#EDIT: I had a specific fandom in mind when I wrote the post but this clearly applies to a bunch of other women :

[maaxverstappen]

I’ve been asking ppl cus im nosy. What’s your writing process like if any? Do u have a preferred place or time. Preferred device. Do u write rough drafts then edit or is it much more considered. How do u decide that an idea is worth fleshing out or pursuing if it looks like it’s plotty. Pls yap at length if u so wish — wiz

i love this question!! and would love to know other answers so if you want to reblog them i shall be on the lookout 👀.

i answered partly here so will just like build on that!!

the process is that i’ll have an idea and depending on how large it is write out some sort of outline. my preference for all planning in life is on paper so i have a little journal that ill write out some ideas in. kind of brainstorm / mind map style of just jotting down random ideas that come to mind.

however, with longer fics like my current post-as-i-go wip i have to do it digital bc so much changes and it’s too long (see pics in previous ask). that one i actually started planning in my notes app on a plane bc the idea had to come out of me someway and i was really excited about it. i then transferred it to a google doc and added onto my chapter per chapter outline (1st pic in previous ask). i felt like that was a bit overwhelming for understanding the overall plot so then i went and made a simple overview of the key plot points per chapter (the 2nd pic in previous ask) just so i felt like i had a better understanding of the goal per chapter.

now when i sit down to write a chapter ill get both the detailed notes and the main plot points and just write whatever i feel like in order to get to the goal of the chapter.

for shorter one shot fics i’ll either have no full outline or a one page idea list kind of thing. for instance, for worth the trouble i knew that it would start and end in the present time and then everything in between would be a flashback, but i didn’t know the flashbacks would be non chronological until i was writing it. same for the chewing gum aspect that ends up being quite an important part of the symbolism and that almost weaves the parts together, that wasn’t a *thing* until i was almost finished with the rough draft and i then went to add it in to previous scenes.

for my long fic i have to be a bit more calculated with the hidden messages/foreshadowing as i can’t go back and edit published chapters lmao so that is a little more thought out + i keep track of loose ends to tie together at some point.

editing is a bit of a harder one. for my long fic my overal editing is per chapter, but i do tend to go back and edit per section too. like right now I’m writing a texting scene and first i wrote the plain texting dialogue, then i went back to add the bits in between from characters’ pov. then i’ll read over it fully and edit where needed. finally when the whole chapter is done ill read over it and edit again, but at that point it’s mainly grammar and punctuation.

my main writing issues i’ve noticed so far is that i tend to switch tenses without realising so that’s something i look out for when editing. i also am always worried they don’t *do* enough so i like to think “hmm what action can i add in here to make them more human” when editing.

so far only worth the trouble has been beta read, the rest i do myself. if I’m stuck i will talk through a lot of it with my partner who will give me some ideas and just like help lmao (she’s also the one that beta read wtt!). but she’s not in the f1 fandom so it’s a little hard to have her beta read for characterisation and specific plot points so i do that myself. like when she beta read wtt she gave a few points of feedback that weren’t too relevant bc the average f1 fic reader would understand (like the significance of spa21, there is no need to explain it).

I’m a baby fic writer so a lot of my process will be redefined and refined as i go I’m sure.

as for deciding what to write, it’s really whatever captures my attention. the prompt for help me hold onto you is one i really liked and a trope i love reading myself. i was also ready to challenge myself to a longer plot fic and i was really excited about the idea so i just went for it! my main consideration is really just how excited i am for it.

i will say that i am currently really struggling with perfectionism / imposter syndrome. I’m having a hard time getting the words onto paper bc it feels like it’ll never be as good as my favourite authors anyway so what’s the point. (which is now also impacting the way i read fics bc it makes me sad that ill never write anything as good as what I’m reading lol)

i generally write on my laptop! in a google doc with grammarly activated and the word count on screen (which pisses me off bc i have to turn it back on after every refresh). i wrote my latest crafty!oscar on my phone (bc i was too excited to wait till i got to my laptop) but wouldn’t ever do that for anything much longer or plot-ier than that.

i fear this has gotten very long. i know u said yap away but …. i perhaps have yapped too close to the sun.

#really liked answering this :-) and the fic writer asks from the weekend too. so fun #she says as she still has unanswered asks from that game in her inbox #anyway #thanks wiz <3 a community gem as always #m answers #about me

[sarah-sandwich-writes]

20 Questions - Fanfic Writer Edition

I was tagged by both @writer-or-whatever and @jmrothwell so I suppose I better do it 😅 Thanks guys!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 42 (*gasp* am I Miles Morales?)

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,265,660 lol

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently just Spider-Man but I used to write for Supernatural and before that Harry Potter. I'm a one obsession at a time kinda girl.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) - 72k spideypool soulmates au

Don't Freak Out - 136k parkner rivals to lovers speedrun

A Peach Like You - 73k parkner featuring autistic!peter, loveatfirstsight!harley, and a cringe self insert as the villain of the week lmao

The Distance Between (You and Me) - 29k parkner bodyguard au

You're Freaking Out - 166k sequel to DFO featuring plot (wow!) and Miles (yay!)

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

My dudes I try. I know I'm not very consistent and I have a tendency to disappear for months at a time, but I read and cherish each one.

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

I don't really do angsty endings lol I think the closest I've gotten is Lay Me Down - 8k destiel major character death--lowest kudosed fic out of all 42 lmao

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

This is an impossible question. I am like the queen of happy endings? You want me to rank them??? Fine, it's You're Freaking Out. Best 10k epilogue in the land. Oh hey also I just noticed it has 997 kudos. May I humbly request 3 more pretty please?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No. Closest was when someone complained on one of my destiel fics about the grocery store not having plastic bags and needing a quarter in order to obtain a cart. I specifically remember they said, "I hate when writers do this," and went on to complain about us making up obviously fake stuff that pulls them out of the story. Like, first of all you're complaining about storytellers making stuff up ??? okay. And second, it was an Aldi. A real grocery store. That I didn't make up.

I had to take a day to cool off before I responded and then they were like oh yeah, my roommate told me when I complained to them, you responded to this really nicely though! WHICH folks LET ME TELL YOU made me angrier lol Like you found out you were wrong and didn't even come back to edit/delete/apologize for your comment???

Anyway after that I internalized that you don't know what kind of lived experience your commenters have so some comments should be taken with a grain of salt. Which is a double-edged sword bc sometimes I get really nice enthusiastic comments and read it like, okay but what if this person is 12 and read it at 2am in a fit of delirium and this is their first fic ever and it's actually not as good as they think haha

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

I doooo. I haven't published any since I wrote for spn but I have a parkner pwp ready to go as soon as I muster up the nerve.

I have no idea how to interpret the question "what kind" lol uhhh the hot kind? pffft

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

I have but I never published them. Again, these were for spn which is hella fun to play with merging into other canon. I started but never finished spn crossovers with Firefly, The 100, The Hunger Games, Criminal Minds, Agents of Shield, and Teen Wolf. I think that's all of them. I've been thinking about putting all of my abandoned wips on AO3 for archive purposes, but idk still noodling on it. I wish there way a way I could elect to post without notifying my subscribers :/ Or at least send them a message warning them that I'm about to be incredibly annoying

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of 🙃

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes!! A few now! The ultimate kudo in my opinion, and one I never expected <3

The wonderful @bluettspetal has translated An Insignificant Problem, Undercover? I thought you said under covers..., and Completely and utterly devoid of sex appeal into Russian with plans to translate more.

And Faaayeee42 on AO3 translated Paradise (spread out with a butter knife) to Mandarin Chinese.

I'm forever blown away by this.

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

Nope! Done some brainstorming a few times but nothing that has evolved into actually writing out a shared thing. Not sure I'd be any good at it tbh. I'd probably be a very frustrating writing partner.

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

Peter Parker/Harley Keener. They're good boys.

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

My Infinity War time travel fix it (make it worse) fic 😔 It's got so much potential but it is perpetually at the bottom of the to-do list.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and developing relationships

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

mother fucking action sequences and like, coming up with The Plan (the evil kind and the ones to take down the evil kind)

This silly little graphic I made for You're Freaking Out where Harley mocks The Plan made by the spider dumplin gang was initially one half of my brain negging the other half about being shit at making Plans and I decided that it might as well manifest as the characters lmao

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

Eh. It's fanfiction, you know? Do what you want. Experiment. Try your best to do it justice. Accept that some people are going to let their eyes blur and skim over it while others will pick it apart but most will exist somewhere in the middle. Just write what you want to write, how you want to write it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

*sigh* Harry Potter. Looking forward to my own post getting gobbled up by my block list lmao

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Goodness gracious how do I even decide? I think Peaches Ain't Pretty is my favorite. It's the fic that showed me beyond a shadow of a doubt that I can step outside of fanfiction and write whatever I want and be just as satisfied, if not more.

#tag games #20 questions #parkner

[oathena11-writes]

I just wanted to let anyone who follows me know that I'm taking a break from posting on AO3 until April, maybe later depending on how things look once we get to April.

I am hiding away the further explanation of why because it's more of a vent and whine session than anything and I don't want to subject anyone to that if they don't want to see it. And it got way out of hand.

(note: this whole thing is unedited)

Back in December I decided that I was going to take a break from posting, but because I was already done with several FoxQuin week fics, I decided to wait until after I was finished posting those fics to take a break from posting, even though that was inviting the possibility of things getting worse.

I used to be fine not getting comments, I had made my peace with it. I'm not sure why things started shifting for me last year, but it did.

By late September, early October, I was at the point that posting was just torturing myself. Any time I posted, I had to swallow down the disappointment of no comments, sometimes the first comments would appear days after posting, and sometimes they never appeared at all. 

I had some good fics I posted and even getting three comments on a chapter blew me away and made me excited- that's how little attention I'm used to my fics getting.

By December, I knew I was just torturing myself to keep attempting to post fics when the lack of comments got to me every time.

I know I'm not entitled to comments, heck I know why people don't comment. I hardly comment, it's hypocritical to demand comments when I struggle to even remember to comment before hitting kudos and subscribe and closing out the tab. I am working on commenting more consistently but it's a work in progress.

It still hurts. I know why it hurts, and I wish I could just make it stop. Because I love writing and I love sharing what I write with people even if I don't get comments. I love knowing that maybe there's a silent person out there who was impactd by the story.

I have always admired those who get many comments, who have an interactive audience who are all excited and vibing and sharing theories and excitement... I have always hoped for that myself but I don't really get that kind of interactions on my fics, just the generic comments of loving my fics. Sometimes, no one tells me what they love about my fics, what I'm doing right. No one comments on the parts I thought were particularly clever, on the big reveals, or anything. 

And it's fine if my fics aren't to anyone's taste, if I'm not as good of a writer as I think. I have an idea of my flaws, but I don't really intend on changing because every time I reread old fics, I adore them. I wrote them in a way that makes my brain happy, that is easy for me to read and I might spot some minor things, and things that I might change now, over a year later, but for the most part? What I know others might see as flaws are parts of fics that I adore.

It still hurts.

Maybe some of the trouble is just that when I write for events, particularly fandom specific events, my mind sees it as a gift to the community. 

But sometimes, I get even less interaction on my event fics. It hurts to write a gift to the community and to be so rejected as to not get a single comment. It hurts that the event fics that I pour my heart and soul into, trying to strike a balance in writing what I adore (though it's usually not the norm) and what the community loves, and I edit and post, thinking 'yeah! I nailed a lot of things this community. I put in x, y happened, and I even put in this popular fanon'. But then there's... nothing. No one cares that I put in all my effort to craft something that the community would love, often stepping out of my comfort zone to do so.

I know some of it is that I write strange headcanons that most people don't have, that I write rare pair ships, that my interpretation of things has no one group it belongs to because I often get a little from everyone.

Or maybe people don't comment because they don't like the responses I give, or because I haven't been responding to comments as much sense September.

Sometimes, not knowing is the worst. I have theories, but I don't know. If I do know it's because I'm an awful writer, great, I can put that to rest and I won't stop posting, but at least then I know what it is about me that people just don't like.

I know this is just a really self indulgent whine and who wants to read this, really? I'm not tagging it because I don't want people to come to my post. Because I am begging for attention, for someone to show me to care but I also know people hate that so I'm just posting this to have the vent out there, so I can pretend people saw and care. 

I know I'm not a big author, and I know now I won't ever be. I wish I was, I want people to love my work as much as I do. I want to nerd out with people.

I have been accepting that that's never going to happen. I can live with that.

But hardly getting comments... to the point that 5 of 7 FoxQuin week fics getting one or two comments, and 1 getting 5 is still making me get teary at all the positive things people had to say, all the nice comments.

I wasn't expecting that. I went in fully bracing myself for no comments on most fics and maybe 1 or 2 on two fics, if I was lucky. But that's not what happened. I got more comments than I'm used to and I kind of don't know what to do with them because I am so used to getting no comments at all that I am getting teary just thinking about it. 

Most of the time, all it takes is one or two comments to make my day. One if it's not a generic comment will have me going back to reread it several times a day until I finally respond. 

But no comments at all sends me to despair some days, especially on the fics I'm excited to post. Those getting no comments is devastating. Those days, where there's no comments within the first two days of posting just make me want to cry, and I don't know why it keeps hitting me so hard, or why it got worse last year. 

But that's why I decided to take a break from posting so that I can take some space, and hopefully by the time April comes around, posting without responses won't be so earth shattering. Hopefully I won't feel so rejected, so alone, so unimportant. 

I don't want to stop posting forever. At the very least I need to finish the ongoing stories I've already started posting.

But I needed to stop torturing myself. I needed to breathe and remind myself that it's not the end of the world and get some space from the tears that have been shed over lack of comments.

So... yeah. My mental state is not the best right now when it comes to posting, and I could have said worse things; I left out some of the really stupid irrational lines of thoughts that come up because I do spiral. I know how to handle it; I am safe at home. 

But I am losing spoons over it and I just can't keep doing this. 

I hope I can resolve this by April so that I can keep posting and don't grow too much of a backlog.

Thanks for reading my stupid, whiny, attention-seeking rant.

[majorbaby]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you so much for the tag @bornforastorm, i loved reading through yours :3 

i will tag @marley-manson / @rescue-ram / @persianflaw / @leonardcohenofficial / @raywritesthings

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 14… will be 15 in under 24 hrs ;)

2. What's your total Ao3 word count? 136,971… just over 100K of which were published this year :D 

3. What fandoms do you write for? MASH at the moment, with no end in sight. I have two ideas for twin peaks but not much motivation to write them, let alone the discipline. 

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? if you really wanna know here’s my ao3 and you can you sort by kudos, i don’t wanna link my fics in other fandoms that are almost 7 years old now… pls… 

5. Do you respond to comments? i used to be quite diligent about doing it but when i was publishing near-daily for kinktober i fell behind because i was literally writing every day. i may still go back to respond to them because i like doing it. 

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the beejhawk sex pollen fic (heavy dubcon warning)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i’m realizing that most of traphawk fics are only ‘happy endings’ if you see them as self-contained, which they aren’t really, because even though trapper’s exit isn’t at all relevant, i’m not consciously ‘unwriting’ that. but in-fic probably Goodbye, Farewell and Amen to That because it explicitly states that TrapHawk can handle whatever is thrown at them, which would include whatever happens post-fic. 

8. Do you get hate on fics? for a while i had an anon who submitted vagues about me / my work so like yes, i’ve read a couple vagues seemed they were about my fic but, and i know this sounds like a cop-out but genuinely, i’m kinda flattered by anyone who hates my fic and still manages to read the whole thing and write a public post about how how they didn’t like it? like, what are we??? 

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? i consider myself primarily a smut writer, only incidentally non-smut writer. i write all kinds and can’t wait to diversify more. 

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? my dream fic is a specific crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? yes

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? not recently, but in former fandoms yes. 

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? sort of. it isn’t published. but maybe soon. 

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? traphawk is the ship to me. some things we should be dramatic about: there’s the traphawk that i write and then there’s the traphawk that i live, which only my irl trapper understands 

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? now that i have discovered the margaret longfic i really want to write i’ve officially abandoned my 80K canon-compliant margaret WIP

16. What are your writing strengths? i’m disciplined, i want to improve, i take risks, i’m curious, i’m honest and i welcome strong challenges from the people who edit my work.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? i have some barriers (i’m dyslexic and english is my not my first language) but i could still stand to be much more diligent about grammar and punctuation. beyond that, my prose tends to be flowery and verbose and need to be reined in a lot. i’m trying to get better at on my own but it helps that my OG beta, marley, is kind of my stylistic foil lol (hope she doesn’t mind me saying), she trims a lot of the fat from my work and helps me communicate my ideas better. lastly, sometimes i suffer from being really married to an idea that sounded cooler in my head than it does on paper, and i have a really hard time setting it down.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? i say this as someone who is multilingual - it’s almost never a good idea, especially in fic, if you’re having a main character speak partially in another language for no reason except to note that you, the author, knows that they speak another language. it could maybe make sense for atmosphere, but in that case, just say “they were speaking x language / they said something in x language”. 

i’ll be honest, it annoys me so much that if i see a character in a fic drop a few words in a language other than english and then continue on in english that i will x-out of a fic. there’s got to be some thoughtful in-universe explanation for that e.g. if you’re in Canada, bilingual service agents will say ‘Hello/Bonjour’ to you to indicate that you have an option to speak with them in either language. 

19. First fandom you wrote for? uhhh i honestly don’t remember. i’ve been writing fanfiction since before i was a teenager. first time i published it might’ve been for the legend of zelda. 

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? at the moment it’s cherry bomb! because it was a nice, smutty interlude in traphawk’s relationship and a fic that exists mostly for kink’s sake but still has a distinct vibe, unlike filthysweet which i don’t hate, but imo is unremarkable. CB is 95% style 5% substance and still contains weight somehow. i really hope i can recreate that again. 

#btw when i see it typed out 'Ao3' i can't help but think... Attack on 3some... #i'm really behind in tag games but i'm always curious abt people's ficcish thoughts #tag game #my fic #wip stuff #(future) wip stuff

[banannabethchase]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @aidaronan <3 <3 thanks deary!

Putting this monster under a cut

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

As of this very second, 298. Which is absurd.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,342,926 (I'm well over a million words even taking out my Quintis baby fic holy applesauce)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Wrestlefic, mostly AEW. But I will always have a soft spot for Quintis, Pipeyna, Stucky, and my everlove Percabeth.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh this is gonna be weird for reasons you'll see: Plus One [Criminal Minds], Back to the Future [PJO/Marvel], The Pros and Cons of Avengers Tower (It's Mostly Cons) [Marvel], Forever After You Will Be My Home [CBS Scorpion], The Rumor of Us [Heroes of Olympus]. Wrestlefandom is just so flippin tiny not a single fic made it in here kudos wise or even came close. It will always baffle me that my highest kudos'd fic is a Criminal Minds story.

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

I try to! I make it a point to try and make sure most if not all comments are responded to, but I think that's a compulsive thing on my end.

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

Ooh. Good question. I have a fair bit of angst, but the only one I can think of with a truly hopeless and angsty ending is Aftermath of the End, which is a concept of what would happen if Percy had died in Blood of Olympus and Annabeth went mad with grief. It is...very dark, very angsty, and very different from most things I've written.

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

You ask the fluff monster what is the happiest ending? This is a hard question. I think Set the World Alight is the overall happiest ending, since everyone gets their best possible outcome, especially after all the tough stuff they worked through in the rest of the fic.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I have, but it's usually built from a misunderstanding, I'd like to think.

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

*gestures to the 95 explicit and 58 mature rated fics on my AO3 account* I mean. Very much yes. And what kind? All kinds, at this point. Too many kinds, truly. See the most recent thing I posted. Yoinks.

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

I have! Craziest one is the one I'm making for my 300th AO3 posting which is AEW based but brings in two of my other college AUs from completely different fandoms. It's pure self indulgent shenanigans.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Oh yes. Multiple people have specifically stolen The Rumor of Us which like. Why???

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes a handful.

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

I don't think so.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh I hate this. I think all time is Percabeth, because come the fuck on, but Quintis, HangMatt, HangMox, Pipeyna, and Stucky challenge constantly for the title.

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

I would love to finish that massive undertaking of writing Heroes of Olympus where Reyna and Annabeth were switched instead of Percy and Jason, but it'll never happen.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, fluff, and porn with feelings.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Angst. Writing without stupid puns. Keeping things serious. Editing to make sure I didn't make the same joke/use the same word/repeat phrasing across a fic or all my writing.

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

I think the only languages I'd be comfortable even attempting are French and Spanish since I'm relatively conversational in Spanish and I took 9 years of French, but I would be very hesitant and would consult a native speaker to help me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

...when I was 6 I wrote a self-insert based on Berenstain Bears and when I was around 10 or 11 I wrote a self-insert where a girl named Mallory met Puddleglum's brother whose name escapes me (because I made it up in 2002) and they had to save Narnia together.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh goodness. I think my novel-length ones are my favorites. Set the World Alight, The Rumor of Us, and Forever After You Will Be My Home were labors of love and dedication that proved to me I can write a single story narrative. I also accidentally imprinted on all of those character designs for these fics, so they are intrinsically related to my interpretation of characters when I'm initially playing around with ideas. Forever After specifically I worked my ass off on with 15 or so hours of research on pregnancy, early childhood, and giving birth which I think shows in the detail.

Should they like to do so, I tag @perseannabeth, @sarahcakes613, @booboo-eyedbambi, and @scissormedaddyass! No pressure though <3

#Tag games #about Sara #in which sara writes

[venusenvvvy]

FOREWARD

Introduction:

If you’re reading this, you either A) came across my fan-fiction on AO3 and are mildly curious about what you’ve just stumbled across, or B) you followed me a few years ago and forgot about it, and now this post is on your dashboard and you have zero idea who I am or what’s going on.

If you belong to group B and would like an inkling of context, feel free to check out Burning Houses now. It’s probably the most out there Harry Potter fanfiction concept you’ve seen in a while.

The Tragic Backstory:

In September of 2020 I was 17, and I had spent the past three years alone, in a walk in closet that had been repurposed to be by bedroom. I won’t get into the specifics of why. I spent my days and nights laying in bed and alternating between daydreaming and reading, until that’s what my life became.

Up until then I had posted a few short stories - things I had written quickly in the middle of the night and never expected to get much attention. The only thing extraordinary about me in my every day life was how utterly invisible I could become.

By the time September of 2020 rolled around I had been reading Harry Potter fan-fiction for years - this was before the explosion of the Marauders fandom, with the posting of ATYD, and then subsequently the resurgence of Harry Potter with Tiktok edits and the media attention garnered by JK Rowling - and the place was a graveyard. It was comforting, in a way. Just me, rooting through old tropes and ideas. My favourites were time travel stories that found Harry older, wiser and more powerful. Or the ones where everyone found out how the Dursleys had been treating Harry and, horrified, saved him from his barren, locked bedroom with the bars on the window, giving the Dursleys’ a piece of their mind the entire time.

Yes. I’m aware of the parallels.

The problem with dead fandoms is that you run out of content. So I started writing a story - just for me - about this daydream I had been having for the past several weeks. I wrote it in the notes app of my phone every night laying in bed until four in the morning, and then I woke up in the afternoon to start again.

Then, due to circumstances outside of my control, my phone was destroyed, and I lost 100,000 words of content and months of work. It was like losing a diary - the story was how I channeled my thoughts, how I expressed my feelings, wrestled with philosophies and debated by beliefs.

But there was one thing that survived - the first chapter. I wanted to make sure I could always read it no matter what, so I posted it publicly - stapled it to the wall of an empty room - and tried to rebuild what I’d lost.

And then people read it.

Three Years Later:

People read it, and liked it. They saw this thing that represented me and they liked it, and they wanted to know when there was going to be more. So I panicked, and I wrote another chapter and posted it. And then after months of people asking me when there was going to be more I posted >another< chapter.

But it didn’t feel right. It felt like strangers reading my diary. What had started as a (arguably unhealthy) coping mechanism for dealing with a reality I couldn’t face had become a silly little story for my readers, and I was beginning to feel embarrassed that I was taking it so seriously. That it was more for me than a story that I had made up, about these books with dull characters and a plot so tedious that I couldn’t make it through reading. This series that was beginning to draw more and more criticism as time went on, and JK Rowling continued to dig the franchises grave deeper and deeper.

Three years later has found me at 20 years old, a better writer, with a lot about my life having changed. I don’t need to read those fan-fictions plots to escape anymore, or daydream about going back in time, or being someone else - I saved myself in a very real, tangible way. I came out as trans and fought to be myself. I’m writing this essay from my own apartment with all the space I want. I attend regular therapy, and own a beautiful puppy service dog named Sirius. I go hiking and to parties, and I sleep at night then I go to work in the morning. I live in a world outside of my own head, surrounded by this beautiful life that I’ve built for myself from nothing.

So Why Start Over?

There’s a lot of reasons. I want to rewrite this story because I’ve gained more experience in life. Because I want to start again, this time without being embarrassed of how much this story means to me, or how long it’s taking me to finish, or being ashamed of taking it this seriously at all.

I want to challenge the idea of fan-fiction as being silly, or unoriginal, or illegitimate - something that needs to be hidden, or kept as a stepping stone before writing “real” novels. I want to be writing this story for the explicitly, publicly stated purpose of it being art on its own, because I have things to say that I want to express specifically through this artistic medium.

I wanted you to know more about me - the stranger behind the words, the man behind the curtain - what this story was really about for me, and where it came from. And now you do.

[solitaire-sol]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

Big thanks to @mycupofrum and @lovelymasks for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

29, though all but one are 500-word microfics so it's not that impressive.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

17,377... which is pretty on-par, given the above.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At the moment, I'm only actively writing and posting Harry Potter fics, though I've written more widely in the past, for many and varied fandoms. Most of it went unpublished, though.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

All but one are oneshot microfics, and all are Prongfoot, of course. None of them have done big numbers, but I cherish every little heart!

this universe of you and me (we'll make ourselves inevitable) [45]

10. Diamond [41]

21. Deprive [25]

22. Lineage [22]

10. Hope [22]

5. Do you respond to comments?

Every comment! I might take a while, depending on how things are going for me, but I don't get a lot so the ones I have are extra-precious. As a commenter, I love it when the author responds so I know I'm not annoying them with my comment, so that's a factor, too.

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

Um... I guess the second bonus epilogue to 05. North? Since it leads into the canon path for Sirius, which is, as we know, not his best possible timeline.

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

I'm going to go with 16. Cultivate, because it's just kid!Prongsfoot and strongly-implied mutual crushes and nothing bad happens to them after this, okay?? we can pretend, dammit

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, though that's probably due to audience size + wordcount, so not much room to offend or people to be offended. Silver linings!

9. Do you write smut?

Yes! But none that I've published. It's good enough for me, but I don't know if anyone else would like it, and then: Self doubt! Preemptive cringe! And I don't post it.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not in a "characters from Thing A meet characters from Thing B" way, but I've done some yet-to-be-published microfics that take HP characters (mostly James and Sirius, obviously) and put them in other settings, like Madoka Magica or Pacific Rim. So... Yes, I guess?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge! Honestly, I think I'd be kind of flattered that anyone would consider my writing worth stealing.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge! Although, like the above, it'd be very flattering if it ever happened.

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

Not unless prose-style roleplaying counts as fanfiction! I'd be interested in trying it, but I have no idea how it would go.

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

James/Sirius, Sirius/James, Prongsfoot, Bambibelle, by any other name, they're my overall favorite ship with 99.9% certainty.

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

... Anything that's more than a oneshot, yes. It's so much easier to imagine the perfect fic and watch it play out like a mind-movie rather than hauling it out of my brainpan like a deep-sea fisherman wrestling a trophy marlin onto dry land, all typed and edited and posted despite second/third/more thoughts.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like descriptions and scene-setting and lore/worldbuilding, and I've been told that I'm pretty decent at this, so I'd say those? The fact that I've written a lot of microfics without any dialogue whatsoever probably says a lot.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Dialogue! Especially in HP, because the intricacies of British English and years of seeing British/Commonwealth opinions on Americans failing to write British characters (in fanfiction, specifically) has me too anxious to try. I have so many modern Prongsfoot ideas that I can't bring myself to attempt due to this, leaving them to rot like fallen leaves in the orchard of my imagination. More generally, I'm terrible at longfics or anything that requires extended effort because the number of spoons I have is variable but usually rounds up to "too few." Then I feel bad because I haven't been writing, etc etc, which is why I've only published microfics.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I don't have any problem with it if it fits; I got really into Poe in middle school and he loves throwing in random non-English quotes without translating it, so I can't begrudge anyone who does it now. I only speak/write in English so that's the language my fics are in.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Pokemon. It was based on my first-ever playthrough of Pokemon Blue, but with the "Red" MC replaced by a pseudo-self-insert who spent most of the fic disguised as a boy/her own deceased twin brother whose soul was somehow inside of her for... some reason. (Note: I don't have a twin brother.) I wouldn't learn what fanfiction was for at least a few more years, but I'm pretty sure that was my first.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I once did a novelization of an obscure JRPG that rewrote huge chunks of the game, improved characterization, closed plot holes and fixed the terrible English translation, as well as expanding the world and lore. It had an actual physical folder dedicated to all my notes and I had plans for an even bigger sequel. Sadly, I only posted the first chapter before my computer died and I lost everything on it (back up your work, kids!), and I subsequently lost most of my notes in a move. I'm not sure if this is a subconscious contributor to why I've only written short-form things since then, but I have fond if wistful feelings about it anyway-- Like my fanfic lost Lenore.

#tag game #writing #fanfiction #fics by sol #well this isn't an actual fic but it's about my fics #prongsfoot #bambibelle

[candycandy00]

So this might seem like a controversial opinion, and please keep in mind that this only applies to me personally, but I don’t mind at all when someone Likes a bunch of my fanfics without reblogging them. 

Let me be clear, of course I prefer reblogs or comments. Of freaking course. But if you just click Like on my post? That’s great! I’m flattered and I’m happy you enjoyed my writing enough to click that little heart. I honestly can’t imagine not being happy with a large number of Likes. 

So I’ll explain why I feel this way, and bear with me because I have to delve into a bit of my history as a writer. 

I started writing fanfiction in my early teen years. When the internet was still young. When fan-run forums were a great place to post them. When we all had “shrines” to our favorite characters hosted on Geocities, joined thirty web rings, nervously posted our first lemons, and fought off flamers. 

I wrote fanfiction for many years, for lots of different fandoms. And I loved doing it. I loved the feeling of being part of a community of fans. I loved being creative with the stories I enjoyed. But most of all I loved the feedback, the engagement. Regardless of the quality of my work (and let’s be real, those early fics were super cringe), I got reviews, comments, people telling me to continue. And the feedback came almost immediately. Within hours of posting something, there would be at least a few comments or reviews. These pushed me to keep writing, because I wanted more. More reviews. More encouragement. More reactions. Feedback and engagement are the most addictive drugs to a writer. Knowing someone read your words, and even better, knowing they enjoyed them? Instant high. 

However, my true passion has always been original fiction. I’ve been making stories since I was a small child. I’ve had “novels” in progress since I was ten years old. And at some point, after basking in the feedback of fanfiction, I decided to focus more on my original work. My dream was always to be a published novelist, after all. So after many many years as a fanfiction author, I left fanfiction behind. I returned to it very briefly a few years later, wrote exactly two fics, then left it again. 

I worked on my original fiction. I wrote and actually finished multiple novels. I edited, rewrote, etc. Then I excitedly began querying literary agents. And the result? Form rejection after form rejection. Not a single request for the full manuscript or even a partial manuscript. Not a single word of feedback. And this repeated with each novel I wrote. 

Desperate for feedback, I started posting my stories on various places online. Wattpad. Here on tumblr. Various forums and other websites for posting original work. I even joined Facebook groups specifically for sharing your unpublished novels to get feedback. The result was still a resounding “nothing”. No comments. No likes or votes or reviews or reblogs. A small handful of views on Wattpad was all I got. And I’m talking small. Like less than 20 per chapter. On some stories, less than 5. It was like my work was invisible. No one would give it a second glance. 

After all of this I started to question myself. Was I actually any good at writing to begin with? Had I just deluded myself into thinking I had any talent whatsoever? Getting zero feedback or engagement on all of it was crushing. I would much rather get negative feedback than none at all. It was like screaming into the void, to keep posting work that would be totally ignored.  

At some point I remembered how wonderful it felt to get feedback on my fanfiction. And I craved that again. I’d been following a few blogs on here that took requests (blogs like this one I’m currently running). I actually sent a few anon requests into them. And at the same time I was thinking of how much I missed writing fanfics, I got a few ideas for fics that just would not leave my brain. So I wrote my first BNHA fanfic, and my first fanfic in general in many years. That was Break Time, a Shigaraki x Reader fic. It was my first x Reader fic as well, and it took me a bit of effort to get used to the format. But I did it. I wrote it. And then, I nervously posted it to this blog, and waited to see if anyone would spare it a glance. 

When those Likes started coming in, I literally teared up. It was like, “Oh so I can still entertain people with my writing. People still like my work.” Coming from the barren wasteland of zero feedback, those dozens of Likes early on were like an oasis. Each one meant more to me than you can ever imagine. 

So for me, it absolutely boggles my mind that anyone could actively hate getting Likes. I get it, reblogs and comments are so much better. But are Likes that terrible? 

To me, it’s like this: Likes are like small pieces of candy. Reblogs and comments are like big strawberry parfaits. Do I prefer a big strawberry parfait to a piece of candy? Of course I do. But if someone walks up to me and gives me a piece of candy, I’m not gonna be mad at that person. I still like candy, even if I get way more excited about the parfait. And when you spend several years getting no candy whatsoever, you definitely appreciate it when people start giving you some. 

And yeah, it’s definitely frustrating to see other people getting strawberry parfaits and all you ever get is candy, but does that make it alright to be a total jerk to the next person who gives you candy? To angrily scream that you’re not accepting candy because people aren’t giving you enough parfaits? Honestly, it just makes you seem petty to me. 

(And to clarify, saying you’re frustrated about not getting parfaits is not what I’m talking about, yelling at the people giving you candy and being super rude about it is what I’m talking about.)

If you’re someone who is getting genuinely angry at people for Liking your stuff, I invite you to try a little experiment. Write an original piece of fiction. Just a short story, but put a lot of effort into it. Then post it. Literally anywhere. I can guarantee you that the next time you get a bunch of Likes on your fanfics, you’ll appreciate them. 

All this to say, feel free to Like my stuff! Spam Like my stuff! I’m cool with it. Will I get all squishy and blushy if you reblog or comment? Yes. I most definitely will. But if for some reason you only feel comfortable Liking it, it still makes me smile. 

Also, end note here, but I don’t reblog fanfic. I reblog art, gif sets, etc. but not fanfic. That’s because this is my fanfic writing blog and I have this fear that people will confuse the reblogged fanfic for being my work, and I hate the idea of getting credit for someone else’s work. I know this might be an irrational fear. I am planning to make a secondary blog just for reblogging fics I enjoy. I’ll link it when I do in case anyone wants to follow it for a curated list of really great fics! 

#Fanfiction #fanfic #writing

[mikki-does-simp]

Words aren't worth shit. (Kuroiro Shihai x GN!reader)

surprise you guys, i came back from my grave for the kajillionth time! frankly, i'm slightly sick of interacting with almost of the MHA fandom, but my love for 1B seems to never ever waver, so i'll try my very best to stick to more longform fanfiction and post more-often so that the people who deserve it have actual content.

A/N: i wrote this in literally two adjacent blocks starting at 1AM and ending around 5 AM with a sleep from 4-4:30, so forgive any flow inconsistences or grammar/spelling mistakes because i say fuck the beta

edit: actually never mind next time i will appreciate a beta run more i left so many spaces that were just- *unfilled*

socially awkward kuroiro AND tactical manipulator kuroiro CAN co-exist, it just has to be written in a very specific way, though. despite that, with you, he feels like a cat covered in wet spaghetti, but like, in a good way.

Who the hell came up with the saying "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Or hell, who altered it to have it to relate an action? Kuroiro didn't really seem to convince himself of it, no matter how hard he tried. It wasn't like he was indifferent to works of art- after all, he considered himself a sort of artistic guy... but when it came to a flash, a picture in his mind, a memory- usually it only took up about thirteen words in his mind. He considered himself a writer. Dare he say a poet. He kept piles upon piles of journals of his writing, and where people could not suffice, pen and paper were his greatest confidants. As much as he liked pencils, pens were just- ironically more artistic; even if he had to scribble at the paper if he misspelled a word or accidentally placed the lettering way too close.

He clenched a few papers between his hands, skimming over the writing as he stood in wait for what might be a pinnacle moment of his life. There were too many mistakes in his mind- so many scribbles it seemed like a quarter of each page was just a section or a word, blacked out in ink. He sighed, inwardly admitting that staying up until two am in the morning writing this was a terrible idea it's not like the author is doing the EXACT same thing down to the hour, but he could just not wait. Thoughts seemed to be always running through his head at light speed, from dawn to dusk and in between his dreams like a sickness of his. This is when he started to pace around with the pages in his hand, having to really mentally prepare himself for what he set up on what seemed to be the first impromptu thought of his entire life so far.

Kuroiro had somehow deluded himself so hard that he decided that he was going to profess his feelings for you within the next moment. Or at the very least, his fond admiration for your pieces, large or small that create the entire puzzle. He had slipped a piece of plain notebook paper under your door, even; that's how casual he tried to seem about it, as it could mean a lot of different things under different connotations if you ask someone to meet you. It wasn't a fancy sort of greeting or letter like he would have spent countless hours imagining he would, but it would make due. His pen and paper were becoming restless in it's own right, sick of hearing the same thought in a different variant over and over and over again. He had decided to meet you about fifteen minutes before the dormitory curfew, as to both make it less inconvenient for you and to make sure he had an escape route if anything went wrong. Yet again, his mind seems to be in a race with everything around it, dreaming up every possibility. Every triumph, every pitfall. The churns in his stomach grew more intense as he began to doubt himself,

It didn't take too long for you to meet him, with the casually dressed notebook paper folded in one of your hands. You pocketed it, then closed the gap of distance between you and Kuroiro, standing in front of him with a curious look to the papers in his hand- and how he looked like how he was going to vomit up a hairball. It raised some eyebrows, sure; but you seemed to understand his nature- his mannerisms, his idiosyncrasies: you seemed to accept them as they were, with no complaints otherwise about who he was. Human. A breath of fresh air for a guy like him, really. He didn't even greet you properly for a moment, already seeming to clam up, enamored by your beauty. It took a couple seconds for him to actually remember why he brought the two of you here- but when he did, he slowly looked to the writing in front of him, starting to read it out. Unfortunately for you, it was incredibly difficult to decipher what he was actually saying- he used so many elusive synonyms that the average person wouldn't be familiar with in terms of linguistics, and he would often go back to read a part if he messed it up, or pause for a moment to try and figure out what he was trying to say himself. The more and more he talked, the more Kuroiro realized this the sole brainless idea he had in a very long time- at least in his book, so out of some sort of shame, he started getting quieter as he read. His posture crumpled up more than it was before, and he was mumbling so badly, that it was even hard for him to hear the words that were spewing out of his mouth as he tried to read back He dropped the small stack of papers, much to your confusion; then, much to his incredible embarrassment, he felt his legs start to buckle despite himself as he kneeled to the floor, covering his face with his hands and starting to mumble a little louder about how incredibly awkward this situation was and that you should just forget it ever happened. He couldn't anymore, everything seemed to catch up to him in his incredulity...

You kneeled down to the floor with him, starting to pick up the papers for him. His hand reflexively moved to instantly snatch the papers from you- to hide away and confide yet again in the caverns of pen and paper- but he stops himself, opting to ball his hand into a fist to do so as he starts on an attempt to quell his mild panicked breathing. He felt so... soppy. Dare he say even- pathetic in a way. It took a moment, but he eventually found the strength to look you in the eye, and they lock, the watercolor to his monochrome. You pick up the rest of the pages, and even if it is incredibly messy and out of order, you remember how he reached to grab them from you, and although it confused you on why he would do that, you respected him too much to pry; in a state where he was cracking on all sides of a sphere, where he looked so oddly vulnerable. If you weren't too preoccupied with being concerned about the way he was acting, it would have felt good, about how he seemed to trust you being within this state

"Hey..." you interjected, slowly starting to offer both your held papers; and your free outstretched hand over to Kuroiro, "Take the time you need. You'll find a way to say what you need to say... and I'll flag you down with signals so it won't- get lost within the waters."

You had sort of an idea what was happening- but you could ask for more context later, as Kuroiro seemed a little too nervewracked to answer your questions. He took the both of you off guard, as he shuffled a little closer, his own arms beginning to outstretch as he simply took your simple outstretched gesture to wrap his arms around you in a shakey but gentle embrace. In that very moment, he couldn't believe it but... no words could describe what he felt. He almost lost himself in trying to figure it out, but at the same time, you quelled the tide all the same as you held each-other there.

#mha 1b #bhna x reader #class 1b #mha #bhna #shihai kuroiro #x reader fluff #fanfic #writing #x reader #bhna fanfiction #bhna imagine #mikki fluffpost

[otaku-girl-ao3]

20 questions for fic writers

This seemed like fun 😅💖

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

39 on AO3 (I’ve still got so many I never bothered to port across and probably never will 😅 All of my new stuff goes on here though!)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

512,495 uploaded so far (though I’ve got quite a backlog still to edit and upload).

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Wonka (2023), Undertale, BNHA, You me and the Apocalypse at the moment. Maybe I’ll go back to MCU, LoTR and Witcher someday. I am really, really tempted to start writing for more Mathew Baynton related fandoms; I am utterly obsessed with Ghosts at the moment as a reader 😅 I need more Thomas/Pat, Thomas/Julian, and Pat/Cap in my life! 🔥

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Twelve steps - 2,927 kudos - MCU, post civil-war, following the twelve steps of grief after a physical injury changes Tony’s life forever. 

Unleashed - 1,274 kudos - Undertale, fellswap, shameless reader/Mutt/BlackBerry BDSM fic.

One track mind - 840 kudos, MCU, found family Darcy-centric Drabble. 

Unforgivable - 628 kudos, Hobbit, post-canon everyone lives fix-it.

Taking the me out of teamwork - 602 kudos, MCU, Tony leaving the avengers Drabble. 

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

I now do my best to respond to every comment I get on every fic. I used to worry it was weird or annoying, but now I just try and focus on showing my appreciation for anyone that takes the time and effort to comment on my silly things.

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

Ooooh gosh, either Twelve Steps (kind of a hopefully ending at least), Dark Deeds and Bitter Choices (my first finished and shared dove), or possibly Three Strikes (which I will go back to write an even darker follow-on at some point). 

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

Aaaa what even is happiness? Probably (Pure) Imagination; it’s just smut with a very open but happy ending. Or The Most (Un)Romantic Day of the Year (which I should up uploading in early April '24).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I got some for one of my Undertale fics where people hadn’t fully read the tags 🥲 That fic hasn’t been finished but hopefully I’ll go back to it one day. 

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

I mainly write smut now 😅 80-90% of that is some kink of BDSM, fetish, or kink related smut. A real mix of long fics and one-shots. I feel more comfortable writing smut than I do fluff at this point!

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

I have started writing them again. At the moment, Wonka (2023) x You, Me and the Apocalypse (2016) is probably the most recent strange one? I’m also working on something Wonka (2023) x Ghosts (2019) at the moment, possibly with a bit of Spy (2011) and You, Me and the Apocalypse (2016) thrown in, but I'm not sure yet if I'll actually upload that one or not.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of 🤞

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I believe Twelve Steps was translated into Russian but that’s it. 

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

I have not, but I’d absolutely love to! 👀

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

At the moment? Felix Fickelgruber x Willy Wonka (2023); it used to be Duo x Treize x Zechs 😅 but even back then that was a rare pairing to find 😅 I’m not sure if I’ve got an all-time favourite ship anymore; I prefer specific tags to ships. I’ll read anything sugar daddy or most healthy RACK/SSCK BDSM-related fics. Oh! Or anything with good, detailed aftercare.

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

It’s not looking great for Unforgivable 😢 maybe some day I'll go back to it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have no shame when it comes to smut. I’ll try writing (almost) anything at least once. 

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Repetition. So, so much repetition. Editing is not my strong suit, though I try my best.

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

It can be interesting if done well? Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it adds much to the story and can just slow things down for the readers (especially if there is no translation provided).

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Gundam Wing as a literal child back in the 00s 😅

20. Favourite fics you’ve written?

Sugar Daddy? Call Me (Sir) has to be my absolute favourite just because it introduced me to so, so many amazing new fandom friends along with my absolute favourite discord server of all time.

His (Darkness) is the one I’m most excited about writing at the moment.

For A Moment is probably the one I most want to go back and do a sequel for, I feel far too bad about leaving Felix in that situation.

Dark Deeds and Bitter Choices is probably one of my absolute favourites (and ironically one of my least kudos’d multi-chapter fics); I think it’s just a bit too dark for the fandom which I totally get. 

(Pure) Imagination is the one that helped me get back into writing again, so it's got a special place in my heart.

#ao3 writer #writers on tumblr #fanfiction writer #my writing

[morporkian-cryptid]

Fic author interview! Thank you @vampirenaomi for the tag! I'm a bit late to the party, sorry.

Tagging @crimetimesteadicam, @dandunn and @carriagelamp!

1 How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 48 works there, and there's a few (including my very first long fic and very first NaNoWriMo novel) that are only on Fanfiction.net.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

562,503 words total. To be honest, considering the amount of long fics I've written, I'm a little surprised it isn't higher, but also I'm bad at estimation.

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Treasures of time - JigLup one-shot, emotional angst with a happy ending (221 kudos)

Up in the mountains - JiGoe getting together (197 kudos)

In the middle Part 2 - Polygang getting together (150 kudos)

We are beginning - Goemon POV Polygang fluff drabble (140 kudos)

How to make a gunman snap - JigLup not-quite-porn-without-a-plot one-shot (133 kudos)

It's mostly one-shots and old-ish long fics, which I am a bit surprised about - but then again, they have had more time to collect kudos.

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

I do! Unless a comment is just two words and I don't know what to answer, I always reply, at least to say thank you.

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

I don't really write angsty ending. The closest to an angsty ending would be Adieu (a Netflix Lupin alternate ending one-shot).

EDIT I forgot about my entire MorMor period skjlsjkldjkl so yeah my angstiest fic is Bang Bang, a MorMor post-Reichenbach one-shot based on the song by Nancy Sinatra.

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

They all end well, so I can't really designate a specific one.

7. Do you write crossovers?

I've written I think one crossover ever, a Discworld/Harry Potter fic way back in the day. I'm not gonna link it because it was bad, but it's on my AO3 if you're interested and you can read French.

However I have a BUNCH of AUs that I haven't written up into fics: Lupin III/Discworld, Lupin III/Ewilan's Quest, and an ooooooold MorMor (or Mor4)/X-Men AU that I did write a couple of unpublished one-shots for.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I haven't, thankfully!

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

I've written one smut scene several years ago, it was very difficult and awkward to do, but in retrospect I think the result was alright. I'm planning to try again. The past try and the upcoming one are both scenes in longer plotty fics, I've never written PWPs.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I've translated my own fics (usually from French to English)

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

I haven't; but I did co-write half of an original novel with my best friend, and the possibility of finishing it isn't off the table.

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

LUPIN III POLYGANG. And all variations thereof.

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

I started a Lupin III Polygang soulmate AU fic, I really want to carry on with it because I love that specific soulmate concept, but I don't really have a plan for what's going to happen in it; and wouldn't you know it, it's waaaayy more difficult to write a soulmate AU fic for five people than for two.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I think dialogue and banter; when I get in the right frame of mind, it practically writes itself. I'm pretty good at writing pacing in action scenes I think.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to write looooooong paragraphs about character's feelings that kind of get out of hand.

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

I love doing it, and including foreign words, but I have to restrain myself otherwise my fics would be unreadable.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Discworld. I discovered fanfiction through a Discworld forum. Although to be honest, I think the first thing I ever wrote that qualified as fanfic was the begining and vague plot outline of a self-insert isekai next-gen story in the universe of Ewilan's Quest, my childhood favourite book series. Ewilan's Quest was a huge and formative part of my childhood, and the reason I wanted to become a writer as a kid. And Discworld was my favourite novel series after that, and it solidified my desire to write stories. Both series are still very dear to me; so it's unsurprising, and very fitting, that my introduction to fanfic and writing was these two fandoms.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I'd like to write a Zenigen fic, if I ever find a precise idea for it.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

That tends to change a lot. Lately, it would be Become, a one-shot about Lupin's journey of finding out he's trans after meeting Jigen; and Hanafuda, my ongoing WIP, a JiGoe florist/tattooist AU where Jigen and Goemon both quit crime before they met and are trying to juggle between their new normal lives, their dark pasts, and what they really want out of life... and their pesky little feelings for each other.

#the hobbit writes #fanfiction

[palfriendpatine66]

for the year in review ask: 1, 6, 12, 19, 20, 25 (but for 2024) :D (you don't have to answer all, whatever you feel comfortable answering)

From the writing year in review asks.

Thank you sooo much for indulging me💕 answers below the cut

1)What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? How did it turn out? Would you do it again?

I’ve been trying a non linear timeline for my obikin serial killer au (Criminal Minds). It’s…going. I like that it’s letting me hilight certain themes and parallels between Obi-Wan’s and Anakin’s experiences that might not come out if read linearly, but it’s tricky to figure out. There’s too many variables of how I can arrange things, when to reveal them. I might do it again if a situation specifically calls for it, but not just for funsies.

6)Did you write for a new fandom or ship this year?

I did both actually! In Star Wars I dipped my toes, very lightly, into some Quin/Obi. Would love to do more. I love them so much. I also recently wrote two smutty one shots for Fellow Travelers! I’ll probably add a few more. This show is still turning over in my mind.

12) What were you go-to writing songs?

None!! I write in silence.

19) What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

I’m not a very detailed planner so it’s very often that a chapter or story goes in a different way than I first intended.

I was surprised by how much positive feedback Can’t Buy Me Love got. It’s making me try to stick with it because I haven’t had any clear ideas and might otherwise have let this one really fall by the wayside, but I’m trying to find some words and add to it because I feel like a lot of people are waiting for it.

20) What did you use to write? (programs, paper & pen, etc.)

Mostly google docs. BUT I got a kindle scribe for Christmas and I think it’s going to be a great tool for me. It makes me just write it out without constantly going back and rewriting what I currently have. It’s way more efficient for me and then I can send it to google docs for editing

25. What’s something you want to write in 2024?

I have a million ideas at all times but I’ll name 3 y’all probably maybe don’t know about yet

A threesome, even though I have no confidence in my ability to write one. Lol I’m going to put together some kind of threesome challenge for posting around Valentine’s Day - because that’s what I want to read lol - so I figure I should write one to submit myself.

A cheating fic I think. It’s been on my mind a lot and I haven’t been willing to commit to it. Probably because I have a hard time making Obi-Wan make bad choices.

And related to that, hopefully a sith Obi-Wan fic - whether a one shot or a much more lengthy idea remains to be seen.

#ask game

[mellowthorn]

I was tagged by @gwenllian-in-the-abbey, thank you so much for the tag! (and sorry that it has taken me forever to do this)

How many works do you have on AO3?

Three currently (I’ve written more for other fandoms but I orphaned those years ago)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

55,643

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I only post for Realm of the Elderlings, but I also sometimes write Kingdom Hearts fics purely for myself

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Uhh, I only have three on my current account, but in order, Someone Other Than Us, After The Sun Has Set and then Ever Your Fool.

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

Yes, or at least I try to! I have a bad habit of thinking my response but never actually writing it down and then forgetting about it completely... But I try my best to remember to reply, even if it ends up taking a while.

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

Neither of my finished fics/oneshots have closed endings, so I guess it depends on what you imagine happens afterwards. Neither of them are exactly happy though.

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

I haven’t finished posting it yet, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that After The Sun Has Set will soon take that title. I mean, it's already happier than anything else that I've written

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No

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

I do, occasionally. I don’t know exactly how to describe what kind, other than that my smut scenes tend to be quite sad?? I like using them as a way to explore or exaggerate some complicated character dynamic, and I guess that’s why they often turn into something at least a little uncomfortable. As much as I enjoy reading smut that’s all sexy and romantic, for some reason I can’t write it myself at all haha

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

Nah

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Nope

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

Fitzloved is my current favourite (and I've never been this intense about a ship before), though Zemyx (from Kingdom Hearts) is the one I always eventually return to

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

Last spring I wrote about 45k words of post-Assassin’s Fate happy ending AU. The outline for it is massive, and what I’ve written so far covers maybe one tenth at most. I know I will never have the patience to finish it, but somewhere at the back of my mind I refuse to let it go. I’ve been trying to see if I could turn parts of it into one-shots or something, but who knows what I’ll end up doing 🤷

16. What are your writing strengths?

I’d say I’m fairly good at characterization, as well as building up tragic and angsty scenarios. My favorite thing when writing fanfiction is to take some (usually sad) aspect of a character/relationship/etc and then dive deep into that, and I think I do it pretty well.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My prose, especially detailed descriptions and creative similes and metaphors and the like. Writing those does not come naturally to me at all, and I feel like I often get stuck using cliches and specific words or phrases, and then have to spend half my time editing to make things less repetitive.

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

 Not my thing, I prefer to keep everything in one language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

 Harry Potter, I think? Way back in like 2008 or 2009.

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

From RotE stuff, After the Sun Has Set. It’s the first time I’ve managed to fully write, edit and post a multi-chapter fic from start to finish, and that alone is a huge achievement for me. Writing every chapter from a different character’s PoV was also a really fun (if sometimes frustrating) challenge and I’m really glad to have done it. Outside of RotE, a few years back I wrote this super self-indulgent novel-length Zemyx fic. I never posted it anywhere and it’s kind of crap quality-wise so I never will, but since it’s basically just every romance trope I’ve ever liked, it’s fun to reread for comfort every once in a while.

#tag game #not going to tag anyone bc im so late to this and cant remember at all which of my mutuals have already done it

[gralunaisland]

I’m honestly not that surprised that gruviugh is being made canon in 100yq. Mashima painted himself into a corner. For Gray to wind up with anyone else juviugh would have to be completely removed from the story in such a way that she couldn’t get back to him. Trapped in Edolas, or held prisoner, or even dead. She’s unfortunately too popular a character for him to consider it, so poor Gray has to suffer because of poor writing/planning. And even though I understand it I will forever be salty because we could have had GrayLu instead

Mashima’s Lose-Lose Situation Because of gr///via

First of all! Thank you so much for your patience and I'm so sorry for taking so long to respond.

Bonnie, when I tell you I searched for hours to find a post of mine where I talked about the stuff you mentioned here, I really did TvT. Oh well, couldn't find it.

Edit: wow I found which post it was months late. It was in this one, my “Why I Ship GraLu” of all places @_@, more specifically, the section I talk about it is right before I explain why GraLu is better endgame than gr///via.)

You bring up such a good point, and I absolutely agree with you! In that long-lost post of mine, I said Mashima basically cornered himself into a lose-lose situation with writing gr///via.

On the one hand, he could scrap gr///via (rightly so) and give Gray a healthy relationship with someone else (*cough* Lucy would've been the best but the Big Four exist so of course she's unavailable *cough*) or even just keep him single and happy, which is always an option! You don't need a love interest to be an interesting, happy character!

BUT then his very loud gr///via fandom would riot in the streets and probably boycott Fairy Tail altogether, dragging its name through the mud everywhere and anywhere they can. It would make it seem to his Pro audience that he baited them and strung them along (when in reality, I think it was the Pro audience who strongarmed Mashima into making gr///via canon (and not just a gag ship) in the first place, so really, it's both their faults).

On the other hand, he could keep gr///via (a travesty) and make it endgame and keep Gray in a soul-sucking, mind-numbing, psychologically-manipulating-and-devastating relationship with juvia. This would be easier for Mashima because he wouldn't have to change his currently consistent way of writing of the two of them, because, since Gray by now has basically been brainwashed into being juvia's groupie, it would, like you said, Bonnie, take a severe shift in the story to make him snap out of it (so deep is the hole Mashima has dug for himself). I'd say juvia's death would be the only feasible way for Gray to escape juvia because from the way Mashima wrote her, her literal undying "loyalty" belongs to Gray only.

BUT then he would be severely undermining his legitimacy as an author (more so than he has already from allowing the horrendousness that is gr///via to exist in the first place). I wouldn't even say disappointing the GraLu fans would be the biggest problem with the whole situation, because GraLu fans don't tend to be so vocal and demanding with their ship because they see the direction Mashima is yanking Gray's romantic storyline in, and they've accepted it by this point. But keeping juvia as the end-goal of Gray would seriously disappoint any FT fan who actually cares for Gray's happiness. I wouldn't say every gr///via fan thinks juvia is actually the right pick for Gray, as some of them have admitted to me that the way juvia is now isn't very healthy, but they can't help but ship them. But those of us who want Gray to not be in the toxic relationship would be very discouraged by the decision to make gr///via endgame. It puts a huge damper on the enjoyment, at least for me, of the entire anime just for her and her antics to exist.

All in all, you're absolutely right that Mashima wrote himself in between a rock and a hard place. It just would've been best for him and for everyone if he'd either kept gr///via as being a blatantly discouraged gag ship, and then went on to keep Gray single or give him someone better to date, or if he'd never introduced juvia in the first place.

But here we are. Thanks, Mashima.

Anyway, thank you so much for sending me such a thought-provoking ask! I hope my ramblings were entertaining to some degree. :D

#sorry i took so long qwq #if only graylu would've happened instead #we really missed out #askgraluna #ask #anti gruvia #anti juvia #anti juvia lockser #fairy tail #anti juvia loxar #defend gray fullbuster #gray fullbuster #anti gray x juvia

[deanwinchesterswitch]

Hired you get started with fanfic? And tips for aspiring writers?

What a fun ask!😍

I apologize in advance as this will probably be more than you wanted to know; I will add a cut. I love talking about writing and helping fellow authors if I can.

The first tip, and in my opinion the most important, is to just write. I have notebooks and pens everywhere. I have fragments of ideas in the Notes app on my phone and tablet. I have dozens of google docs with snippets of dialogue or scenes. I have random sticky notes and pieces of scrap paper full of scribbled words. Inspiration comes at the weirdest times, so be ready for it.😏🤣

Aqua notes are a great way to preserve those shower ideas.

My second tip is to write for you, write what you enjoy. I don't care if it sounds cliche or cheesy. If you are not writing about something you enjoy, then how do you expect others to like it? A lack of delight in what you are writing will definitely show in the finished product.

Read. When you find stories that you love to read, try to pinpoint what you like most about them. Chances are the things you like to read will be part of your writing style.

Your writing will evolve over time. Everyone has their own style and skill level. Don't be too hard on yourself. I cringe a little reading my first fics. However, I still love those stories.

On the technical side, follow proper grammar rules, but don't get hung up on them. A couple of typos are not going to ruin your story. A lot of typos, though, will make it difficult for others to read.

If you are not confident in your grammar skills, find a good beta and/or alpha reader. Someone who understands your style of writing and communicates well. It may take a couple of attempts to find that person. Don't be afraid to not agree with your beta reader.

I can't underscore this enough, it's about communication—from both parties. They should not be forcing their suggestions on you and you should not be rude when disagreeing with them.

Try not to self-edit and proofread while you are writing. Get those ideas on paper or in a doc first. It's a draft—there will be mistakes, and changes will be made. Edit, then proofread. Or have someone else proofread for you. That should be the last step before posting or publishing.

I have a few more tips/thoughts on writing, but I feel like the ones above are generally a good foundation. You are welcome to contact me through my DM if you want to chat.☺️

As far as my personal journey into fanfic ...

I've always been a creator. When I was younger I wrote poems and short stories. Even won a couple of awards in high school. Papercrafts, knitting, and crocheting are on-again off-again hobbies. I had my own business for a while-mixed media art and home decor.

About six years ago it cycled back around to writing. I knew about tumblr through my kiddo.

Yes, I have a kid old enough to be on this site. Yes, they know what I write. No, they don't read it. It's not their genre/fandom of interest. We don't interact on here.

After falling in love with SPN and more specifically Dean, I joined the site to find like-minded individuals. I had already started writing a very self-indulgent fic which I will probably never post. Some things you just have to keep for yourself.😁

After lurking for a few months and connecting with a couple of people, I decided to join a challenge and posted a fic.

It spiraled from there. 🤣🤣🤣

Once again, I apologize for the length of this response. If you read any of my fics, though, you should know how wordy I can be.

Thanks again for this ask. I hope you have a wonderful day!🤗💜🤗

#dw's witch responds #lovely asks #personal post #long post #writing

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

some observations made while editing this fic that i started in 2016 and last touched, idk, 3 years ago? a little less? a little more?

i was able to articulate to myself a while ago that when i'm stuck on a story, there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up something i already wrote, and specifically there's an extremely high chance that i've fucked up by getting things to a point of greater resolution/clarity or emotional positivity than i've yet been able to earn. but like. WOW is that ever true here. a LOT of stuff that has been tweaked/moved/straight up cut has fallen under "he shouldn't know this yet" or "this scene should not end as happily as it currently does." it's funny because when i started this story i remember i was like "i'm just gonna write a super self-indulgent plotless romance story where i just write whatever feels good and don't worry about it." but like. because i am me. this was not physically possible for me to the degree i was attempting to execute it.

similarly, another thing i was like "let's just relax and not worry about this!" about was leaning into, basically, "this is the way this moment would be written in a fanfiction written by a neural network," and guess what else wound up often on the cutting room floor! or, like, heavily edited. like, adam still has a very strong reaction to ronan saying his name at what feels like a potentially charged moment but well before anything has Happened. but it no longer reads "fuck, hearing his name in ronan's mouth did crazy things to his pulse, to his hands, to his mind." and, like, what's funny is that - i wrote that originally because i do enjoy reading that kind of self-indulgent hyper-romantic all feelings all the time fanfic style! like, authentically! but in my own writing i see it and i can't abide it, it needs to go.

i kept the homoerotic creek wrestling scene, though. #yolo

i still think of myself as a show-off, but i've cleaned up a lot of sentences that very transparently read to me now as me not trusting my writing to come off Good unless it was ornate or complicated or deliberately strange to a sufficient degree at all times. i still love a baroque sentence and even more a whole bunch of them stacked on top of each other, and kinda wish i had a fic on deck that would let me really indulge in that direction again, but this is also definitely a shift i have experienced over the past couple years in the magicians fandom - i've become much more comfortable with simplicity, largely because i've just like come to believe after three decades where "good at writing" is by an extremely wide margin the most consistent compliment i have received in my life that if my writing sounds good to me it probably sounds good to other people, and if it doesn't, that's simply not my business. i think these days i have much less of a sense of having something to prove every single time i sit to write down anything. (this is also the shift i have perceived in taylor swift's songwriting post-reputation, which i choose not to interrogate too deeply.) i think it has helped also to read some stories with prose that, like, would be composed of sentences i would formerly think of as too "simple" for me if i thought of them, but reading them in the context of these incredibly good (funny, sharp, moving, gripping) stories has helped me really appreciate the power of concision and simplicity in the hands of someone really fucking smart telling a great story, broaden my conception of what good writing is, and made me more flexible in thinking about the match between style and story, and interested in being more deliberate about that. (oh, and - it also helped to at one point have had an idea for a story i felt VERY passionately about writing and could tell was going to be REALLY long, to the extent that i knew if i didn't calm down about making every paragraph a cut jewel i would never finish it, and i really wanted to finish it, lol.)

all that said, definitely a Thing in this editing process has been that this story bears the marks of whatever i was writing like over the course of like multiple years, and if i wanted to be more of a perfectionist about it i would probably do a couple read-throughs just to make sure i'm keeping to a consistent register. but i don't, so i won't!

the last time i fucked around with this story, i went through it taking notes trying to see if i could articulate for myself what the fuck it was all about. i made some not entirely successful hypotheses, but i guess that process helped because now the central issue of it feels....... maybe not the clearest it could be, lmao. but clear enough that i'm like, ok, this is a story, not just a Series Of Words.

but, i mean, it is to be clear a story with the plot "nice things happen to adam parrish, and he has like eight whole heart attacks about it." it's like, thirty thousand words of that.

related to the stuff above, i've gotten better at not overstaying my welcome by overwriting the end of the scene, but that's probably the place i tend to get most stressed about it and am most prone to getting in my own way. (mostly i feel like my experiences with fic and nonfiction are pretty different, but this is a place of overlap - more than once i've drafted an essay where i really hated the ending i'd written and then had an editor save it by being like "actually i think you already wrote the last paragraph and then for some reason just kept going after it?")

complained about this already but as someone who thinks of like, fanfiction dialogue specifically as something that tends to flow pretty easily for me, it is harder than i would have thought getting ronan lynch to talk about his feelings in a way that feels in character, because of how he never does that in canon ever! i had a couple spots where i made him a little more mush-mouthed or less self aware, but overall i'm like. whatever. i didn't create this problem. it's not my fault.

i definitely don't remember what the fuck the deal is with any of the ley line shit in the books and i am absolutely not going to look it up. also sorry to noah who appears once and then vanishes because i just couldn't deal with ghost worldbuilding at any point in this process.

oh another change i've found myself repeatedly (though not 100% consistently) making is having a character go from "he thought/wanted to say blah blah, but didn't say it" to just having him say it. i think i more consciously want to write scenes that are dynamic instead of like Tone Poems About Feelings Where People Are Talking (although those still have a place!!!!!!! imo), and also am less afraid of having someone say something strong enough to elicit some kind of reaction from the other person. that's DEFINITELY specifically a shift that comes from writing a long magicians fic where my goal in all dialogue scenes was to make them as unhinged as possible and to resist giving myself a safety net by never crossing any real lines. now i think it's fun to have someone just say something and then force myself to figure out what happens next.

when i hit publish this will probably be the closest thing to a straightforward romance i've ever written, because it's about two people having feelings and hooking up and having more feelings and really not a whole lot else, and the romance element of it is central in a way i don't usually do. this is in retrospect probably one reason this extremely simple story has taken me six and a half years to write! but also maybe this means there is hope for the divorced quentin AU yet....

anyway. i actually think i might get this thing up while it's still technically 2022 - i've got a scene and a half left to write, and while if i wanted to hold myself to higher standards about it i would probably want to marinate on the actual ending a little longer after having tightened up the first 25k, i don't so i won't. it would be the longest thing i posted this year, which would be kinda funny. part of me feels like i should chapter it bc it is going to be like 30k, but a bigger part of me wants to be Free, so. we shall see!

#writing tag