#Sometimes this fandom is more fun to read about than to read. it's the worldbuilding that really does it for me

[sanchoyo]

ole anon here again !!! all of your points about why you weren't into it are absolutely valid, it was hard for me to get into it at the start too !! its. very much a shounen queerbait from my perspective at least, but unfortunately i am the demographic for that (⁠ ⁠；⁠∀⁠；⁠) thank you for sharing your thoughts !

in regards to you being That tmm writer for me— even with 3 fics, you have some of my favorite characterizations ever and you seem to just intrinsically understand who the characters are in a very refreshing way. genuinely whenever i miss the tokyo mew mew cast i usually end up rereading all your fics ,, i adore Tokyo Miracle, too ! it's so wonderfully made. and every time, no matter what i read, i usually always end up giggling and kicking my feet. you're by far one of my favorite authors just because of the passion i can see in your works alone (⁠〃ﾟ⁠3ﾟ⁠〃⁠) . im always interested in seeing your thoughts on literally anything tokyo mew mew !!

stay strong my shonen warrior do not say its 'unfortunate' that you're the demo. if it makes you happy then that's good!! even if I'm not into it I am glad other ppl are having fun 🥺 I know the ole fandom is small as it is too so I do hope you can find others who also like it and wanna chat about it in a less critical way than me adjkhfakj (sometimes when I step back I feel like that old man yells at cloud meme. like it is so not that serious where I needed to type THAT much. my inner yuri warrior jumped out ToT)

but AAA THANK YOU?? That makes me so happy to hear... I actually have way more fics for other fandoms BECAUSE. when I write tmm I want it to be REALLY GOOD because I love it so much. so I tend to freeze up and just NOT put a ton out there fic-wise with it bc of that.

I also feel like my work tends to fill a few niches that I don't think would do well- e.i: crackships, and weird meta about how I think the science would go weird and trying to extrapolate on very specific lore that was not mentioned much in the series but I want more info on... whereas I think a lot of ppl looking for tmm fics/fan content like? fluff? cute content of the girls hanging out? (also love that) or common ships? (not to say I don't enjoy some of the more canon ones like mintkuro or masago etc but I know a lot of ppl are going to ao3 for. kishigo. not my wheelhouse but I hope they find good ones and have fun etc) so a lot of my ideas just stay as text posts on here lol (but I have had some banger au ideas as text posts. anyone who sees them is free to take them and run 🫡)

I AM very passionate about tmm though. always. I'm glad to hear it shows and I am super happy if you enjoy my works!! as far as tmm fandom goes I feel like I'm more known on the art side than the writing side but I rly do enjoy doing that too ;w;

[smallgoth3d]

I - Helryx II - Matoro III - Likhan IV - Inika/Mahri V - Karzahni VI - Faxon/Shelek, Mask of Silence VII - Whenua's Shovels VIII - Gadunka IX - BioSector01 Wiki X - Nocturn XI - The Pit XII - The dark hunters, as a group.

Bionicle Reblog Meme

In celebration of the Bionicle fandom being alive and well despite the passage of time (among other things) I’m bringing back tumblr ask memes only make it a reblog meme so blogs that don’t usually get asks can still share their love of Bonkles :)

Pick any/all and reblog with your answers to your:

Favorite Toa

Favorite Matoran

Favorite Turaga

Favorite Toa Team

Favorite Villain

Favorite Kanohi + Mask Power

Favorite Toa Tool

Favorite Rahi

Favorite Bionicle Media (Book, Movie, Game)

Favorite Bionicle Figure or Set

Favorite Setting / Koro / Metru / Island / etc

Any of your favorite Bionicle-related things not already mentioned in this list that you wanna share!

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

[pomrania]

In fanfiction or even just headcanons, when you realize that "what canon says happens" wouldn't lead to "what canon shows the results to be", and you decide you want to fix that mismatch, there's three main methods:

change the thing it says happens, so it would result in what's shown

keep the thing it says happens, but change the result to something that would make sense

keep both the thing and the result, and add in other factors "behind the scenes" so that it all works

For example. Let's say that Character is described as making a cake with ingredients that would not result in anything even vaguely like a cake (imagine the Vanilla Extract recipe), and then canon shows that Character made a perfectly good cake. Using the above methods, in order, we would get:

Character makes a cake with the proper ingredients; the result is a good cake, as shown in canon

Character makes a cake with the canonical ingredients; the result is inedible and gets tossed

Character makes a cake with the canonical ingredients; it turns out horrible; Character goes out and buys a replacement cake, which is the good cake shown in canon

I'm wondering if there's a name for any of this. It's not Doylist vs Watsonian, because the Doylist answer is "the writer/s didn't know how to make a cake"; and Option Three COULD be considered a Watsonian explanation, but we're not dealing solely with "how to explain canon" here, it's fanfic (or headcanons) and thus "canon" is a guideline not a rule. I've seen "universe alteration" or "canon divergence" sometimes used for the first two options respectively, when it's dwelling on a major issue that canon got wrong, but both those terms refer to a lot more than "fixing the mismatch between described action and result". (It's like saying "red" and "blue" to distinguish birds, which works when you know you're dealing with "birds I might see where I live", but I'm looking for the equivalent of "cardinal" and "blue jay".)

In my experience, this happens most often with worldbuilding, because MOST writers don't have the background in economics / agriculture / politics / engineering / etc to build a fictional world where the described systems are consistent with what's shown about that world. And also because when someone in fandom DOES have a background in one or more of those fields, they love to both talk about how canon is Wrong in that regard, and to speculate different ways to make canon Right when it comes to that. Which is fun to read about and share and discuss, whereas "this recipe is nonsensical as described" is a LOT harder to make something interesting out of, so it tends to get kicked under the rug as "canon made a mistake" and then ignored.

[not-poignant]

Hello!

While reading your March writing schedule, I found myself wondering about your WIP process.

If it’s been a while since you last worked on a WIP (say, more than a month), how do you approach returning to it? Do you reread the last chapter to recapture the tone and flow? Spend time immersing yourself in the mood again? Or do you find it easy to slip back in?

Also, does it ever feel like a chore, or are you eager to return to it? Do you typically have the chapters framed and structured in advance, or do you prefer to let the story flow as you go?

And lastly, does writing fan fiction feel more like a hobby to unwind with compared to your other works, or do you approach it with a similar mindset?

It will always amaze me to see an author maintain so many works in process.

Best of luck with everything and hope things get better.

Henlo anon,

If it’s been a while since you last worked on a WIP (say, more than a month), how do you approach returning to it? Do you reread the last chapter to recapture the tone and flow? Spend time immersing yourself in the mood again? Or do you find it easy to slip back in?

It really depends on the story! Some stories I hold very 'fresh' in my head, others, like Smoke in Autumn I can forget about so much, I once wrote two versions of the same chapter and got 2,000 words in before I realised I'd already written a bunch of the next chapter and just never finished it. (My bad, I should have read it back first). What amused me the most is that the content of both was nearly identical, I'd been imagining 'what happens next' and locked it in, but thought I hadn't written and welp.

Most of the time I will check back through the previous through chapters. Sometimes it's just a skim to remind myself where I am, and sometimes I'll actually properly sit down to get in the 'feel' of where a story is at. Some stories need this more than others. Underline the Red has a very specific atmosphere that I associate with Faber, and his story needs deeper reading.

(It got long and kind of serious - TL;DR a look into the process of an author who has been working on too many stories for 2 years and the costs of that.)

Some stories require a lot more work to get back 'into' - Palmarosa because of all the worldbuilding elements, for example, and because there's so many moving pieces right now. I'd like to write a chunk of that this month and just immerse more. I often have to actually reread a few worldbuilding articles I've written as well as the dialogue notes I've taken. Raphael and Astarion have a similar mannerism of speaking, re: their language, so it's important that I remember that their tone is very different. Raphael never gets that many vulnerable or emotional lines in the game, except for when he's angry, so sometimes I'm guessing with him.

It's probably the story I'm most insecure about because it's attracted the most criticism. So I simultaneously do a lot more legwork to get back into it, and sometimes dread writing a chapter and like 5 people pointing out something I've gotten wrong. Most of the commenters have been amazing, but it's definitely been an experience in... learning that the Forbidden Realms (or BG3) fandom is broadly not that fun to write for. Which is a shame, because the story itself makes me super excited, and there's some particular readers who I've met through that fandom who I think 'oh I hope they read and like this chapter' who I specifically think of and enjoy, but then I think of the less fun pockets of fandom (that have found my fic) and pause a bit. I have to kind of forget that aspect of it in order to get back into it again. (Which is funny, considering it's fanfiction and it is my most 'this is for fun' kind of writing. Just goes to show that different fandoms = different experiences). I think the combo of 'this story is one of the hardest I've written in years for worldbuilding commitment and development + this fandom is one of the most exacting and critical of all the fandoms I've been in' makes it feel like I have to climb a mountain to get to wanting to write chapters again.

(I'm sorry to most of the commenters, because truly, most of you are incredible. I need to save your comments off AO3 so I don't stumble into the less wonderful comments - many of which I've ended up deleting).

Meanwhile stories like Underline the Blue are incredibly easy to slip back into, lol.

Also, does it ever feel like a chore, or are you eager to return to it?

As you can tell from Palmarosa, sometimes it can feel like a bit of a chore. That's very frustrating because I have a few disparate parts of me in conflict. I have high fidelity to my stories and refuse to abandon the story because I think it has the potential to be really good especially upon reread, but it can't be a priority as it's not on the official schedule and it has to be after the writing that helps me eat food and pay bills.

Sometimes I'm also just tired. I can't like, just disappear for 2-3 months. I know I do on some stories, and if a reader only reads one of my stories, and that story is Smoke in Autumn, then they must feel like I go off and live my best life for 8 months at a time, lol. But whenever I'm not working on a particular story, it's because I'm working on like 8 other stories, or editing those stories, or making graphics, or thinking about marketing, or trying to find good excerpts, or replying to comments, or replying to asks, or looking after myself / my sick dog etc. Like I'm not actually on a break this month. I'm just on a 'posting regularly on a schedule' break. I have about 13 chapters I need to edit, I need to write a couple of chapters for April and ideally May to have a buffer in case I get really sick, etc.

That being said, the vast majority of the time I'm excited to return to multiple stories, often at the same time. (Decision paralysis has affected my ability to choose when I'm excited about a bunch). All the Underline stories make me excited, Stain does, Second Star is a bit intimidating right now because there's so much I need to figure out about Kadek, lol, but I'm mostly excited, and I'm very lucky to be writing so many stories I love. Even Palmarosa once I start and get into it, makes me super excited, that one I'm just less eager to start.

Do you typically have the chapters framed and structured in advance, or do you prefer to let the story flow as you go?

I don't structure anything in advance until the very end of a story (and even then, not always, like Constellations never had a structure).

That being said I like the advice of 'don't finish when you run out of things to say, finish writing when you know the next sentence or paragraph, or have an idea of what's going to happen next. That way when you open the document the next day, you aren't sitting in a state of frustration, you already have a place to start.' I usually have an idea of what is taking place in the next chapter based off the chapter I've just written and foreshadowing/plot I've been introducing.

And lastly, does writing fan fiction feel more like a hobby to unwind with compared to your other works, or do you approach it with a similar mindset?

Fanfiction can be my fun writing, it's also my experimental writing, and my 'I wonder what happens if I do this' writing. It's my 'I want to put these two together and see what happens' writing. Sometimes it's harder than anything original I'm doing. Some of the most involved stories I've ever written that needed the most research have been fanfic - Stuck on the Puzzle, the Beast that Chose its Own Bridle and Palmarosa have all required more work and time in worldbuilding and research than anything original I've ever written except for canon Fae Tales.

Now that A Stain that Won't Dissolve is on the schedule it gets treated kind of as professionally as most of my original writing. Anything 'off the schedule' is treated as writing for fun. That includes original writing like Smoke in Autumn which has so few readers comparatively I know it would be a useless story to try and monetise through Patreon/Ream so I don't bother, and update it when I feel like it / when I have time. Palmarosa is 'fanfic for fun' in the sense that yeah, I hate that I can't update regularly but it's also what I'm doing in my spare time as a hobby, and my spare time isn't exactly...generous. :D

It will always amaze me to see an author maintain so many works in process.

I don't like maintaining this many works in progress. This kind of happened as a result of getting medicated for ADHD for the first time in my life and suddenly being able to develop a more efficient system that didn't take into account how sick I was. It was like I planned to always be writing on my best days.

And now I'm disentangling myself as a writer who often writes 2 long stories at a time. For a decade that was all I did, pretty much. This is not normal for me. The last 2-3 years have been kind of a very big and hard lesson, because I didn't feel right putting any on 'until this story is finished I can't come back to this' hiatus. Especially because, in the 'best problem but still a real problem to have' ever, I love every single one of those stories. I love them. I enjoy writing them. I enjoy the characters. I'm not burnt out on the stories or the characters, I'm burnt out on having so many of them going at the same time.

I will never - I hope - work on this many stories ever again. It's overwhelming, and it is challenging to carry so many different worlds etc. in the air. On my good days I can do it, but ngl, I don't think it's a coincidence that my growing burnout / writing less overall / handling less over the past 2 years and needing more breaks coincides with mentally having to hold 8-9 different stories across 5 different worlds in my head.

It's one of those 'I can do it because I know it will end one day, but if you told me I'd have to keep working on this many stories at the same time forever, I'd quit tomorrow.'

I love writing so so much, but it's been a rough 2 years.

Ironically growing more ability to handle things that I never used to be able to do - idk if many readers know this, but for the vast majority of me being on Tumblr and AO3 I never had a schedule, I never posted excerpts, I never had graphics, y'all just got chapters when I had them, sometimes 5 a week, sometimes none for a month. Like for 8~ years of my life and the life of some of the readers here, that was just how it worked - actually has made things much harder on the bad days and the mediocre days.

Stuff that I can do when my executives are functioning (I like to imagine them like a bunch of mostly incompetent besuited idiots in a boardroom who can only very occasionally get their shit together with the help of prescription meth), is still stuff that makes me want to scream and tear my hair out sometimes.

It feels like it has actually taken so many spoons away from my writing (which is, upsettingly, I think why I feel so awful when people say I'm not posting enough excerpts anymore, or get upset when people say the schedule doesn't have enough on it, or is missing a story they really want, and I want to say 'well ironically all this stuff is why I can't write like I used to, but it's also why I can probably pay the bills now, because more readers find my stuff than they used to, so I'm in the Catch-22 of 'yay I can afford more healthcare' and 'now I need more healthcare because of this').

Anyway, I'm sorry anon, some of your questions have a very simple answer of 'yes sometimes I do read back through old chapters to get back into the feel of that story!' :D And some of your questions have a more existential 'the thing that feels most like a chore is this many stories, this much executive functioning, and pockets of this one fandom that will not hesitate to point out that Mephistopheles shouldn't be blue because of that one campaign they read that one time.'

I'm figuring it out. I'm very lucky to have the best readers in the world broadly speaking (truly, I have literally gotten some comments that make me open up a new word document to immediately start a chapter of something, that's a miracle), and stories I love to write, because like if I truly felt writing was a chore, or that the people I was doing it for made it a chore, I really wouldn't be here. This isn't a job you do if you want an easy job dsafflkjdas (retail was way easier, I'm just too physically sick to do it, lol).

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

20 Questions (for fanfic writers)

Thank you for the tags, @cindle-writes and @izharmilgram! I'm procrastinating on other responsibilities, so let's have some fun~

Tagging @i-dream-of-libraries, @chaos-bear, @floatingdandelionseeds, @pitzer, @riverxsong-ao3, @tommarvoloriddlesdiary, @thefangirlibrarian, @hikarimeroperiddle and @blackseatwenty (no pressure, only if you want to! ♡♡♡) and anyone else who wants to talk about their fics -- consider this your tag! ♡

how many works do you have on ao3? 47

what's your total ao3 word count? 226,795

what fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter, Yuri!!! On Ice

top five fics by kudos: A long, hard road; Gone bananas; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; unfailingly ingenious at having a good time (surprised the cat!Harry fics are so high tbh) Edit: I can't read... (:‚‹」∠) Top five fics by kudos are as follows: Gone bananas; A long, hard road; thrown into the nest; refuge from the miseries of life; and Coriander (not a big change, but it does explain why the cat!Harry sequel was so high...)

do you respond to comments? uhh... occasionally. Social anxiety kicks my ass and so I put my energy into writing fic instead. I love every single comment I get and reread them any time I need a pick-me-up, but I am a bad author who doesn't reply...

what is the fic your wrote with the angstiest ending? hmm... probably pyrrhic victory, but Capsized is also a contender

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? considering I write mostly fluff and crack, this is a surprisingly difficult question to answer... I'm gonna go with either if you like it, then... or thrown into the nest. Or maybe don't blame the stork? (Some lovely reader out there is shouting at their screen, "Flaky, you goof, it's obviously ____!!" and they're correct.)

do you get hate on fics? Nope, not really! Some readers express that they wish I'd done certain things differently, and a couple have said I ended a fic badly, but I don't think I've received anything I'd consider hateful.

do you write smut? uhhhh... sometimes. When it's the best way to tell the story I have in my head, then I'll write smut. But it's still a bit uncomfortable to do. I'd like to think I'm getting better at it?

craziest crossover? I'm not sure I've actually written anything that could really be considered a crossover, but A real voyage of discovery is kind of a mash-up of Harry Potter characters in a Star Trek-y world? And it has alien!mort, and I think he's nifty.

have you ever had a fic stolen? A couple of my fics have appeared on Wattpad without my permission, but other than that, no.

have you ever had a fic translated? Yep, a few! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

have you ever co-written a fic before? Not yet -- I don't really know how it'd work, and I'm afraid to try (¬_¬") Intensely private about my writing before it's ready to post unless you're Jenny. But! I'm counting the Telephone and the Corpse (coming soon) because they're collaborative (in a way) and have been such a major part of my fandom experience!

all-time favorite ship? tomarrymort~ (honourable mentions to sefikura, madohomu, and viktuuri)

what's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Fingers crossed I'm not breaking anyone's heart with this, but probably Let's Talk About Sex, Baby. I have some more written for it, but it's been a while since I've returned to it and other projects interest me more. I have every intention of finishing my WIPs, but... there are only so many hours in a day and my energy is, sadly, finite (´•︵•`)

what are your writing strengths? whimsical finger guns! Poignant fluff? Emotions. silliness, and dialogue, probably.

what are your writing weaknesses? Worldbuilding, continuous narratives (as opposed to short scenes without much context), plot-heavy narratives, description, writing the main characters in true opposition to each other, fleshing ideas out rather than keeping it (overly) brief... I'm sure I'll think of a bunch of other things as soon as I post this.

thoughts on dialogue in another language? I'd like to! I speak French reasonably well, and I'm lucky enough to have some fandom friends who speak other languages, so I'm sure I could beg their assistance.

favorite fic you've written? Hhhhhhh, why must I choose? I'll go with naïve melody, because it still gives me the warm fuzzies. I'm just so proud of the tone, and I really like how that Voldemort comes across.

[greenerteacups]

Hey GT, glad to see you're back! I'm still halfway thru Lionheart (just read the world cup chapter, what a delight) and your notes got me wondering.

I'm sure you've probably answered this before but how do you manage to make the world feel so rich? I'm not that into the fandom so I don't know If there are some things fanon agreed upon or if it is your own musings about the magic world. Like Draco explaining to Hermione about portkeys or how many languages Krum speaks.

How do you decide what's important enough to get a mention? Where do you go when you need answers and Canon is not enough to provide it?

Thanks for the kind words, and for the question! It's a matter of personal taste, like anything. Some writers prefer an athletic, streamlined plot, with only as much worldbuilding as you absolutely need (how does Panem run a command economy of 4.5 million people primarily on fossil fuels when its coal district has a population of less than 10,000? fuck off! who cares! they're Y/A dystopias about a TV show where teens beat each other to death!). Some writers, on the other hand, won't bother to start the story until they know the pH of the soil in every region of the world they're writing about. I'm somewhere on the second half of the scale, in that I'll give details that aren't strictly necessary to the plot, just because I like to feel like I'm writing about a world where real, extraneous things can happen. Some details are foreshadowing; some details are Special Mouseketools that will Help Us Later; and sometimes, you just get to know a cool fact about portkeys.

I guess part of the fun of building out a world is getting to think about Everything, which is what my brain normally does. I have a pretty broad body of literature as a starting gate, so there's plenty of room to play. E.g., when I started writing Krum, I thought about how he's not super fluent in English in canon, and that naturally made me ask why, because he clearly has taken English, so either he only started lessons recently or it hasn't been a priority for him; and then I went "wait, what's his first language? Bulgarian, right? But Durmstrang isn't — hang on—" and then I pulled up an actual map of Europe, which led me to realize that he wouldn't likely be speaking his first language at Durmstrang, which means he already had to become bilingual just to start his wizarding education, and that explains part of why he doesn't have a ton of time/effort to spare for a third language, plus he'd probably have a translator available whenever he traveled with a team because he's a B.F.D. — etc., etc. And then you keep thinking about that until you remember that you're supposed to be writing a fic, and you scramble to get back to doing that. Only now, you have worldbuilding! Congrats.

To try for an even halfway useful answer to your question: worldbuilding becomes most important when it creates limitations, because limitations define your characters and give them chances to develop/reveal themselves. So the details of portkeys become important because they explain the limitations of magical travel, which is a big nebulous ??? in the original series, since the introduction of teleportation via Apparating means that all other forms of transportation become inefficient by comparison. It also means the limitations introduced by travel — that is, not all characters can be in all places at once — also go away, because anyone can be anywhere immediately. From a narrative perspective, this sucks massive horse ass. Hence: I dumped a shit ton of limitations on Apparation (i.e., (1) it requires a ton of energy, (2) it's really fucking hard, (3) it's really fucking dangerous, (4) it's more of both the farther away you're going, (5) it's more of both the more people you take with you, (6) you can't Apparate without a clear destination in mind which means (7) you need to have been there already, and so (8) some people prefer not to do it). Hence, I also put limitations on portkeys (i.e., they have to be set up well in advance, you need to identify out both destinations precisely beforehand, and the calculations are difficult to do). Those limitations, and the Watsonian explanations you create for them, are your worldbuilding. They're what make the world feel real, because they give it grit and character. They give you a more complete sense of what you can and cannot do.

The rest of it is taste and preference, really; it's what interests you, and what parts of the world you want to explore. That's going to be unique to every author, and that's the beauty of worldbuilding — it reflects the parts of the world that you like to think about.

[ruiniel]

💌 Create Your Own: 5 Fics You Feel Deserve More Engagement 💌

Thank you for the mention Kenna @keepsdeathhiscourt ! See original post on Kenna's idea here:

The aim is simple: pick 5 fics of your choosing, in the fandom(s) of your choosing, on the platform(s) of your choosing (ao3, Tumblr, FFNET, etc.) and write a little something about why you like them, or why you think they deserve more than they're getting etc etc.

There's no barometer for this, you decide whether or not you feel a fic is getting enough love or not based on how you feel about it. We're just here to share the love.

Here's 5 picks from me:

For want of a nail by Sakasama_Onihime

Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: Senju Tobirama/Original Female Character

Summary:

Otsu has found her calling in doing odd jobs, but her newest client, a young princess from the Land of Fire, might just be the one who gets her prematurely retired. A vengeful princess. A spurned love. A paranoid shinobi. Otsu really should have asked for much more money.

Sometimes you enjoy someone's writing so much that you'd dip into a universe unknown to you knowing you'll have a great time reading. This is what happened to me with 'For want of a nail': an incredible comedy of errors with sprinkles of crack, adventure and superb chemistry between the characters.

The original female character, Otsu, is a foil to the canon male character Tobirama. Her POV scenes are brilliantly funny, her no-nonsense attitude is great and she comes alive in each and every movement of the story. Reading this with little knowledge of the Naruto canon I can honestly say Otsu is what has me hooked.

The tidbits of Japanese language and culture add another wonderful layer which makes this fanfiction such a vibrant experience for me.

time passes and before you know (we’re in the place we thought we were never going to go) by @yuzukimist

Fandom: The Silmarillion, The Lord Of The Rings

Pairing: Glorfindel/Maeglin

Summary:

It's been well over a decade since Maeglin was reembodied and yet he still finds himself struggling to adjust to the world he finds himself in. It's not surprising, objectively speaking, especially since it is now the Seventh Age and he was born -and had died- in the First.

This story has so much to offer. Aside from bringing two of my favorite characters in the Silmarillion together in a pairing I've always been invested in, you will also find a fantastic level of worldbuilding creativity.

Welcome to the Seventh Age of Arda. First Age references are there and plenty, linking the characters' pasts together in a way that is both fun and painful. Maeglin's stream of thought is wonderfully relayed and the way his point of view is written is just my cup of tea. Add the humor, the honesty, the awkwardness of remembrance, tenderness and the past between himself and Glorfindel - these make for gorgeous, charged exchanges and emotional hurt/comfort moments.

All of this happens on the backdrop of a mystery they must now collaborate to solve while navigating an ancient chasm... and finding something new.

In For a Pound, In for a Dime by Sakasama_Onihime

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Gojo Satoru/Original Female Character, Gojo Satoru/You

Summary:

You are Kisaragi Noriko, Sergeant Inspector for the Second Investigation Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police, the Bureau of Criminal Affairs. One incident will change everything you thought you knew about the world. What will you do when you find out about the hidden world of curses? What will you do when the human laws you uphold are not enough? And will the most powerful sorcerer, the man Gojo Satoru, be your ally or your enemy in your own quest for answers?

Mystery, clashing between Jujutsu society and criminal police, undercover missions and misunderstandings? Sign me up. Love the original character build here and Gojo's characterization feels right at home.

The story starts with a murder case, and our OC has no idea what she's getting herself into as it all unfolds. The setting is ideal for a Jujutsu Kaisen story and we get a view of the challenging environment that makes Kisaragi's world, adding the prejudice she faces every day. Her developing trust and relationship with Gojo is a bumpy road full of great organic interactions dipped in the writer's signature humor. Written in second person POV with an exciting pace that leaves you wanting more!

What we'll find by @hirazuki

Fandom: The Silmarillion

Relationship: Maedhros & Mairon

Summary:

Maedhros visits Mairon; as one typically does an old enemy, after the story has ended.

An AU meeting between Maedhros and Mairon, set in the Fourth Age. This story stayed with me for the beauty of narration and the bittersweet mood it evoked. The references to the past and each of their roles in the major events of Beleriand history are wonderfully represented in this short, seemingly casual interaction, carved in both memory and flesh.

It's also one of my favorite Mairon POVs I've read, showing his sharp, inquisitive, practical nature... and here, an ever so subtle hint of loneliness. There is an air of forgiveness and understanding to this exchange as well (in how I interpret it at least), and the evocative style just pulls at the heart strings.

OK this is 4 not 5 because I am unable to function but will do more rounds of this.

Tagging: anyone who likes the idea and wants to

[cartoonjessie]

Hello friend, please answer all the fanfic asks where the number ends in five (5, 15, 25 and so on)

One of them is an (insert fic here) and it's your choice which fic to discuss ❤️❤️

Dear lord. XD Do you know how verbose I can get? This is probably going to become a long answer, but I'll make an effort to keep it brief and add some pics just for funsies.

5. how many wips do i have? I think 3 currently. 1. Heart of the Ship for the Rumbelle fandom, been working on this since 2013. Don't ask. 2. The Dance of the Demigods. Hooked Wayfinder goodness, my take on Moana 3, this one is going great. I'm over 40K. 3. Only Fools Rush In - the idiot hotel receptionist Maui/tourist Moana fic I started a few days ago. I think I need another 5K words or so to finish this off. Will probably post it before Valentine's Day as a gift to the Hooked Wayfinder shippers.

I have about 40 finished fics on AO3 and 10 unfinished ones. I don't think those numbers are bad but sometimes think "I should go back and finish some of those"

15. favorite time to write nighttime.

25. favorite part of the writing process probably the actual writing. and then the rereading afterwards. I spend time worldbuilding too and while I don't dislike that, I really enjoy getting the scenes on paper.

35. fav fic I've posted I can't choose between my babies... Though... Our Future Together (Hooked Wayfinder) probably had one of the best receptions out there. I was blown away by that, so that holds fun memories. Sadly unfinished, though I'm thinking of going back to it and wrapping it up (differently than I originally had in mind) - it has a really dramatic undertone though which I need to be in a specific mindset for.

45. genre/trope i write most I prefer romance/adventure/comedy as a genre (I think comparing it to something like Pirates of the Caribbean wouldn't be wrong - that's the genre I love writing.) tropes: enemies to lovers, beauty and the beast, mortal/immortal, 2 people against the world, neurodivergent demisexuals... There's probably a ton more I'm forgetting.

55. patterns I've noticed in my fics My characters have some of my own neurodivergent traits. I never see it at the moment but always years later. They're often more sensitive than they show the world, feeling outcast from the rest of society, deeply longing to contribute while simultaneously wanting to be left alone. Sometimes they're outcast because of their status (demigods, for example), sometimes just because they're more sensitive than others (Hux in my Reyux fics), learning to emotionally regulate better, very often unable to open up to others until that special someone comes along that's exactly their kind of weird... They're usually smart but also dumbasses.

75. Is there a certain fic readers gravitated towards that you didn't expect? Bedmates, my Rumbelle fuckbuddies AU. It's not precisely PWP but probably fits that bill better than my other Rumbelle stories. I remember loving that it got read, but also feeling sad that the Rumbelle stories I put more plotting/effort in never got that kind of hype-response.

Thanks for the questions, friend! Hope I answered them to your satisfaction.

[sitehound]

Hello Hello! I hope you don’t mind me reaching out like this — I wasn’t sure if you only take in-character asks, but this is for the mod.

I’ve been following your blog for a little while now, and I just wanted to say I really admire your work; Your OCs are so creative and interesting, and it’s been super fun reading bits of their lore and all that.

I’ve been thinking about starting a fandomless OC blog myself, but I’m honestly not sure how to go about it. I’ve run a few canon character and even fandom OC blogs before, so I have experience with that, but even with open starters and promos, I always had trouble getting interactions. Since your blog seems so well-loved and active, I was wondering if you might have any advice for getting started and receiving interactions?

Of course, no worries if you’re too busy or don’t really do OOC asks — I just thought I’d ask! Either way, I hope you have a great day/night, and thank you for your time. Absolutely no pressure whatsoever!

little side note; my character already has all her lore written out and such.. I just don’t really know how to execute it properly along with the reasons mentioned above..

unprompted ; always accepting !

OH GOSH. Good question. Honestly, the way I receive interactions is through obsession and engagement. The obsession portion is just me obsessively discussing my OCs and writing them. Roleplay is one of those things where doing is more important thant the thinking of doing, I don't know if that makes sense.

As for receiving interactions, honestly I just recommend reaching out to people. Liking starter calls, sending memes, asking if you can make answered asks into threads and going off from there. I'm not from around these woods but something I've noticed about tumblr culture that's a bit different than what I'm used to is that there's a bit of an initiative crisis? People are sometimes hesitant about reaching out to others and getting the ball rolling. Not that I don't get it, because it can be really daunting, but it makes it all the more refreshing when you reach out first and put the effort in. It shows a more active interest and honestly it'll snowball from there. People will eventually see you interacting with other people and will want to interact with you because they might jive with your work and character concepts.

As for bio and lore, there is one truth that I have seen above all: roleplayers don't like reading. I say this lovingly as someone whose eyes ALSO glaze over if I try to learn about someone's OC and suddenly I'm met with 25 paragraphs of unorganized worldbuilding. I ADORE it from a creativity standpoint, but accessibility and collaboration should be, in my subjective opinion, the guiding principles. I firmly believe in this idea of "give people what they need and make everything else a bonus".

I need to redo Gumi's carrd, but there's a reason her bio is separate from her lore. I have her bio as a summary so people can decide if she's a character they'd like to interact with. I list the necessary things like her job, where she can be found, and basic backstory things to show her character motivation. If people want to know lore, I make that a separate tab for the most studious of oomfs.

I also recommend just making headcanon posts and linking them to a masterpost and kicking that around, linking it in rules or bio, so if people really jive with your work, they can go there to read more.

I hope this helps somewhat! I'm not sure what your lore and bio look like, but this is just general advice for what I find personally works and help people get into it a bit more!

Best of luck on your RPing journey!!

[cloud-somersault]

Your fic "The constellations within us" was so perfect, and exactly what I wanted and needed for since I joined the fandom. I wish I had eloquent words but english is not my native language, and I'm struggling with the translator now, but this fic is probably one of the most high quality ones I’ve ever read so i've finally worked up the energy to leave a solid comment.

I love your prose, the descriptions and internal monologues are so immersive and emotional that I need to reread over and over again. The worldbuilding scratches my brain real nice, all contribute to make a really cohesive image that canon still doesn't quite achieve in my opinion. And you did a good job capturing the mood and humor of the show with every little detail but at the same time you’ve added a whole new dimension to the plot and characters. Keep cooking, I beg you but also have mercy on me. I imagine you saying something like: I am going to create an situation that is so emotionally fucked up before writing any chapter.

I really love the way shadowpeach interact in this story. From trying to kill each other to sharing the food. It's kinda crazy that people genuinely thought shadowpeach was a one sided crush until s4.

To be honest, I'm not a fan how the fandom treats shadowpeach but you have successfully kept the characterization of mystical monkeys to perfection while setting up a realistic shadowpeach plotline. I read this quote in another fic but it applies very well to them: "They really embody the pain/comfort thing, except that comfort is understanding and trust."

Sun Wukong is canonically a latent danger that not even the most powerful entities in celestial realm or underworld could subdue him, but he has no self preservation skills whatsoever. He's a bleeding heart. He's the one who sacrifices everything possible to protect the few he loves because, god, he has lost so much. The immortality he achieved with peaches, wine, pills, among many other things, may have made him indestructible on the outside, but inside they made him emotionally vulnerable, lonely and afraid of attachment. This monkey can fit so much trauma and he's holding a lot close to his chest even from the audience. The fandom villainizes him unfairly, but sometimes they also put him on some kind of pedestal, which is also incorrect.

The same happens with Macaque. He's the walking mystery who may or may not realize how much of a prickly capricious hypocrite he is in some things. For example, he feels an apparent resentment at being relegated to being a mere shadow of someone much brighter, but at the same time he seems unwilling to step out of that role. In s1 and s3, he clings so much to the past that he pushes Wukong, the only constant of him in a modern world after his resurrection, to be the version he remembered. Where Wukong advanced, Macaque retreated.

Nonetheless, the motives behind every action of his are more nuanced than him just being evil. He did once he was free from LBD's control was immediately start helping everyone even until s4, as if it were a tacit way of apologizing because he was just trapped under incredibly shitty circumstances, let's remember the part where LBD said she'd kill him if he didn't do what she wanted. Although I don't think he didn’t have fun knocking everyone around a bit (to his ex-husband especially).

It's little funny because I consider that before the perigranation trip, Wukong is a self-proclaimed hero with destructive or villainous tendencies (depending on which side you look at, celestial Realm definitely sees it that way still) while in the current timeline, Macaque is a self-proclaimed villain with heroic tendencies.

I wont keep rambling, but thank you again for pouring your time and talent into this beautifully painful read. I can't wait to chew on the next chapter like a hungry dog ​​with a good steak and also I'll be keeping an eye out for your future works, in case you continue writing about queer monkeys with emotional constipation, but if not, it's such a treat to read what you've already gifted us. Have a good week! and sorry for any translation errors again.

AAAAAH i'm sorry i've taken so long to respond to this. this ask is SO SWEET and i loved just rereading it over and over to suck all the serotonin out of it. Filled me with gleee!!

Thank you so much for taking the time to translate and write out this message! There weren't any errors, it's okay! I'm so glad you liked my story sm and read it and ENJOYED IT YAAAAAY!!!

honestly, I only cackle evilly before posting chapters sometimes. Only sometimes, when I remember. I usually cackle while writing, but then, by the time I've posted it, I've read it so much, it doesn't have that emotional impact on me anymore LOL

I think that's a great way to sum up shadowpeach! It's about understanding and trust. No matter what, that trust has to be rebuilt, and that process is so painful and hard and time-consuming that...it takes such a great amount of effort on both their parts. It's the choice to persevere in spite of that amount of hardship that makes them beautiful, even if what they create together isn't inherently beautiful. What's beautiful is that, in spite of tragedy, these two monkeys want to be together in whatever way they can.

I think with any fandom, people are going to misinterpret characters. I've kind of gotten used to it, but there's definitely a lot of missed nuance and character depth that the fandom chooses to not see or doesn't except. Maybe they like to keep it surface level, but i think critically thinking about the plot and characters is where you can find depth or make depth of your own that's not present in the show.

Wukong is either a trickster villain or a precious soul who has done no wrong and needs to be protected. Macaque is usually a mustache-twirling villain or a sweet, bashful monkey who was just pretending all that time! and has never done anything bad.

A lot of the fandom sees things in a clear black and white way, which is dangerous for several reasons, but it means that their interpretations lack that depth or understanding that people crave. Because no one is black and white. The world doesn't work that way, so it's kind of worrying that they think that's...normal. It's not normal. I see it as a lack of life experience and maturity, but I also don't know these people. Maybe they like their fictional worlds to be black and white, I dunno.

Aaaanyway, you're not the first person to speak about this topic with shadowpeach and how, through constellations, they found some understanding or were pleased with how shadowpeach interacted. and to that I say, thanks! I just like some realism and three dimensional...ness to my characters, please and thanks. Don't even get me started on MK.

But wow! Yes! I'm so honored you'll keep reading whatever I write next. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing, and I'm just smashing my dolls together, but I'm happy to have you here in Constellations AU land! Welcome! Enjoy your stay 💕

[caparrucia]

Hi there! Few days ago my brain randomly reminded me of Kingsglaive and hours later I ended up scrolling ao3 looking for fics that feature Nyx, any fic, hoping there're more fics for him than the last time i checked (years ago, i think?) and surprised there's a Cor and Nyx ship??? I mean... HOW? And why? But somehow I spent past three days reading your Cor/Nyx fic in ao3. Started with your "flower soulmates AU", classic trope, figured it'd be hard to go wrong with that. First sentence intrigued me, 8000 words later I was whisked away by the imagery, feelings and humor also a bit wistfulness sometimes. And then "glitter and gold". And then "the sun is out, the day is new" It was a JOY to read it! (holding back to read "always darkest before dawn" because, was it discontinued?) Your worldbuilding of Galahd culture (the Walk! the. WALK) it just fills this pockets of imagination for all these cultural aspects we’ve only got tiny glimpsed before. Your words pulled me in and now I am well and truly hooked on this ship hahaha. Just wanna say you're amazingly talented (superpower with words I swear) and thank you for writing about Nyx. 💜

So, first of all, thank you for your kind words and welcome to the CorNyx fandom, it's cozy and fun!

I do want to say I am not and have never claimed to be patient zero for the CorNyx ship, but I did write a fic specifically to infect as many people as possible with my ship because... you know. I'm a writer, that's what I do. :P

Why Cor and Nyx? To me personally because I watched Kingsglaive, watched the speech Nyx gave the Lucii and went "huh, so he's just Cor but younger" and that thought immediately spawned a need to see these two butting heads (and other things!) ASAP. Cor is my darling boy, mostly because he's a shonen action hero that grew up, and he's forty fucking five years old and still wears red sole shoes and three shirts layered like it's cool. He's a moron, I love him.

Nyx is Nyx! Kingsglaive spent so long painting a picture of an interesting main character shafted into side character status - a thing that XV does a lot, in that the bros are all flavor of Main Character, while Noctis is very much refusing the call at every step he can - and I'm so very fond of him.

So hey, let's write a story to chew on the idea and see if I can convince people to ship it. The story was the sun is out, the day is new, and the answer was overwhelmingly yes! And so here we are. XD

always darkest before dawn is and isn't abandoned, in the sense that I realized I needed to rewrite some bits and I might as well scrap it all and rewrite it from scratch but that takes time and I've been drowning in work and getting swallowed by other fandoms in the meantime so it's been a while. I need to get to it because I need people to know what's the deal with Prompto, because it's so good. SO GOOD. I love my boy.

glitter and gold exists purely because of the awesome @garbria, and if you want some quality CorNyx, well. /Will Smith memes. She's got you covered, trust me. /chef kiss

And if you've still got a hungering for more CorNyx from me, I know it's still on going and truth is I update once a year at this rate, but it is my baby and I try my best not to post cliffhangers (or to resolve them quickly, lmao) but you might want to give nature of the beast a try. It's got teeth, for all it's very soft and squishy in its own way.

[niennawept]

20 Questions for Writers

I was tagged by @lordoftherazzles and by @thenookienostradamus! Thank you both! These are some cool questions!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? Thirteen at the moment (not counting an Adar headcanon collection), but likely to be more soon.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 170,865 (not bad for a year and a quarter)

3. What fandoms do you write for? Tolkien broadly (so far it's been Rings of Power, The Silmarillion, and The Hobbit - no LotR yet, but I do have an idea for one)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Click with caution, all of these but the second one are rated E; apparently, I am mostly known for Adar smut: Scars of Silver and Gold, Because the world is ending, Mistletoe Mischief, Calendar Girl, Until the Stars Burn Out

5. Do you respond to comments? Might take me a bit, but yes, I always do. I figure that someone gave me a little of their time in writing out a comment and I can give them some of mine in return. It's especially fun when people are predicting things; I love hearing what they think will happen.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Mmmm. I think it's probably Scars? Without spoilers, my protagonist lost something very important to her and although there's a lot of good things about that ending - she's still going to have that loss to grieve in the next fic and it'll inform her next arc. I'd say it's still a bittersweet ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I don't really do purely happy endings? I write a lot of hopeful endings, but most of them have some darkness lurking under them. I guess if I have to pick one, it's into the wild because that's technically a fix-it fic with Nienor getting saved by Mablung. Although, I might continue it some day, and it would inevitably get some Nienna-the-Song-is-tinted-with-grief flavoring.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Uh, yes. I'm not sure what "what kind" means here? I guess I've written a variety- from kind of dreamlike and romantic to fics featuring BDSM-related kinks.

10. Do you write crossovers? I have never written one. I think that I'd probably never directly write one. But I might do something like shove Elrond into the plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for a bisexual awakening set sometime in the Second Age. Not sure if that's a crossover or just a retelling though.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes. Into Russian, if I remember correctly. It was a long time ago and I'm not in that fandom anymore.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yeah, I'd say my THAUC piece counts as co-written in the sense that my artist partner and I talked through the main ideas and beats of the story together.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Uhhh for Tolkien, I'm afraid I don't have one (I like a lot of ships, but there's not one all-consuming one). So - I guess I pick Sesshomaru/Kagome from Inuyasha? That's the pairing I read when I don't know what else to read.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't start a lot of WIPs. I have a lot more ideas for fics than I have documents or text written, but I do have a Finrod piece that I'm not sure I'll ever finish. I have a lingering idea that might save it, but I think that needs more time in the oven.

16. What are your writing strengths? Mmm - I think worldbuilding, specifically for culture is one of my strengths. I also think that I have a pretty good ability to make OCs that people care about (something that was important with a mostly OC cast).

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I struggle with internality a lot. I find thoughts cumbersome to write, because I process most things by talking them out or writing them down. I also think I could tighten up the cast of characters and subplots. It's something I'll definitely be careful with in novels going forward.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? It really depends on the fic. In Tolkien's world, I think so much of culture is tied up in language that it's a little hard not to include some bits and snatches of other languages. It's important to provide translations in text, I think, but otherwise, go for it if it's important to your characters and your plot.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Alas, I don't talk about that fandom anymore. The author turned out to be terrible.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? Definitely Scars of Silver and Gold. It's my first completed longfic and I'm very proud of it, honestly. Are there some things I'd do differently? Yes. But I do love it. Honorable mention to peaches we devour, dusty skin and all. The YEARNING.

tagging (no pressure, just love): @runawaymun, @polutrope, @melestasflight, @fishing4stars

[tedwardremus]

İ get that marauders fandom dont have much canon to go around but the way they completely disregard the very basic things is bizarre and that was why i left the hp fandom space long time ago but you pulled me back in with your fanfics and imagine my suprise when i check some tags and saw freaking jegulus like WHAT THE HELL İS THAT i though dramione was horrible (still is) but pairing a marauders member with avery, rosier nobleflower etc i literally screamed STOP THİS MADNESS +

+ fanon taking over canon, completely changing THE characteristics of them makes me think than why did you stan those character if you are going to erase everything about them and give them new personality why dont you just create original characters? İ think they want to use their name like slaping a brand name on a price tag

Thank you so much for reading my fics! I really appreciate hearing when people enjoy what I’ve written. <3

The new Marauders fandom doesn’t really appeal to me, their interpretations of the characters and worldbuilding just don’t resonate. And that’s okay. They’re free to do their thing, and I’m free to do mine.

I think the key is finding people who not only share your interpretations of the story, but who also want to engage with the material in a way that feels meaningful to you. I have many mutuals whose headcanons and perspectives differ from mine, but I still find their writing compelling. We can have thoughtful conversations because, even when we disagree, we’re coming at the story with similar intentions and a shared desire to understand it more deeply.

People who gravitate toward the Jegulus, Rosekiller, and similar corners of fandom often want to explore the Harry Potter world in a very different way than I do. So our conversations don’t always align, simply because the ways we engage with the source material are so different.

I don’t think one approach is better than the other, and I don’t believe any great moral sin has been committed within these different subfandoms. I’ve found more peace with just acknowledging that I have my sandbox, where I play with my friends, and sometimes I’ll wander over to other sandboxes that seem interesting. There are also sandboxes I won’t sit in (jegulus), but I’m still glad to see others having fun in them even if I don't want to join them.

Focus on the parts of fandom that bring you joy, and try not to get caught up in the corners that don’t.

[alienoresimagines-archive]

https://www.tumblr.com/alienoresimagines/758714669260242945/what-are-some-tropeshc-youd-like-to-see-more-in?source=share

Honestly? Something very cliche and romantic. Post war domesticality, Mutual pinning, enemies to lovers, highschool/college AU and fluff and smut. And preferably bottom!Gale. I love those cliche kdrama tropes too like rich businessman and poor employee. Basically something I don't have to bang my head to understand the universe

Akdif that is so real anon, sometimes you just want a nice read that doesn't have worldbuilding so you can dive in immediately 😩

It's so fun to play with all these tropes with Clegan (although I don't think I've ever seen Enemies to Lovers with them? Strangers to Annoyed to Friends maybe but it's a fun thing to think about! Though it's a bit hard for me because I can't see them not in love or pining from the start lmao, so the closest I can get is Academic Rivals in Flight school, but the tension of them being enemies with both of their competency kink gping haywire when they see the other? Chef's kiss)

Post-war domesticality!!! That's the good stuff 🥹 Them finally getting the end they fought for and survived for, that one light that kept them walking through it all 🥹 They deserve it so bad, I understand why you'd want to see more of it 😭 All the fluff and the sweetness 🥰

Mutual pining is my absolute jam, even if it's painful sometimes but it makes them finally being together so much sweeter 🥹

It's really fun to put them in worlds other than canon, to explore how they'd be both as individuals and together without the trauma of war 🥹 We're lucky to have really good HS/College AUs in the fandom but there's never enough, there's too many possibilities to explore 😊

Who can say no to fluff and smut ? They're so in love with each other, it flows in every word 🥹 Luckily for us, their ao3 tag has plenty of wonderfully written smut 🥰 Ahh, I feel you with Bottom!Gale, I personnaly prefer it too (personal hc, ofc) so it's mostly what I try to write/imply but there are some awesome fics with Bottom Gale on ao3 too 🤗

I don't watch K-dramas but I hear the slow burn is really slow so it's perfect for the Buckies 😂

But you're absolutely right, we need more "romantic clichés" for the Buckies, because they could fit it so well, and it's so much fun to escape canon every once in a while 🥰 The possibilities are endless and are all so good, you're a genius Anon ❤️

And so a friendly reminder to everyone that just because it's a "romantic cliché" doesn't mean you shouldn't write it! Write what you want to read and what you have fun with, even if it's been written or explored before because your story will always be different than what's already out there, and there will always be someone to read it 💕 and honestly, who can resist a good romantic cliché ?

What are some tropes/hc you'd like to see more of in Clegan fics?

[tagedeszorns]

That's really nice to know

Honestly I didn't wanna say the woke thing even cuz well...., it's a complicated thing, I hope I didn't tick off any wrong trigger, since the word woke and the situation surrounding it is varied and I'm not sure what exactly it's even about, it's also because I recently used the word and a mutual I really enjoy being friend with got the wrong idea about me and well we're broken up now, so yeah ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ

So I might say offensive things about the subject matter relating to woke and I prefer to refrain from it, to clarify, what I said about the woke crowd is just me recounted about what I heard and see, I do not in any way agree with that and I know nothing much about it further than that

I actually have a pretty good English skill, I just don't know where to read the novels in English for free, yeah I don't exactly have the funds for it so I usually opted for the free choices, problem is, I don't know where to look at all, it's like being in a supermarket and you don't know where to find what you want and you're scared to ask the employees cuz it might bother them

Also my taste is very much diverse or Jack of all trades hence I get distracted a lot and also overhype myself by the tiniest things in the franchise, like I want to know about the worldbuilding but also the characters, the factions, the politics, the naming convention cuz my god they got lots of Latin naming and I'm so into that too, also I wanna find out about the aliens and the sex demons and- yeah my taste in Fiction is one hell of a spectrum that I find maneuvering really fun but also really confusing sometimes

Would you believe if I say that I'm into the lore also because I wanna read the smuts? That I'm here for the hot big men, size kink and monster fucking? Yeah cuz knowing the lore makes the fanfic reading experience better for me and it's more immersive that way without getting confused about some of the big words, I always check fandom first and not the source material when I'm into something new cuz enjoying something alone is fun, having someone to enjoy it with is even more fun!

I probably sound like a weird kid to you lol, I get blushy and embarrassed when I'm on the verge of something greater to get into so I would try to calm myself down from the hype first before actually getting into it, my god I feel like a blushing schoolgirl everytime I'm in a new stuff, must be because my brain is engineering ideas and the creative juice is flowing when that happens and the potentials to be able to talk to new great people is always stimulating and exciting y'know, like how I'm feeling sharing with you for example

A lot of more conservative people use "woke" as a derogative term. But it just means "being aware of injustice and willing to do something against it". So it's a term for people fighting for equal rights and a better future, against climate change, fascism, war and capitalism. For the rights of queer (especially trans) people and other minorities. But for those conservatives taking care of each other always is socialism and stands in the way of their greed. So, well, yeah. We're very woke around here and people using it as an insult can go fuck a cactus. 😁

Let's just say there are multiple ways to get the novels on the High Seas. You just have to look for it. But there are also a few free stories appearing now and then on the Black Library website, so you can snatch them up.

I'm very happy you want to get to know the lore to enjoy the fanfics better! That's a great motivation.

Please don't hesitate to ask questions! There's a big pool of specialists for all Warhammer factions here and all of them love answering questions!