crossing his legs and resting folded hands on his lap. “I’m pretty sure only old people are good at that game anyway.”

Iwaizumi glared. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, no. Just an observation. I can try again though if consolation is what you’re looking for.”

“Go for it.”

“Gimme a minute,” Oikawa looked up at the ceiling as though his thoughts were stuck to the plaster. “Alright. I’m pretty sure old people are terrible at Candy Crush.”

“I think you’re missing the point.”

“On the contrary, I’ve found the point. See, I’ve always suspected my Iwa-chan was secretly a grumpy old man in disguise,” he sighed dismissively, as though the thought was almost too disheartening to address. “I just wish you would have told me beforehand. Your tickets would have been so much cheaper.”

“I think sitting here has made you stupider than usual.” Iwaizumi elbowed his setter, and, ignoring Oikawa’s protests at being treated so unfairly, moved to put his phone in his pocket. He hoped the turn of his shoulder was enough to hide his blush at being called “my Iwa-chan,” or that, at the very least, Oikawa had lost at least fifty percent of his perceptive abilities after being trapped in an airport with no stimulation for so long.

Iwaizumi had always loved airports. They were big, loud, and full of hope and potential: the kind of place that, as a kid, you’d long to sprint through at full speed without consequences.

Oikawa had always hated them. Iwaizumi could see that hatred now that neither of them were distracted. It bled from the way Oikawa scanned the crowd of unfamiliar faces around them, the way his rigid shoulders and stone-statue-posture screamed I am untouchable. It was obviously convincing, as anyone searching for spaces to camp out on the floor scurried elsewhere when their eyes reached Oikawa’s proud, rigid form. The fear and hatred made Iwaizumi want to grab Oikawa’s hand, but for the moment he wasn’t sure if the untouchable part applied to best friends or not.

He checked his watch. They had an hour or so before their flight would be ready to board. Despite his aversion to the place, Oikawa had insisted on arriving unnaturally early, and Iwaizumi had complied with minimal complaint.

Oikawa mirrored Iwaizumi and glanced at his own watch. “Do you think we’ll be late?”

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “Only if it takes us an hour to walk ten meters.”

Oikawa huffed. Iwaizumi took out his phone again.

For the next fifteen minutes, their bubble was uncharacteristically quiet. Iwaizumi resisted the urge to perform a victory dance after reaching level sixteen. An incoming text momentarily stopped him from lining up five purple gummies.

From: you know who it is

iwa-chan~~

Iwaizumi swiped the notification away and watched with satisfaction as the five gummies disappeared. Level seventeen.

From: you know who it is

i can see ur phone from here :3 congrats on leveling up, old man iwa-chan

Iwaizumi flipped Oikawa off without taking his eyes from his screen, missing the strained smile he received in return. There was more silence. Level eighteen, then one more. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. He reached level thirty before receiving another text.

From: you know who it is

you know, there’s an 86% chance we’ll both die if the plane crashes

That got his attention. He turned to look at Oikawa, who sat scrolling through his phone, expression casual and bored, as though he’d run out of things to like on Instagram and was most definitely not worrying about dying in a plane crash.

Iwaizumi had prepared for this moment. Oikawa’s anxiety was a vigilant companion; it never took a day off and spent most of its time searching for something new to latch onto which it could then suck the rationality and safety out of. In the past, it had made the setter afraid of coughing fits, books with an odd number of pages, eating out in public places, opened drawers, and rooms with too many people in them. Comparatively, flying was an easy thing to demonize. To ward off any excess fear, Iwaizumi had scoured over research and data on plane safety, committing them to memory in case they were needed. He’d tried to put himself in Oikawa’s shoes, tried to image how anxiety would twist the safety of air travel into something horrible. He had imagined dramatic explosions, smoke pouring out of engines and catching flame. He had armed himself with information contradicting these imaginings, just in case Oikawa needed it. He opened his mouth to say something about how their chances of dying were one in seven million when his phone, practically forgotten in his hands, dinged again.

From: you know who it is

maybe we should go home. lol

Iwaizumi put his phone away. He scooted away from the wall until they sat close together, knees touching. He poked the setter’s leg. “Oikawa.”

Oikawa continued staring down at his phone.

Iwaizumi sighed. “Tell me the stats for getting into your school. For getting into the volleyball program there.”

Oikawa shrugged dismissively, like someone who hates bragging but can’t tell the truth without unwittingly doing so. The movement made Iwaizumi want to headbutt him.

“Only three percent of the applicants get in, remember? Three percent.”

“I know that.”

“Then tell me, why should we go home when our chances of dying are dozens of decimal points below that percentage?”

Oikawa looked up and his eyes were wide with questions he probably didn’t want answered.

Aren’t you scared, too? Yes, Iwaizumi wanted to respond, but not of the same things you are.

What if they just send me back? What’s the point?

Iwaizumi’s own eyes were impenetrable and knowing. He stared back, hoping he managed to get his own silent message across. You are amazing. You deserve this chance.

A few long seconds passed before Oikawa broke their staring contest, eyes jumping over stranger’s faces, presumably to see if anyone had noticed his sudden break in character. “I suppose I can endure the devastatingly long flight. Even though it will be practically unbearable sitting next to a brute like yourself.”

“Good.” Iwaizumi cleared his throat and moved back to his original spot. He looked Oikawa over, relaxing at the way his posture was no longer screaming as much as it was talking. The setter waved to a baby sitting with its mother a few feet away and earned tiny smiles from both parties in return, mother and child hopelessly charmed by his easy smile and fluid movements.

Iwaizumi was charmed, too, and had always been. He was amazed by Oikawa’s ability to quickly recover from anything, to go from scrambling to find purchase in reality to storming forward with quick, confident steps. For the second time that day Iwaizumi felt the urge to take his hand.

He stopped himself, running his hand through his hair to chase the feeling away. He’d sworn to himself, and to Hanamaki and Matsukawa, that he would not come back to Japan without confessing someway, somehow. A crowded airport didn’t seem like the proper place and right before a fifteen-hour flight didn’t seem like the right time.

He didn’t expect the feelings to be reciprocated. They’d been best friends for so long that it almost felt impossible to make the trek from platonic intimacy to the romantic kinds without falling off the edge somewhere in-between. Besides, Oikawa had received so many confessions from so many people, each much better than Iwaizumi in every respect. And he had rejected each one with a sad, polite smile and a few empathetic words of kindness. It’s the moments after that Iwaizumi feared the most, the switch from being someone Oikawa didn’t have to handle with intentional delicacy to someone on the receiving end of pity and a false smile. The gap the truth might create between them, the spacing out of OikawaandIwaizumi, made him want to run home and crawl between the sheets of his bed and never come out again. But, Iwaizumi Hajime hated cowards and liars more than most anything and he had felt like both for far too long. In a way, he imagined spilling his feelings would work like a sort of redemption. He could reclaim his dignity, live without fear, and push Oikawa Tooru away forever. He hoped to minimize the force and longevity of the last part with distance and time; perhaps, with thousands of miles between them, Iwaizumi could move on or Oikawa could learn to live and forget and things would return to normal. Maybe. Hopefully. Whatever the outcome, Iwaizumi would not let Oikawa go without telling him everything. As long as he didn’t have to sit next to his rejector for fifteen miserable hours, everything would be fine. Probably.

Minutes ticked by in comfortable silence and Iwaizumi reached level thirty-one. Oikawa stood, stretched, and announced his decision to mark the momentous occasion with a trip to the bathroom.

Iwaizumi slid a red jellybean to the right. “I’ll watch our stuff.”

“No, no,” Oikawa hummed, pulling Iwaizumi’s phone from his hands and putting it in the pocket of his jeans. “You have to come with me, Iwa-chan. It’s boring doing it alone.”

“Do you think you could sound more perverted if you tried?”

Oikawa stuck out his tongue. “So immature,” he held out a hand to pull Iwaizumi up and dragged him over to the woman with the baby. “Excuse me, do you mind watching our stuff for a moment?”

The woman assured them she could and the baby babbled pleasantly in agreement.

For reasons only his heart could explain, Iwaizumi allowed himself to be pulled across the airport into the bathroom. He only half listened to Oikawa’s chatter as they went, hearing bits and pieces about the memes Hanamaki kept sending him, and doesn’t that lady right there look ridiculous in those clown shoes? Iwaizumi focused most of his attention on the firm warmth of Oikawa’s hand in his own, the way stranger’s eyes glanced over them and flashed with assumptions Iwaizumi could only wish were true. And then, too suddenly for Iwaizumi to keep up with, Oikawa stopped moving.

Iwaizumi collided into him with a grunt. He moved to get a good look at Oikawa’s face, scold and insult primed on the tip of his tongue, just to balk at the painful grimace he found there. He followed Oikawa’s shell-shocked gaze to see Ushijima Wakatoshi standing in front of one of the urinals, doing what one does in a bathroom. His gaze was firmly settled downwards and their entranced hadn’t seemed to break his concentration. Iwaizumi blinked a few times to prove his eyes were really seeing what they said they were before turning to try to share a silent conversation with Oikawa, to ask what the hell? and set up a game plan.

Should they confront him, tease the shit out of him (no pun intended)? Should they walk out and go about their day, knowing that, at any moment, they could run into the second most repulsive person on the planet? Should they pull down his pants and leave him stranded, alone in the bright white airport bathroom? But Oikawa was staring at Ushijima and seemed too busy having a silent conversation with himself to worry about Iwaizumi.

The next few seconds moved like solidified grease making its way into the trash: very slowly, with moments of gag inducing repulsion and general disgust. Finally, Ushijima zipped up his pants. Oikawa tensed, squeezing Iwaizumi’s wrist. He was trying to communicate something, surely, but Iwaizumi wasn’t given enough time to decipher the message before Oikawa flew into action, turning around sharply. Iwaizumi stumbled over his feet, shoes squeaking as Oikawa practically pulled him out of the door. Oikawa flipped the light switch just as they hit the exit and the bathroom flooded with black.

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi hissed as the door closed behind him, leaving Ushijima trapped in the dark.

Oikawa continued to pull him forward, heading in the direction of their belongings. His voice was hoarse with nerves and conspiracy. “What the fuck, Iwa-chan?”

There had existed an unspoken truth between them that the airport represented a doorway to another universe. When they’d bought their plane tickets and printed boarding passes, they’d solidified the plan to leave their old world behind in favor of something new and unknown. When they’d stepped foot in the airport, they’d left the past waiting at the doorway. And when they finally boarded the plane, the world they’d shared together for so long would disappear like leaves scattering in the wind. Despite the existence of this truth, a piece of their past seemed to have crossed the threshold with them. And it was not a piece either of them would have chosen to pack in their carry-ons.

They arrived back at their luggage in record time. Oikawa sat up their suitcases, forming a barrier between them and the rest of the airport. He squatted behind it, only the top of his head visible as he scanned the waiting area. Iwaizumi joined him just as Ushijima walked out of the bathroom.

“He’s hideous,” Oikawa whispered. Iwaizumi nodded in agreement. They watched with horror as Ushijima made his way towards them, closer and closer to the bubble they’d created.

“Holy shit,” Oikawa wheezed. The shocking boyish-ness of the sound pulled all the dramatic tension from the air. Oikawa’s eyes shone with delight and repulsion. “Iwa-chan, oh my god. Look, look! He’s wearing crocs.”

Iwaizumi looked and saw that it was so. The shoes, bright purple, looked out of place in the stainless-steel backdrop of the airport.

“Holy shit,” Iwaizumi breathed. Oikawa couldn’t, or wouldn’t, stop wheezing, and Iwaizumi felt compelled to cover the setter’s mouth with his hands as Ushijima sat in a seat only feet away from their hiding spot. Iwaizumi stared at Oikawa and Oikawa, trapped in place behind Iwaizumi’s hands, was forced to stare back.

“What do we do?” Iwaizumi whispered. Oikawa shrugged. “He’s right there.”

Oikawa made some muffled attempts at forming words behind Iwaizumi’s hand before Iwaizumi set him free. “We could go get some plastic knives from the cafeteria. There are plenty of places to hide a body in an airport. Probably.”

“You’re a really shitty guy, you know that right?,” Iwaizumi chastised, voice slipping from a whisper back to it’s normal volume. Oikawa, returning the favor from earlier, used both hands to cover Iwaizumi’s mouth with a loud shush! Iwaizumi licked them in retaliation. Oikawa screeched as he pulled his hands back to furiously wipe them on his pants.

The arrival of a third party popped the bubble. Ushijima’s form towered over them. “Oikawa.”

Iwaizumi and Oikawa shared a look. Yikes.

“Ushiwaka-chan,” Oikawa replied, voice cool and detached. Teenage, boyish, silly Oikawa had waved sayonara and disappeared in half a second, leaving confident, collected, not-a-genius Oikawa in his place. He did not dignify Ushijima’s arrival by getting up, but instead fell back on his hands and looked up, like a beachgoer relaxing in the sand and staring with distaste at the hot sky above. He waited in silence, inviting Ushijima to continue.

Ushijima looked between the pair for a moment before clearing his throat. “I would refrain from using the restroom. The lights do not work.”

“Or maybe you just really suck at going to the bathroom,” Oikawa sneered, voice laced with so much poison it almost seemed as though he was wielding a dagger instead of a flimsy, pitiful excuse of an insult.

Ushijima stared. “I don’t think that is the case.”

For another long, uncomfortable eternity, the three shared the same air in dumb silence. To Iwaizumi, it seemed like Oikawa was drawing Ushijima into a silent dueling match and was waiting for his opponent to make the next move. It also seemed like Ushijima had no clue he was a participant in any kind of match, nor that there was a need to host one in the first place. When enough time had passed for Iwaizumi’s legs to start cramping, Ushijima nodded a sudden goodbye and left.

The pair sat in stunned quiet for a moment before Iwaizumi looked Oikawa over and rolled his eyes. “Real smooth, captain.”

Oikawa sucked in a breath of fast, disapproving air. “I pity the person,” he started, standing up and offering Iwaizumi his hand. His posture screamed I am a weapon. Do not touch. “who has to sit next to that on a plane.”

Iwaizumi grabbed Oikawa’s hand without question. “And you thought you had it rough sitting next to me.”

#just remembered i never posted this. adlksfj #iwaoi #ushiiwaoi #haikyuu!!#oikawa #iwaizumi #ushijima #hq!!#mine #mads fics

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chemicalmagecraft · 5 years

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The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 14

A/N: So I've been thinking, and do you guys think I should post my fanfics on Archive of our Own too? I know some people prefer AO3, plus if anyone makes fanart of a certain scene then I could, with permission of course, be able to put it on there (wink wink nudge nudge i have a tumblr). Plus there's that whole thing about how AO3 has lawyers and stuff to protect their fanfic writers. That's pretty cool.

Kyrianae Narii: Yeah people would totally call Izuku one of the fathers of modern magic. I mean, I wouldn't. If anything, he's the grandson of modern magic. (¬‿¬)

xoxoxo

I closed all of the text boxes I'd gotten now that we were back at Yuuei, the police were done taking our statements, and just waiting for our parents to show up on account of the fact that they didn't want to let us go just yet unless it was with a relative. My level jumped from twenty-eight straight to thirty-six after taking out the Nomu. It made sense, it was so above my level that I couldn't even see how much it was above my level. Plus I got another title, Giant Slayer, for having beaten more than one opponent with a level at least fifty over mine, the other one probably being the zero-pointer. It gave me a small offense and defense boost for every level over mine an enemy was, which I knew almost immediately would get less and less useful as time went on, even if it was very good at the moment. I was already level thirty-six, and it was the first semester. Not to mention, depending on how it worked, it was entirely possible that it'd make me weaker against weaker opponents. Of course, I wasn't the only one who leveled up in the USJ. I looked over at Uraraka, who was sitting next to me.

Megalovania

LV 23

Uraraka Ochako

Apparently she'd stopped Kurogiri for so long by using gravity to slam him into the ground and then making him fall in another direction whenever he tried to make a warp gate to get away. It was apparently really effective, at least until he managed to trick Uraraka into throwing him into a portal. She had a really intense look on her face still, and I could feel my weight fluctuating from the gravity mana she was unconsciously releasing.

"I apologize deeply for not being able to help more," Iida said to Uraraka.

She sighed and lightened up. And I mean literally lightened up; the gravity effect stabilized, causing her chair to stop creaking. "No, you did fine. I just couldn't help feeling like... Like maybe if I noticed that portal sooner, I would've been able to do cancel out Thirteen's Black Hole..."

"I-I'm sorry!" Nebula said.

Uraraka smiled and ruffled her starry hair. "No, you're fine."

"B-but I couldn't help at all, you did everything..."

"There'll always be next time," she said. Nebula sniffled. "Let's... change the subject for now. What the heck was that thing you did to the giant monster?"

"Yeah," Kirishima shouted, quieting the general conversations that were going on, "that was super manly!"

"I would also like to know," Tokoyami said.

I felt my face heat up a bit and rubbed the back of my neck. Almost everyone who was still there was staring intently at me as they waited for my explanation. "So, you guys know how my Quirk works like a video game, right?" They nodded. "So one factor of this I almost never use is that I get points for leveling up that I can use to raise my stats, and I used that to raise my WIS, which gave me three new skills. One of those was Duality, which raised my elemental affinity and gave me access to secondary elements, one of which was lightning."

"I told you, Kaminari!" Jirou shouted, pointing at him. Yaoyorozu smiled awkwardly and put her arm on Jirou's shoulder.

"And then I got a much better version of Elemental Aura from raising its level enough called Elemental Embodiment when fighting the Nomu, which was what I used to beat it."

"So that's why it looked like you were teleporting," Hagakure said.

"Yeah, though it wasn't really teleportation," I said. "I just spilled a lot of water on the floor and conducted myself through it in Lightning Embodiment."

"Dang, that's pretty awesome," Kaminari said. "I wish I could do that."

"Well if you practice Lightning Aura enough, you might be able to do it. To use Elemental Aura, you infuse your body with elemental mana. Elemental Embodiment is just that, but... more," I explained. "Sorry I can't give you more for that, but I only used it three times in the middle of battle and the downside of automatically learning things with my Quirk is that it's a little hard to explain how to do them sometimes unless I concentrate really hard on what I'm doing."

"Nah, it's cool, man. I'm sure I can figure it out eventually."

"And by the way," Kacchan said. "You probably shouldn't use a spell that makes you generate electricity all over your body anywhere near anything sensitive to electricity. Not at first anyway." He paused for a moment. "Actually with your Quirk, you should probably know how the fuck that shit goes."

Kaminari gave a thumbs-up. "Don't worry, I learned that lesson already."

"What were the other two?" Sero asked. "You said you got three WIS skills, right?"

"Yeah. There's Tactician, which just lets me think better and automatically gives me information on my skills as I need them, but only when in a battle or crisis. The other one..."

Mantra (Passive) LV1 EXP: 52.19%

Mantra is a sacred utterance, words to live by. This skill represents the ability to change one's meditation into an internal mantra when not in danger, providing some of the benefits of meditation without the downside.

Allows the use of Meditation as a passive when not in times of high exertion and/or stress, but with 1/5th the effect.

Stacks with Meditation.

"Mantra is interesting. I can't use it in battle, but it basically turns another of my skills, Meditation, into a passive at the cost of some of its effect. That pretty much means that my HP and MP regenerate a bit faster and, even more usefully, I can automatically train one stat aside from LUC at a time."

Slowly, we broke back up into our smaller groups and started talking to each other. "Hey Deku," Uraraka said, then pointed to Tsu, who was sitting alone. "Is it just me, or is Tsu-chan shaking a bit.

I winced. "Oh," I said. I'd asked her if she was okay after everything was over, on account of the part where she almost died, but she just said she was fine and I didn't even think to Observe her to check to see if that was the case. Though in hindsight doing that might have been an invasion of privacy. "She... almost got her face disintegrated. I think I might need to talk to her."

Uraraka got up, a serious look on her face. "No, I'll go."

xoxoxo

Tsuyu Asui felt like she couldn't breath, and her heart was pounding. Every time she closed her eyes, she could see that man's hand in front of her face. Her hands kept on shaking, even when she tried to stop.

"Are you okay, Tsu?" a familiar voice asked. "Deku said something about your face almost disintegrating, which sounded like it was really scary," Uraraka said.

Tsu took a deep breath, and tried to steady herself. She didn't want to worry any of her classmates. "I-I'm fine, Uraraka."

Uraraka sat down next to her. "You can call me Ochako, if you want. It's okay if you're scared, Tsu. I was terrified, and I didn't even get attacked." Tsu bit her lip. Her vision started to blur, and a hot tear rolled down her cheek. Ochaka held her arms out, offering a hug. "Do you want to cry on my shoulder." Tsu let out a small kero and leaned into her embrace, pressing her face to Ochako's shoulder. She sobbed and let the tears flow. "There," Ochako said. "Feel better?" Tsu nodded, face still on her shoulder. Ochako rubbed her back lightly. "That's good."

xoxoxo

"I feel shame as a class representative that I didn't notice how Asui was suffering," Iida said as he watched Uraraka comfort Tsu.

"Maybe you could see if anyone else needs a hug?" I offered.

"Ah, thank you, Midoriya. I will do that."

"Just remember," Kacchan said, "if someone's on the verge of a fucking panic attack, make absolutely fucking sure to use your fucking indoor voice."

"I know that," Iida said using his fucking indoor voice. He looked over at us. "Bakugou, Midoriya, are you two alright?"

"Oh my fucking what," Kacchan said flatly. "I'm pretty sure we're both fine!" He shooed Iida off. "Go, ask how everyone else is!"

"We're good, Iida," I said. "Koda looks a little nervous, maybe start with him?" I gave Iida a thumbs-up as he walked over to Koda.

I heard the tapping of a certain needle cane. "Midoriya-kun!" Recovery Girl said as she entered the room. "I'd like you to come to my office. I've patched up Erasor Head and Thirteen enough that I'm willing to let you get some hands-on experience."

"Right," I said. "I'm coming."

"Izuku!" my mom shouted, then grabbed me in her death grip of motherly worry. "Are you okay? I was so worried!"

"Katsuki!" Auntie Mitsuki shouted. "You damn well better be alright!"

"I'm fine, ma!" he shouted back to her.

"So you two must be Midoriya-san and Bakugou-san," Recovery Girl observed. "If you don't mind, Midoriya-san, I'd like to take your son to my office for a bit."

Mom stepped back a bit and inspected me. "Is Izuku hurt?"

"M-mom, I'm fine!" I said.

"Sorry, I think I should've worded that better," Recovery Girl said. "Midoriya-kun is fine, but I'd like to have him help with the actual wounded. He's taking my support hero courses, remember?"

"Oh, right!" Mom said. "How is my dear Izuku doing, by the way?"

"He's doing pretty well, which is why I want to borrow him for a bit. Plus, his healing spell can be safely used on people I've used my Quirk on because he's the one providing all the energy. I still need to learn it..."

"Right," I said. "If you don't mind, Mom, I'm going to go with Recovery Girl. I'll see you when I'm done."

She smiled at me. "Go on, sweetie."

xoxoxo

I looked over my new elemental affinities.

Air: 20

Earth: 20

Fire: 30

Water: 30

Bio: 20 (earth+water)

Ice: 20 (air+water)

Lightning: 20 (air+fire)

Molten: 20 (fire+earth)

Sonic: 20 (air+earth)

Vapor: 20 (fire+water)

I'd tested each combination of elements in Illusion Barrier just in case any of them were immediately explosive. The only one that did anything close to exploding, though, was sonic, which caused a low humming sound when I used it. Bio was... worrying at first, but I found that all it was was a combination of poison and plant, though I felt like maybe there might have also been some flesh manipulation in it that I wasn't quite willing to mess with just yet. It was interesting, though, using the secondary elements. Now that I was out of danger and able to properly concentrate on my magic, I noticed that it wasn't exactly fusing the elements together as I thought it was. If anything, it was more like using power that was less fragmented than the primary elements. It was odd but that was the best analogy I had. "Right," I said. "Is everything ready?"

"You do realize that this probably isn't the best idea, right?" Blaise asked, referring to the six ritual circles equidistant to my bed and in particular the molten lava and cup of boiling water he was keeping warm.

Halitus nodded. "Agreed."

"I'm going to be out of it either way, might as well speedrun it," I responded.

Rayne grinned widely. "I like it! We get all of the new weapon buddies at once!"

"Yeah, weapon buddies!" Dune agreed, happily pulling the cord on my I Am Here All Might action figure (with kung-fu grip).

"Right, let's start this," I said. I placed my hands in front of the circles, had Dune put the Laughing All Might in the empty circle to provide the sonic element, and activated the six rituals at once. "I, Midoriya Izuku, call upon the ancient contract of ages past to summon thee."

xoxoxo

I stirred from my sleep to the sound of a familiar explosion. "Suck it!" a slightly less familiar voice said. I opened my eyes to see several children that looked like they were roughly twelve, along with one girl who looked like she was ten, in varying states of corporeality. The boy whose voice I heard looked like he could have easily been Kaminari's younger brother, except for the odd-looking ears, the red spots on his cheeks, and a strange lightning-bolt tail. He had a yellow jacket with two brown stripes on it. My new lightning elemental, Raimon. He was holding one of the controllers of my Switch, and judging from his furious button presses he was the one who was playing the Pikachu that was winning. A lot.

"Cheater," Rayne whined. She'd gained even more dark blue on her clothes and hair, and she now had blue fingerless gloves with white knuckles. It looked like she was playing as Greninja. She wasn't very good with Greninja, though. I couldn't help but notice how Raimon and Rayne resembled the characters they were playing as. "I knew I shoulda picked the sword guy..."

"Which sword guy?" my vapor elemental, Claude, asked. He wore light, red body armor, had three spikes in his red hair, and for some reason reminded me of a lobster. "Aren't like half of them sword guys?"

"Thirteen of seventy-four," Halitus corrected. Halitus had changed a lot, actually. His hair was now sky-blue instead of his robes, and he had two long ponytails. His robes were fully made of the cloudy material with the exception of five blue tassels in the back that might have actually been some weird tail. He now had patches on his cheeks like Raimon, though his were white.

Claude rolled his eyes. "Same difference."

"Not even close, bro," the biggest of the elementals, Iggy, said. He was my new molten elemental. He had a red long-sleeved shirt with three blue circles on the sleeves and two large brown lumps on the back. His hair was also red with a few spikes, so he and Claude almost looked like they could have been brothers if not for his... camel ears? He had a red tail as well. "And I think it's my turn now." He put his intangible hands on Rayne's controller, and I felt a weird shift in the mana that was automatically leaving my mana pool as he and Rayne switched between being partially summoned and fully summoned. "Who else wants a go?"

Mifuyu, my ice elemental, switched with Raimon. "That would be me." Oddly enough for an ice elemental, she had dark red hair, eyes, and two tails. She was dressed in dark blue ninja clothes, like Rayne, but in a different shade. She had a small yellow gem on her forehead. Mifuyu picked Shiek and Iggy picked Dedede.

"So how are you guys able to summon yourselves?" I asked.

"That would be from my help," Pyra said. "It seems we elementals can summon ourselves, partially or fully, so long as our summoner can bear the strain of our summoning without a noticeable decrease in mana. Master Kacchan gained the strength to handle me recently, and it seems your current limit is three. With Sonia out regardless to allow us to be as loud as we want without waking your mother up, that meant that we've mostly been playing doubles matches."

"You're welcome, by the way," my sonic elemental said. She had a purple shirt, a black scarf, and black jeans. On her nose she had rounded triangular purple sunglasses that you could still see her golden eyes through and over her ears were some expensive-looking purple headphones. "Yeah, after the primary elementals filled us in on everything, Pyra showed up and told us how to summon ourselves so we could play some games to wait for you to wake up on your own."

"We did have some fun with a party game earlier," Juniper, my bio elemental, said. She had a blue-green dress with darker green patches on it. Around her neck she had a scarf that appeared to be made of green fronds, with a sort of brooch on the form of a pink bud. Her eyes were red, her hair was green, and she had pointed canine teeth. "I hope you don't mind too terribly. We didn't mess with anything and made sure not to mess with your saved data."

"Actually, if you guys want to make an account on that you totally can," I said. "I'm pretty sure that'll give you guys save files separate from mine."

"Let's do that later, then," Blaise said. His shirt darkened and the sleeves now had small patches of light blue on them. His scarf had changed to have long red ends with a few black dots on them. "For now we're just playing Smash."

"Can I join in next round?" I asked.

"Sure," Sonia said. "We still have an hour or so 'til morning, according to a few of your neighbours' clocks anyway."

"Hey, can I play next too?" Dune asked. Her clothes were now half camo and half solid black.

We played until the sun rose. It was fun.

xoxoxo

A/N: Just in case you didn't notice by now, Midoriya's The Gamer lacks the party level up feature that the original does. Only Midoriya can get more powerful from his Quirk.

And I bet you guys can tell at least one pairing I ship based on this chapter.

Now, for the elementals. First, I'd like to say this one thing. There is exactly ONE Pokémon that has the true power of steam, Volcanion, and I didn't want to bust out the legendaries just yet. So that meant I had to look over all of the Pokémon that can use Scald (the closest to a vapor spell I could find that wasn't Volcanion-exclusive) to figure out which one was the steamiest.

Juniper: Ivysaur

Mifuyu: Sneasel

Raimon: Pikachu, natch

Iggy: Camerupt

Sonia: Noibat

Claude: Corphish (insert morbid joke about steamed lobster here)

They're in their secondary stages (when applicable) because as intermediary elementals they're in the middle, in case you couldn't tell.

#The Gamer Hero Deku #Gamer Hero Deku #GHD CH 14 #fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #bnha

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skittidyne · 6 years

Text

tagged by @lethesomething! thanks darling

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

hahaha. i’ve been stuck with “skitty” as a name since 05, but i went from “digital skitty” to “skittidyne” when i made the jump to tumblr. i wanted something that wasn’t my “professional” name, but could still be skitty-ish, and so i decided to throw some persona into the mix, because that’s how i be.

“skitty” is a pokemon and the “-dyne” suffix is the highest tier of attack spell in the persona series. and it looked better with an i rather than a y. so i guess i’m the highest tier of skitty spell!

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos).

pedestal hands down. (bbac isn’t even half as popular by any of those categories.)

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

it’s ryoji from persona 3! i chose it because... i love ryoji... even when i was drawing regularly, i rarely used my own art as my icons anywhere, except dA or actual art-hosting sites.

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

oh god i know i’m going to leave people out, and I LOVE YOU ALL, but beechichi liveblogs shit to me on twitter, curiouslylazy leaves me comments longer than chapters, greatdanesandpandas leaves me amazing capslocked comments across several of my stories, haruhi02 and rd both leave AMAZING liveblog type comments on bbac, and unexpectedly but delightfully like every commenter on the kamafuta fake dating story is like, so kind and nice. (upside to writing a rarepair!)

but i love all of my commenters and there are LOTS i’m missing here and trust me i do notice who comments regularly and across several stories ;;

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

ghost story, character development, sayuri, a heart swelled to bursting, settling down, the thirty-six stratagems of wáng jìngzé ... a lot of smut fics... (a lot of smut fics)

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

211 subscribed to, and 112 bookmarks on ao3! 88 bookmarks on ff.net.

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

i mean. bbac, i guess. i like things with a magical slant, but i don’t ever stick around the exact same universe for multiple stories?

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

285 subscriptions to me, idk how to check how many are bookmarked to me? can you bookmark authors on ao3? 727 subscribed & 1043 faved on ff.net though.

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

hmm. i’d love to write a mafia/yakuza au one day, but i’m not sure i’m afraid of ppl judging me. i think i just don’t want to do that much research. i’d also love to write a sugaring au one day, if only out of PURE BITTERNESS, but that’s a lot of smut to write, and i’m afraid i’d probably start fights in the comments section.

there’s not a lot i’m more scared of writing compared to other things, i guess.

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

commenting! leaving comments would be nice. truthfully, i’d like to work on my personal self-discipline when it comes to writing and getting things done, even though my output is pretty high imo. also, i guess romance writing.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

uhhhhhh. i never purposefully do either, and in naruto fandom i spent some time in rarepair hell, and apparently kamafuta is a fuckin rarepair so i’m again sitting in that lonely little boat, but i also tend toward more popular ships in hq fandom, at least. both? probably popular ships?

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

27 on ao3!

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. if we’re going to get technical about it...

counting side story collections as 1 “story”, i got:

61 on googledocs, 16 more on my harddrive.

i don’t want to meet anyone’s eye right now

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

i ABSOLUTELY keep them in my head. if i start writing ANYTHING down, even if it’s notes or title ideas or character ideas, i know i’ve already lost the war, and i’m committed to writing something.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

yep! oh it puts the heart in my chest on wings was with the amazing @h-lovely and where the wild things go was with the lovely @kaiyouchan!

also, technically @tarotdactyl is listed as a co-author on operation: poison tree frog, because it’s his fault, but i’m technically the one doing all of the writing for it. for some reason

16. How did you discover AO3?

i mean, i was on lj and ff.net. things migrated. i don’t remember specifically how it happened.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

shrug emoji... i suppose i am? i think i still am in pokemon fandom, i know i’m not in naruto fandom, and i don’t even know anymore in hq fandom. (i guess only hq fandom matters on ao3)

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

skittens!!

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

@avoidingavoidance and @silvercistern are #writing goals, and while she’s only just writing now herself, my mother has always been a devoted supporter of my writing. past that, it was just reader feedback that kept me goin’ onward.

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

KEEP WITH IT. COMMIT TO YOUR IDEA. there is no such thing as a bad idea, and even “bad” ideas, if committed to, can turn into FANTASTIC stories/characters/arcs. absolutely keep going, no matter what.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

both, haha. i’m trying to get outlines more and more these days, mostly because i guess i’m working with others and for some reason they can’t read my mind. hm.

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

dude, i was in the pokemon fandom when farla was still around.

yeah, i’ve gotten things that could be considered “flames”. i’ve accidentally started a ship war, and i’ve gotten nasty shipping-related comments on stories, too. hell, i’ve fought with readers over that sort of thing before.

i’ve also had rude commenters, commenters who probably just didn’t know any better, and commenters who missed the point so badly i had to go scream into a pillow. it happens.

for the most part, i try to respond to comments/reviews, because that’s how i was raised on the internet. i try to be polite and pleasant these days, but i’ll put my foot down. i try not to be rude or mean, though.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

smut. it’s always goddamn smut.

romance in general, though. i’m good with the emotional intimacy and casual physical intimacy, but half the time i end up with more of that between the best friend characters than the ships, so... i dunno. i’d like to be more comfortable writing romance, up to and DEFINITELY including smut.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

bbac, political intrigue, magical girl au, fake dating au, and a couple of random oneshots.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

look, i ain’t happy if i’m not juggling projects. so i guess that’s a given.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

only during nanowrimo! some days, i don’t write a word, and other days, i’m easily in the thousands. i’m content with either, because i can only force it so often.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

absolutely. even when it feels like i’m stagnating with that dreaded 67-75% of the story completed zone, i know every word i write betters me as an author.

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

oh man, that’s so hard... mostly, that comes down less to emotion, and more to “what was easiest for me to write”...

maybe pedestal. but maybe only because i’ve been feeling nostalgic lately, and it’s easy to love a story once it’s completed.

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

haha i don’t want to say

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

finishing bbac

completed trilogy & completed standalone original novels completed, probably in a new fandom, probably agonizing over yet another 500k novel fanfic

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

momentum!! god, when you have it, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

trying to keep momentum... actually, probably, forcing yourself through a scene you KNOW has to get done and you even know what happens in it, but it’s just not happening. bleh.

33. Why do you write?

for the attention and monetary gain (๑꒪▿꒪)*

nah, it’s to share stories with people. i like ideas, i like turning ideas into bigger ideas, and i like people’s reactions to those ideas. it’s like friendship sharing except i don’t have to be social! <3

i’m not tagging anyone directly but if you are an author type and like being tagged then grab this UP!

#tagged meme #this was really fun

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