#> 50k words

[shikatemarchives]

Of Sand and Shadow by Cinder_Rose - M, angst, romance, 52408 words, multi-chapter, complete

In a time of political unrest between the Hidden Sand and Hidden Leaf Villages, the threat of war hangs over shinobi like a stormcloud ready to break.

For Nara Shikamaru, since taking over his father's role as the Hokage's advisor, fighting for his Village has meant less action on missions and more paperwork in the office - and it's exhausting. Until, one night, he's stolen from his bed by Suna ANBU and quickly realises that dealing with the threat of war is one thing, but dealing with the Kazekage's daughter is quite another.

Come with Shikamaru and Temari on their little roadtrip to Suna and enjoy some romantic killing, imprisonment, and daddy issues.

[morganbritton132]

Eddie: *overhears some girls gossiping about how Steve and Nancy got in a fight in an alley and the police got involved*

Eddie: *hears someone else say that Nancy Wheeler was taken to the police station*

Eddie: *sees Steve jumpy as hell with bruises on his face*

Eddie: *notices that Steve doesn’t talk to his friends anymore. notices that Steve and Nancy always seem miserable together. notices that only one of them is trying to please the other*

Eddie: *witnesses the halloween bathroom fight*

Eddie: *sees Steve confused, beat up, bruised to hell, and single the literal next time he sees him*

Eddie: *puts the pieces together and draws a conclusion*

Conclusion: *is wrong*

Eddie, accosting Steve at lunch: Hey, did you know that if a guy is getting hit by somebody that it’s abuse? Even if it’s a girl doing it.

Steve, confused: Oh-kay?

Steve, deciding that Eddie is reaching out to him for a reason and draws the same wrong conclusion about Eddie: I mean, yeah. That’s - yeah? That’s true. And messed up. You should tell someone if that’s, uh…going on.

Eddie: Yes, exactly. You should.

[aloha-obi]

In some AU out there I like to think there’s a Batman that started out as more “Brucie” the playboy bachelor than self made fighting machine. A Bruce Wayne who was actually more accustomed to throwing epic parties than punching bad guys. A Bruce that tried to drown his grief in every pleasure the world has to offer… until he finds his Robin.

Dick Grayson who comes from the same type of tragedy, only he doesn’t have a billion dollars (or a father figure like Alfred) to fall back on.

This little kid who wants to take on the mob personally - is now targeted by kidnappers who want Bruce’s money - and is suffering from a complete lack of self preservation and the innate compulsion to swing from every chandelier in Bruce’s home.

This kid, who some people in Gotham’s high society look upon with a predatory gaze and whisper things like ‘Talon’ and ‘Court of Owls’ and a dozen other things that Bruce isn’t sure about…. But Dick has nothing and no one and Bruce HAS to step up and be there for him.

So Brucie, with his years of marital arts training (because he still loves his fitness and the ability to defend himself) has to quickly become someone who’s able to protect this kid. Everyone in Gotham thinks Bruce has matured and settled down because he’s a father now - and they aren’t Wrong per se but really - when your kid is that much of a daredevil/trouble magnet, a Bat-themed vigilante gets born out of necessity because Robin was going to go fight the darkness with or without Bruce’s help.

Just imagine a ‘Brucie’ who wants to forget his grief through partying more than punching criminals … and then imagine how that partying DILF becomes BATMAN - born from protective love instead of long held grief.

[mariyekos]

Okay to reblog to help sample size!

[rj0186]

tags: @aroace-get-out-of-my-face @dark-lord-of-awesomeness

[bluenightfm]

moshang are so special to me bc it's basically mutual pining with miscommunication from the get-go. they both kept secrets from one another, qinghua literally thinking he knew his fate to die unrequitedly in love with and at the hands of mobei-jun, and mobei-jun holding how nauseatingly in love he was with his qinghua. how can you be vulnerable enough to let someone in if you're keeping these huge secrets from one another?

not to even begin to mention mr. hack author's apparent ability to forget every single plot point relating to demon courting rituals because even though he was the one that wrote that demons show affection through violence. bitch cowered in fear of his king for YEARS and didn't think that cultural clash might be the reason they haven't frotted even though they've been doing a psychosexual power play for going on ten years .

like yes airplane mobei-jun wants to fuck freaky style and he thought punching the daylights out of you would be the best way to relay the message but obviously he was incorrect. these two men are some of the brightest minds in PIDW but when it comes to each other they become total fucking airheads. why did you two virgin losers think shoving mobei-jun's monster pillar in qinghua with no lube no stretching would be a good idea? rocks for brains

[studioeisa]

JUST LET OUT THE LONGEST YEAHHH, BOI OF MY LIFE

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[thevoidstaredback]

Letters Between Brothers

Masterpost Please don't comment on this post

All Stories

Ao3 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Art Done by @restricted-on-13th and @annarooma 13's piece AnnaRooma's piece Ahhhh! I love their art so much! Go check out the both of them on this platform as well as their others, I promise you won't regret it.

@dpxdcbigbang

[iarrelm]

Hazbin Hotel Swap AU - Charlie. Vaggie. Angel Dust.

Alastor, Husk, and Nifty

Here's the other half of my swap au! I think Charlie and Angel were my favorites out of the six to draw lol

Charlie -> Alastor

In this AU, Charlie's thoughts on sinners are more heavily influenced by Lucifer instead of her mother. Somewhere deep down she still really cares for her people and hates seeing the exterminations come every year, but after spending some time walking around them, a part of her also thinks they might deserve it sometimes.

She's still pretty estranged from her father. She's sort of angry that she's so influenced by him because she wants to love her people so much.

Because of that, she also makes sure to get a much better handle on her demonic powers.

When Lilith goes missing, Charlie decides to start taking a more active role in hell by making deals with sinners.

Mostly, what they consist of is her just asking them to be better. Some of the sinners do take the request from Charlie seriously, but most of them break the deal the moment she leaves their sight.

Does she do anything about those demons? Well, violating a deal with the Princess of Hell does have consequences. :)

(She doesn't do much. She just scares them a little bit.)

Word spread around that the Princess was making deals and some details may have been embellished a bit. Rumors snowballed and eventually she become someone to be avoided at all costs.

She happened to hear about the Hazbin Hotel by chance as she walked by a shop with an old radio in front of it.

She tells Alastor that the only reason she's helping is because she's bored. Everyone else in Hell is avoiding her, after all.

She actually desperately wants to be proven wrong about sinners. She wants to see that they'll try to be better not because she's threatening them to, but because they want to.

Vaggie -> Nifty/Husk

Brought in by Charlie to be the hotel's housekeeper. She has zero experience with this job, but she's a quick learner and Nifty is a decent teacher when she doesn't just grab the mop or broom and do it herself.

She owes Charlie her life. She never made any kind of deal with Charlie, but after Charlie saved her from bleeding out in an alley, she'd do anything to help the demon out.

The two of them aren't dating, because Charlie is under the impression that Vaggie is a sinner. And because of her complicated thoughts on sinners, not to mention the hostile way Vaggie interacts with other people, they didn't end up becoming very close.

Vaggie also doesn't really trust Charlie completely. She seems friendly on the outside, but the deal making seems sketchy.

Vaggie is still a fallen angel/exorcist. And because Charlie has some level of distrust towards other demons, she suspects that something is off but doesn't have enough information to confirm anything.

After being brought to the hotel, she mostly avoids everyone and does her work quietly.

Angel Dust -> Husk/Nifty

Instead of meeting Valentino, he met Charlie.

He was the first sinner that she ever made a deal with. In exchange for her protection, he would do her a favor.

When Angel first heard that he wanted to laugh, but she reminded him a bit of his sister. Not to mention, who better to make a deal with than the Princess of Hell herself, right? He supposes owing her a favor isn't the worst thing in the world.

Because he doesn't make a deal with Valentino, he never moves into the Vee's Tower, which means he spends a lot more time on the street trying to find a place to stay. It leads him to figuring out exactly what to say and do to get a free room for a night until he can find some way to pay for his own.

Charlie offers to help him get his own place but he declines because even if he does feel a bit of a soft spot for her, he doesn't really trust her yet.

He gets really good at reading people. He can tell at a glance if someone is worth trying to talk into letting him stay for a night or two. And also whether or not they'd be dangerous to try convincing as well.

After awhile he ends up meeting Charlie more and more often and eventually they become friends. By that point, their deal has been paid, but now they help each other out just because.

When Charlie calls him to the hotel, he's happy to help. He's the second most enthusiastic person about the hotel, right behind Nifty.

He doesn't know shit about bartending though. He's pretty bad at mixing drinks, but he is really good at charming people, so that makes up for it. Most of the time.

[twispswatch]

I will duel anyone to the death that says AFTG was written badly. I’ve tried explaining the plot four different times not even minding for spoilers, just full run down of the story, and it’s physically impossible

How Nora did that And made it interesting And gave us fluff, comedy, loveable characters, complex personalities, And Perfect**** Neil Pov, I’ll never know. I’m starting to believe she’s inhuman

Idgaf that there aren’t metaphors or that I don’t need a thesaurus to read it. I can genuinely for hours every day of my life pull apart every part of this god damn book series and I’ll never be bored

This post was meant to be funny, idk how we got here. But it’s time we admit that yes, the self-published team-sport mafia romance book with simple language was yes, in fact, amazing and needs to be studied

[dokjaphd]

have begun writing a yoohankim timeloop fic where they all meet in an empty train under mysterious circumstances, every time they try to escape they return to the same place. it’s a mystery fic that’s more psychological with some inspiration taken from severance >_<

hsy has some memories of life outside of this train, she knows she’s an author, she has all the knowledge about the outside world u can possibly think of, she can describe to you what a sunset looks like and how many constellations there are in the sky, but she doesn’t remember anyone in her life that meant anything to her, doesn’t remember close friends or family.

yjh on the other hand has no recollection of anything about himself, except for the fact that he has a sister, and that life is hard and difficult but he went through it anyway to protect his sister.

kdj remembers absolutely nothing. he is an utter blank slate. all he knows is his name.

[morganbritton132]

I don’t know if I saw someone say it on here or on Twitter but a while back I saw a post about Steve going to Tommy’s after Starcourt because his house is a place that feels safe.

And I love it. I want to read a fic about it.

I also want to add: he takes Robin with him.

[thesideburnsalon]

Mid tier memes for your continued health

[sonofa-dreamer]

pro bono chapter 8 is up, happy fucking birthday, adam parrish <3

ronan not beating the tradhusband allegations! bluesey! mimosas! paintings! britney spears! swimming! bonfires!

enjoy!!

[merakiui]

I’m gonna need an entire fic (mera length one shot) about skully and cemetery sex I AM NOT WELL

Maybe it’s a soft noncon/dubcon

- jelly (tossing and turning in my own grave, just hoping for a little skully to bring me warmth joy)

>:) putting that on my list of Skully concepts to inevitably write because oooooo cemetery sex is so scrumptious. Soft non-con but with the added horror of Skully, who already dug a plot for the both of you to lie in when he kills you and then himself in a romantic murder-suicide. Do you see the vision!!! Something something your boyfriend who you didn't realize was so messed up and genuinely creepy and obsessed, and now he's rambling on about the most insane things... T_T so soft with you, kissing your tears away, as he fucks you in that cold, grimy hole in the ground and promises you it won't hurt.

With this, you'll be together forever in death!! There's no need to struggle so much. He understands how appealing it is. After all, he really wants to tie your souls together right this very second, but before that he must love you in every conceivable way (physically first). Then you'll have an eternity to spend cherishing one another. So just be patient with him, dear. <3