#fic: exception to the rules

[brainrotcharacters]

The one where Wade and Logan remind me of Achilles and Patroclus

Because what the fuck do you mean "Do I know you, bub?" Bitch I'm going to spay you

You would recognize him by touch alone. By smell.

You would know him blind by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth.

You would know him in death at the end of the world.

[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.

[k-lea7]

yall ever be writing your own fic and feel your stomach drop when you reread it. like i will be writing zoned out and i go back and i’m like 😃👍 oh okay cool wtf did i just write rn

[beyourownanchor6]

—duck!buck ✨christmas edition✨ is here! thank you to everyone who loves my silly little jeep ducking shenanigans. wishing y’all a merry ducking christmas 💚❤️

rated: t | words: 18.6k | read on ao3

summary:

“Ok, so I have them all categorized. Do you want them by year, color, or season?”

Eddie’s eyes widened with a bit of fear. What the hell had Athena gotten him into?

“Um, how about you tell me about your ducks first…what kind are they?”

Buck deadpanned. “Rubber.”

Eddie shook his head, trying to hide his surprise as he pulled out of the parking lot.

Buck let out a cackle, startling Eddie a little.

“You didn’t think I was talking about live duck’s did you?”

Buck said it like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world, as if any of their conversation had been semi normal.

“No, I guess I’m just—confused is all,” was what Eddie settled with. Buck shook his head as he tapped at his clipboard.

“You’ve never heard of Jeep ducking?”

Eddie shook his head as he turned on his blinker. “Can’t say that I have.”

—or—

The 1 time Buck gets held at gunpoint and robbed of his ducks, and the 6 times Eddie replaces them. Eddie’s a cop, bucks a firefighter, there’s rubber ducks, what more can I say?

tagging squad:

@loserdiaz @redlightsandicedtea @loveyourownsmiilee @monsterrae1 @buddierights @swiftiebuckleyhan @honestlydarkprincess @barbiediaz @spotsandsocks @justsmilestuffhappens @santadiazz @djdangerlove @eddiebabygirldiaz @elvensorceress @jacksadventuresinwriting @stanningsky @wh0re-behavi0r @ronordmann @spaceprincessem @arthursdent @disasterbuckdiaz @giddyupbuck @wildlife4life @betty-boom @hippolotamus @thewolvesof1998 @watchyourbuck @underwater-ninja-13 @pirrusstuff @nmcggg @theotherbuckley @louis-tenn @the-gayest-wug @buckley-diaz-rules @muppetbuddie @gamer-kai @blorbodiaz @heartshapedvows @trashbaget @steadfastsaturnsrings @buckbuckgoose @wikiangela @hobbitnarwhal @shortsighted-owl @pirrusstuff @goldencherrymooon @murder-trio @daffi-990 @greenfairrryy @mattsire

[courfee]

play to your strengths, not by the rules

i've wanted to make little art pieces for my own fics for so long and on a whim decided to just start with this one, so here we are :)

[valewritessss]

😨

[camellcat]

I'm on my knees desperate for more feral spike fics. it's so fun but there's just so little. where are all the feral spike fics 😔

[bctoastyyy]

more <3

more beat (wanted to redraw it but got eepy) the reapers ever kariya and uzuki, beat in a dress that he rocks, doodle(s) from a fic im writing, and warm up sketches pertaining to an animatic im making and dont get distracted from working on!

[melancholydonuts]

do you have any arima headcanons?

i love that you are another person who loves arima so much and i just am dying to see some of ur little interpretations of him!! <333

i am SO SORRY to dissapoint bc a) this took FOREVER for me to answer and b) I got nothing man

I usually dont have very many headcanons for any of my fav characters, or I just don't realize that they're headcanons until a post or a fic or sometimes even canon itself reminds me that they are in fact headcanons. So i thought maybe I should let this ask stew and maybe something will pop up. Alas...

okay I have one very silly little headcanon and it's that arima HATES caterpillars specifically.

[t3ddyd0ll]

if i opened commissions for personalized short stories with my yans or a yandere you come up with (for example, artist!yandere or psychologist!yandere) would anyone be interested :0?

[ceescedasticity]

I like reading whump and h/c, but I am just — really bad at writing it. I set things up for a character to get terribly injured and then chicken out unless it's essential to the plot. (Not as much lately since I realized I seldom carry through, but I think you can probably see never-fulfilled setup in some of my older stuff.) After I write the plot-essential character torment the comfort tends to be — abstract. Not from inside a character's head (e.g. all-dialogue as in the andoairon chapter), or worse, just kind of stated to have happened (e.g. all the House of Olwë is doing much better now and presumably a lot of that is due to interpersonal support! Do I describe this? Not really!).

Sigh.

[ghostbeam]

I think vampires biting each other has no other point to it than being sexy and kinky and a little taboo within vampire culture and the blood is probably not even all that good but the act of biting IS hot and that’s what matters

[gallawitchxx]

🔥 strength from the fuck-u-up tarot 🔥

Ian felt as if his heart might burst from his body. There wasn’t any logic to what he was feeling, what he knew was happening between them. No reason, no rationality. It was just magic. Just love. Fuck, could it really be love? “C'mon, let's light these fuckers up,” Mickey pushed, holding up the lighter. Ian nodded and Mickey picked up the vessel, tipping it to the side, the lighter disappearing into the open mouth. Snick! A smile crept onto Mickey’s lips as he watched the leaves catch, all of his and Ian’s baggage quickly being engulfed in a brilliant fire. It wouldn’t burn up completely, of course. They’d both have to continue to work on their own and together to unpack it all. Build something new, together. But this was a potent jump start. A promise, and a pledge. An undertaking. an exception to the rule | ch. 6: nor the furious winter's rages

[see additional cards on ao3]

[wundrousarts]

Hi folks! It seems like people are discovering that there are people online who write some WEIRD! 👎 stuff for Nevermoor. Some tips and tricks for dealing with that:

Don't engage. Don't read the fics. Don't even comment to say how much you hate it.

Don't spread it around. It's gross as hell, I know! But being like "ew, guys, I found this gross fic" just means you're causing more people to seek out said gross fic, and that's just not great. If you don't want to see it, no one else wants to either.

If you can: block, mute, or filter. I don't really use any fanfic sites to know if these functionalities exist, but I'm sure people online have found ways. Edit: here's a way to do it on Ao3.

TL;DR: Ignore, Ignore, Ignore. 👍

(PS: Same thing goes for when people send weird inappropriate anon messages. Just delete them from your inbox and don't subject others to them.)

This is unfortunately something that's been present for years in the fandom, on both Ao3 and Wattpad. This is also why I essentially don't read Nevermoor fics unless they're for Mogtober, and even then I'm cautious. I have seen some weird stuff written about my favorite characters that I wish I could pluck from my brain and set on fire, or worse! But when I stumble across that stuff, I just quickly close the tab and pivot to something else to get my mind off of it.

We should not entertain these types of people in a fandom full of minors about a middle grade series, so: just don't engage with them, ignore them, filter them out, and maybe even drown them out with some fics of your own.

[falleri-salvatore]

Harem Jaune Fics Proposal

If you must make Jaune have a harem; then at least remember these things, they will make it more....tolerable....for the palate: --Jaune is not a badass in the beginning (disregard this if he has been previously trained)

--To expand on the one above: if Jaune has been trained from the the start, Pyrrha is the benchmark; he can be stronger or weaker than Pyrrha, but at most he should only be slightly stronger than her (as in, he consistently wins 6 out of 10 matches against Pyrrha, stronger)

--Also: please, PLEASE bear in mind that being confident is NOT the same as being an asshole. Believe it or not, being an asshole actually denotes insecurity and, more often than not, it is a defense mechanism to hide it. A confident Jaune would be sure of what he wants, what to do to achieve it, and would not let himself be pushed around (that is to say, he can be a snarky little shit if his temper and patience is proper pushed); but he would still be the same dorky himbo that cares dearly for his loved ones and has very strong sense of morals and honor.

--Also remember, even if trained before Beacon, Jaune is still 17 during Beacon; which means his physique should still be relatively lanky (albeit his muscles are now very dense and pronounced due to said training). He does not become the “Big Hunk of Meat” we all know until later on when he’s 18 going on 19.

--And for the harem; keep in mind the Rule of Three, it is the most perfect number possible as any more will make trying to keep character interactions consistent an absolute nightmare. Also remember, regardless of who are in the harem; Jaune will always be the house-husband. Whether alone in that role or not depends, again, on the harem members.

[pavlikbuonarroti]

mcd + unhappy endings + unrequited + hurt no comfort get behind me...