firecoloredwater

[firecoloredwater]

I think one of my favorite creative joys is seeing how many different things people can do with the same concept. give ten writers the same starting point, or basic plot, or set of tropes to use and you're still going to get wildly different end results

the details you focus on, the ones you omit, turns of phrase, tone, and framing, the cadence and tempo of the sentences themselves, all the little fingerprints you've left littered across the prose — how you tell the story matters, and your personal voice is what makes it unique

#fanfic #writing

[firecoloredwater]

I wish there was a site where music was tagged the way AO3 fics are tagged

#CANNOT find more music I like #this is partly because I'm picky #but also partly because there is NO good way to search

[firecoloredwater]

Yeah I don't think you'll get a dragonrider story that isn't drawing from Pern on some level. Maybe consciously, maybe not, but Pern invented dragonriders as a Thing; by definition, any book with dragonriders is drawing that idea from Pern one way or another. Anne McCaffrey was also apparently a mentor to a number of authors, so a lot of series draw from Pern even without dragons (Heralds of Valdemar and A Companion to Wolves, as obvious examples, and therefore anything drawing from them as well).

That said, my suggestion would actually be Elvenbane by Mercedes Lackey and Andre Norton. It is for sure linked to Pern (if I remember right Anne McCaffrey was Mercedes Lackey's mentor or something like that, and in general Mercedes Lackey has written several series that draw on Pern's dragonriders in one way or another, starting with Heralds of Valdemar up there) but it's not technically dragonriders; the dragons are just one of the species of people in the world. The series does end on a cliffhanger to set up the next book though, and my guess is that it won't ever be finished.

I'd also second Dragon Jousters as a good series, but again, it's Mercedes Lackey, nothing she wrote was unaware of Pern.

Really if you want dragonriders that's free from Pern influence you probably need to find authors and series that come from non-English-speaking literary traditions. Or go back to pre-Pern, if you want dragons without the dragonriders (but they'll probably be evil monsters and killed by the end).

That said, OP, if you read this, what aspect of dragonriders is it that you're looking for? Literal humans riding on dragons? The interspecies psychic bond? Dragons in general, riding unnecessary?

Are there any books out there about dragons and dragonriders that aren't just stealing ideas from Dragonriders of Pern?

I get Eragon/The Inheritance Cycle, the author started it at 15, but by the time you're in your 30s, let alone 40s, you should be able to write dragonriders without being so derivative.

And if Pern wasn't the first, then they're all just borrowing from that one

#Pern #or rather the rejection thereof

[firecoloredwater]

Another AO3 thing I’m curious about, how do yall decide if something is good enough to read? Usually I follow a rule of 1 kudos for every 10 hits. One because it’s easy math and two it’s yet to fail me. Thoughts? Do you just go for it and pray it’s good?

#I find a fic I enjoy #then I go through the author's bookmarks and other works they've written #and see if the summary and tags look appealing #after that it's mostly a question of like #whether there are paragraphs #I will leave if there are no paragraphs #or no quote marks or whatever #but I am familiar enough with fandom conventions that 99% of the time I can judge whether I'll like a fic by the summary and tags #going through bookmarks helps to filter for both taste and quality as well

[firecoloredwater]

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

[firecoloredwater]

For the ask meme: 8, 12, 25, 29

Well! This is phenomenally late. But thank you for asking! I have been slowly picking away at this by which I mostly mean the list in 12 for uhhh Too Long.

8: Do you have any rituals or habits that help you get into the zone?

Hmmm. I tend to have snacks + water with me when I write. That's less an intentional ritual and more so that I can tunnel vision on writing for five hours straight without getting dehydrated, so really it's more about not getting out of the zone, but it's as close as I've got. Music used to be really helpful, but it just sort of randomly stopped working a few years ago and I'm not sure why.

12: Are there any clichés or tropes that you actively avoid in your fics?

Kiiiinda all of them? But not in a "I refuse to write this" way, just like....

Okay so, the thing is, cliches (and tropes, when people are complaining about them in a way equivalent to cliches) are familiar. We've seen them a thousand times. They feel natural. They don't feel like a trope, they just feel like How Things Are. And that's why people end up writing cliches when they don't work well, because they feel like they work. And in a sense they do; nobody's going to be confused, relatively few people will be bothered, we can get to the next bit quickly. You just don't get much of anything out of them other than being able to move on quickly, most of the time.

Buuuuut I am kinda Invested in characters and characterization. (And worldbuilding, especially culture and society, which is basically just characterization at another scale). So whenever something feels too neat/happens too smoothly I go "wait, no, that's just the first thought, that's not the best option, that's not how individuals work" and then like... chew on the characters and the situation a bit more. And almost always I end up with something less cliche.

(If you have noticed me going "Maybe, but maybe (more complicated thing here) instead" in discord that's usually what I'm doing.)

...this might explain why I can write nothing short ever. Hm.

So the point is: I actually do like playing with cliches and standard tropes, but I do that after lots of breaking them down and examining all the pieces and doing some remodeling. And that is how we ended up with things like BSAU and tech AU.

Also technically there are a lot of tropes I avoid but that's like, the queercoded villain, the girl who's supposed to be powerful but is only ever helpless when the boys show up, etc. Cliche is not the reason I avoid them, is what I'm getting at.

Anyway though this question is an invitation to kick the hornet's nest, so a list of things that ping the "wait this is too easy, let me try again but better this time" bells in my head:

Tobirama deliberately endangering himself for enemy children with no hope/plans to gain anything from it

basically anyone falling in love while they're still enemies trying to kill each other (does not apply to HashiMada though because they have the whole river thing to like each other pre-murder attempts)(also to be clear this is about Being In Love not just thinking the other guy's hot)

Izuna is bratty and whiny and dramatic because That's Just How He Is (but if bratty little brother is a role he deliberately leans into around Madara, that's Delicious)

Hashirama being cruel to Tobirama

but also, Hashirama not taking Tobirama at least a little bit for granted

also vice versa for both of those

Butsuma being... hm, pointlessly cruel? Like I think he was absolutely an awful father and abusive, but I don't think he meant to be. I don't think he was looking for opportunities to be cruel for the sake of cruelty, he was just Immensely Fucked Up himself and his best was not very good. Which is a very different flavor of awful than if he just, like, enjoys beating up children or something

Mito having 0 reservations about marrying Hashirama (and in particular the 'go live with the Senju forever' part)

Izuna being just, way more invested in Their Rivalry than Tobirama

being a genius means knowing everything and always being right (not actually very common in this fandom but "how does being really actually very brilliant affect how Tobirama fucks up" is a fun thing to think about)

Hashirama actually being dumb

[insert Uchiha] sees that Tobirama is being abused/neglected/hurt/taken for granted/undervalued generally and deciding that this is Wrong and Must Be Fixed/they need to rescue him/etc. even though they're at war

Tobirama gets taken prisoner/hostage and wow turns out he gets treated so much better as an Uchiha prisoner than he did at home (as a result of the above or otherwise)

both of those would also apply in other configurations but I only recall seeing it as Uchiha rescue and are kind to Tobirama

honestly basically any popular trope will end up here because like. you can make any of these work very well. But once tropes hit a certain level of popularity people start just writing them without putting in the work to set them up properly and that is where I start going 'if I wrote this I would do X and it would be so much better.'

25: Are there any specific writing tools that you find helpful?

I have not had a properly functional laptop for years now and the instant I get one again--

But other than that, no. I guess I use random.org and fantasynamegenerator fairly regularly? Also Wikipedia for names and bare minimum glance at research. But those aren't really what most people mean by this question I think

29: Are there any characters, relationships, or general character dynamics you’ve never written about but would like to try?

...I mean, yes, for sure, but I have immediately forgotten them all. What's a character.

I think basically every possible version of Mito going to marry Hashirama and live with the Senju is fascinating, but I will probably never write it because I do not have the time to do the research I'd need to or to write the fic, much less both.

I'd also like to explore, like... Hashirama and Madara were both really young when they became clan heads, right? We don't get a number but they were in their early 20s at best. And that's kind of expected in that society generally and probably those clans in particular, but still, they were not prepared and I bet a lot of people wouldn't have taken them seriously. And their main backups/supporters were... their little brothers. What was going on there. I know canon assumes they just had automatic full control of their clans because clans are basically just fancy protagonist accessories at that point, but what actually happened. If this has been normal for generations, did the Senju and Uchiha even ever expect their clan heads to have actual power, or have they basically always been figureheads because they never even hit middle age? Were Hashirama and Madara (and Tobirama and Izuna) even aware of the actual political dynamics in their clan, or were they just raised and trained to be generals on the battlefield and someone else handled everything else?

Once again on politics but: yeah yeah protagonist power do we get how big a deal it is that Hashirama restructured an entire continent's whole society by building Konoha. It didn't work out exactly how he wanted (see: war still happening) but he still did it! Entire economies and cultures uprooted! So I like to think that, maybe, actually, society was already going through huge upheavals for... whatever reasons, history is always complicated, and that creating Konoha was about navigating and taking advantage of the changes that were already going on in order to like, shove Konoha in there as well. Maybe the elemental nations were dealing with economic shifts like the rise of the middle class and also a feminist movement and also advancements in farming technology have tripled crop yields and that means societal demographics have changed overnight and society is not prepared to accommodate any of it. Konoha gets built because when Hashirama proposes it society collectively goes "life is already so weird recently, this might as well happen."

[firecoloredwater]

Lil something for 2nd April

[firecoloredwater]

Made a chart for sorting fantheories

#I live in the bottom right corner

[firecoloredwater]

[Reblog for a larger sample size, etc etc]

#polls #yeah this one's funny

[firecoloredwater]

just doing a poll for my own Aro/Ace curiosity.

I don't want to hear from non Ace people on this one please. I'm also kinda trying to prove a point about there being more Ace people on this site. (As I seem to have collected them all, but none of them know each other). So my fellow ace people, please share this with all of your followers and we'll get a fun little social experiment out of it.

non ace people are encouraged to reblog, but don't vote; Thank you.

#my feelings are MORE COMPLICATED THAN THIS POLL #I am aware that is the nature of polls but still #anyway #I picked the fourth option because sex itself doesn't really appeal to or bother me #however I am also 100% with “why is everything about sex all the time release me from this torture” #just. because I'm sick of culture trying to shove it on me #not because sex itself bothers me #HOWEVER it is worth noting that I find kissing specifically extremely gross and well. repulsive #so while I am kind of curious and think I probably would enjoy sex #that's not going to happen because yeah right

[firecoloredwater]

I firmly believe what ever you’re obsessed with at 11/12 years old becomes a core part of who you are, regardless if you lose interest in it or not. Maybe some of you were lucky and were obsessed with warrior cats or smth, and if you’re real unlucky it was probably twilight.

#Pern #not sure how that ranks on the scale overall honestly #it sure does have its Problems but what doesn't

[firecoloredwater]

[Yet Another] 'Questions for Fic Writers'

I need to get back into the fic-writing mindset, so I'm posting my own list of writer asks. Send me a number (and feel free to reblog)!

What inspired you to start writing fanfiction?

How do you come up with your plot ideas?

Are there any specific themes you enjoy exploring in your fics?

How do you channel characters' voices and personalities?

What techniques do you use to create believable dialogue?

Do you prefer writing shorter, standalone fics or longer, multi-chapter stories?

How do you handle writer's block or moments of creative stagnation?

Do you have any rituals or habits that help you get into the zone?

Have you ever collaborated with someone else on a fic?

What's your favorite part about the fic writing process?

Are there any tropes that you particularly enjoy writing?

Are there any clichés or tropes that you actively avoid in your fics?

What's the most challenging aspect of writing fanfiction for you?

How do you go about researching details or canon information?

Do you plan your fics or prefer to let the story unfold as you write?

How important is it to you to stay true to the original creator's vision while writing fanfiction?

What's the most memorable comment or review you've received on one of your fics?

Are there any fics or authors that have been particularly influential or inspiring to you?

What's the most unusual or unique setting you've used?

How do you approach action sequences or intense moments?

Have you ever used fanfiction as a way to explore your own emotions or personal experiences?

What role does humor play in your writing? Do you enjoy adding comedic elements to your fics?

How do you write endings for your fics? Do you prefer open-ended or conclusive conclusions?

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start writing fanfiction?

Are there any specific writing tools that you find helpful?

How do you approach plot twists or surprises in your fics?

What two (or more) fandoms would you like to see a crossover for? Would you ever write it?

What's the most ambitious or challenging fic you've ever written?

Are there any characters, relationships, or general character dynamics you've never written about but would like to try?

How do you handle writing multiple storylines or subplots?

Do you prefer writing from a single character's perspective or switching between different viewpoints?

Have you ever participated in fanfiction contests, challenges/fests?

How do you incorporate world-building elements into your fics?

Are there any fic writing tips or tricks you've learned along the way that you'd like to share?

What do you enjoy most about being a fic writer?

#ask meme #writing #fanfic

[firecoloredwater]

Sorry, still going, it still rankles the fuck out of me that Kitti doesn't have a Hold named after her. Because logically the savior of Pern, Creator of Dragons, should have something named after her. But for some reason Anne didn't think so? Apparently? Because all the locations were established before the reveal of who made the dragons and how, and it would have been very easy to just, make her the one one of them was named after. She could have been Benden or Telgar, Nerat or Ista, just as easy as giving her a name. And she just, wasn't.

Kitti Ping was, with no exaggeration, one of if not the most important person in Pernese history, and it took over 2000 years and digging up a computer for her name to pass anybody's lips again.

#Pern #...well I can think of two holds named after women #Bitra and Telgar #Bitra is named because it's the evil asshole hold founded by evil asshole people named after the evil asshole woman #and Telgar is ACTUALLY named after her husband #who named himself after her and then went on to get a hold named after himself #possibly by founding it #(and we will leave aside the giant Yikes that THAT relationship was) #leaving intent aside I DO think it's relatively realistic the way holds were named in canon #Fort was a safe place to retreat to #Benden and Telgar were named after famous founders #Bitra was named out of spite #Igen or Ista was named by an acronym of the four founders #can't remember which #the holds aren't 1:1 with the most important people in Pern's history because that's not what in-story people had in mind when naming them #but whether that reasoning actually went into it...

[firecoloredwater]

Tagged by @domoz

Rules: list the first line(s) of your last 10 (or however many you have) posted fics and see if there’s a pattern.

1 - Second Breath: "When Madara's mother died he was twelve, a fully fledged shinobi, and no longer in need of anyone to raise him."

2 - Roots Grow Up: "There are shinobi in town today."

3 - And On The Horizon: "A dragon’s rising, and their first flight in particular, can’t be predicted perfectly."

4 - to accept the will of heaven: "To die for the Uchiha is an honor." - cowritten with @denialcity who I'm like 60% sure wrote the first line?

(in the beginning would go here, but I'm like 99% sure that @denialcity wrote the first sentence of that one so I'm skipping it)

5 - Party of Two Centuries: "“Dual monarchies never work,” Tarvek complained as he straightened Gil’s waistcoat."

6 - There's a Statue in the Baron's Lair: "The office looked thrown together, or possibly left over from some other office."

7 - The Best of Bad Plans: "“What are you doing here?”"

(Dealing With Canon Impression Limits is meta, not fic, so I'm skipping it as well.)

8 - In Words: "The green hair wasn’t unusual."

9 - Burning Up: "Back in Gyula Kai’s best friend was Ioan, the son of a silversmith."

10 - Somebody Else's Dream: "Petru’s head ached."

...well. first pattern. I have posted WAY less Naruto fic than I have written. Although that's mostly deliberate, since I finished so few Girl Genius fics I decided to stop posting things as soon as I had a chapter finished. Which has... mostly worked?

But wow no wonder I get no comments anymore in comparison. Need to keep in mind that comments are in a ratio to posting, not writing, I guess. Someday I will figure out how to write oneshots.

Second: I tend to start way zoomed out and like, write myself into the scene. Which is not Good Writing TM but I enjoy it so I'm not really fighting myself on it. I also like to start with a very mild, bland observation or statement of fact, which is actually significantly less bland once the fic gets started.

When I don't do 2, I tend to start with dialogue.

Also wow I do not like any of these titles. Why can't the fics with titles I like be the ones I get to a point where they can be posted.

Tagging @denialcity/@codedredalert, @madmothmadame @hellotemporaryuniverse and also whoever else wants to

#and now that it is not 3 AM

[firecoloredwater]

Tagged by @domoz

Rules: list the first line(s) of your last 10 (or however many you have) posted fics and see if there’s a pattern.

1 - Second Breath: "When Madara's mother died he was twelve, a fully fledged shinobi, and no longer in need of anyone to raise him."

2 - Roots Grow Up: "There are shinobi in town today."

3 - And On The Horizon: "A dragon’s rising, and their first flight in particular, can’t be predicted perfectly."

4 - to accept the will of heaven: "To die for the Uchiha is an honor." - cowritten with @denialcity who I'm like 60% sure wrote the first line?

(in the beginning would go here, but I'm like 99% sure that @denialcity wrote the first sentence of that one so I'm skipping it)

5 - Party of Two Centuries: "“Dual monarchies never work,” Tarvek complained as he straightened Gil’s waistcoat."

6 - There's a Statue in the Baron's Lair: "The office looked thrown together, or possibly left over from some other office."

7 - The Best of Bad Plans: "“What are you doing here?”"

(Dealing With Canon Impression Limits is meta, not fic, so I'm skipping it as well.)

8 - In Words: "The green hair wasn’t unusual."

9 - Burning Up: "Back in Gyula Kai’s best friend was Ioan, the son of a silversmith."

10 - Somebody Else's Dream: "Petru’s head ached."

...well. first pattern. I have posted WAY less Naruto fic than I have written. Although that's mostly deliberate, since I finished so few Girl Genius fics I decided to stop posting things as soon as I had a chapter finished. Which has... mostly worked?

But wow no wonder I get no comments anymore in comparison. Need to keep in mind that comments are in a ratio to posting, not writing, I guess. Someday I will figure out how to write oneshots.

Second: I tend to start way zoomed out and like, write myself into the scene. Which is not Good Writing TM but I enjoy it so I'm not really fighting myself on it. I also like to start with a very mild, bland observation or statement of fact, which is actually significantly less bland once the fic gets started.

When I don't do 2, I tend to start with dialogue.

Also wow I do not like any of these titles. Why can't the fics with titles I like be the ones I get to a point where they can be posted.

Tagging @denialcity/@codedredalert, @madmothmadame @hellotemporaryuniverse and also whoever else wants to

#writing #fanfic #tag game

[firecoloredwater]

i think blue dragons are actually gray. like blue cats

#Pern #testing but also agreed

[firecoloredwater]

Canonically a Weyr choose their next senior by timing their retirement to just before the preferred gold rises, so yes, but picking the next senior still happens

When a Pern fan procrastinates…

8th/9th pass Weyr leadership

Between the red lines every cell is one year, otherwise they’re just roughly proportional. I have no clue who this helps, but I had fun with it!

#Pern