#I'm never doing multi-chapter ficlets ever again

[fellshish]

You seem knowledgeable about AO3 etiquette and I have a question.

This would be the first fic I've ever posted on ao3. This will be very awkward wording and I'm sorry in advance.

If I am planning on writing a fic but I've written parts of it and they are out of order, is that okay to publish? Like, I know it's going to be roughly 13 parts and I've written the middle chapters (it can be read independently of the rest). (Is this what series are for???)

If I write the middle chapters and publish them, can I combine them with the beginning chapters at a later point? Or should I wait until I've written the beginning?

Thank you!

@this-is-a-nice-show

Congrats on writing your first fic @this-is-a-nice-show

Ok this is a tough one. I’m not an expert on ao3 especially not how it works technically.

When posting to ao3 in a multi chaptered fic, it asks you to tell it which number of chapter it is out of how many chapters. So MAYBE you can start with, say, 5/13 and then later add the first ones?

I’ve never seen anyone do this though. So i could be wrong.

If it can be read independently from the rest you could consider this a whole fic and then the first part as a sort of prequel you post separately later? Or it might just be easier to wait until you’ve written more of your fic — the first chapters — before you post. Or you could consider all 13 chapters as stand-alone stories and post them as separate little fics/ficlets that you collect in a series. There are a lot of ways about it but i’ve only ever been quite straightforward with posting fic so again, i’m not an expert.

[player1064]

okay this is a bit of an ask but how do you write? i have about seventeen different google docs with each multiple tabs of different fic ideas and i get about halfway into an idea and it crumples into a million pieces and i can't fix it (i am currently picturing a dough that is so breaky and flakey that i am pouring water on it and the water isn't helping and they poof! it's gone and all that is left is flakey bits of dough and runny thin water) so yeah. your writing is always so magical and immersive and complete and drags me in so yeah!

Before I get into the actual advice I want to start off by saying you're not alone - a lot of writing is just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks. I just counted my WIPs (and this isn't including the dozens of pages of random notes), and across all fandoms I've written for I have over 40 WIP documents. Some of them haven't been touched for years, some are several thousand words long while others are literally just one sentence, most of them will never see the light of day. I'm pretty sure this is true for most fic writers: what we post is only a tiny fraction of what we actually write.

SO! Let's go onto the advice (aka random thoughts I have on fic writing)

I tend to ramble so I'm just gonna do that and hope for the best 😅 but hopefully there's something in here that's helpful!

So, without further ado, here are my main tips:

Start small

Know how it’s going to end

Write it bad

Talk to people!!!

Start small.

Imagine writing is like a muscle - you wouldn't go into the gym and immediately try to squat 100kg, so if you're not used to writing (or more specifically FINISHING what you're writing), then don't start by trying to write a multi-chapter fic with a really complicated premise.

This is one of the reasons I love doing ficlet requests when I've got writer's block - there's no expectation that they're long, and the concept for it is already there, I just have to write it. BUT I know that sort of thing only comes when you've already got a few fics posted, so here are two other directions you could go:

If you’re struggling for ideas - find a prompt list, or a fic writing event or bingo thing or whatever. Pick one and write a short ficlet on it - I’m talking a couple of scenes and then done. It’s a fun way to break you out of any rut you might be stuck in. 

If you’ve got ideas and don’t know how to make them work - simplify them! If you can't explain the fic in one sentence (like an elevator pitch), then it's probably gonna be hard for YOU to figure out where you're going with it too. And sometimes a fic IS more complicated, and that's fine! But again, we're building up muscles here. To use my own fics as an example - it's a lot easier to write a 'carraville fake dating AU' or 'carraville you've got mail AU' than it is to write 'fic where gary, scholesy, and becks keep getting reincarnated and it's kind of a soulmate AU but it's also about rejecting what the universe is trying to lay out for you and forging your own path instead'. And that fic took a LOTTTT longer to finish than the simple ones. Also, fic tropes exist for a reason, and that's because they work! people enjoy them! 'there was only one bed' might seem overdone but I still love it every time, y'know?

2. Know how it’s going to end. 

Finishing fics is a lot harder when you don’t know how you’re going to finish your fic. Ideas are great, I have loads of ideas! Unfortunately, most of those ideas will never see the light of day because I don’t know what their end goal is. 

This is hypocritical of me because I often just start writing and let it go where it wants to, but fics that I actually FINISH are usually finished because I knew how they were going to end.

Like, you don’t need to know every single beat and plot point, but it helps to know where you’re starting and where you’re ending, plus any major events that need to happen to get you there. Luckily, with fanfiction the ending is often just ‘and they lived happily ever after’.

FOR EXAMPLE, with ‘You’ve Got Mail!’, it’s very easy to summarise in this way:

Carra starts talking to a guy on grindr.

Carra finds out the guy is Gary.

Gary finds out that it’s Carra and that Carra knows it’s him

They live happily ever after

Obviously a lot of my fics are more complicated than that, but even the complicated ones I know where I’m going with them (even if I don’t know how I’ll get there). for example, this was roughly my thought processes for the happy(ish) verse:

Gary and Becks get together when they’re very young

Becks doesn’t leave united

Life is messy and relationships are hard. And Carra shows up and makes it harder.

But they figure it out and live happily ever after. 

(obviously they don’t HAVE to always live happily ever after, sometimes things are a bit more grey than that. but the point stands that even if you know nothing else, you should know how it starts and how it ends, and the rest you can figure out along the way). 

3. Write it bad.

I saw something once that went along the lines of ‘don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the done’ and it really stuck with me. We as writers can very easily get stuck on trying to get something just right, to the point that you can’t move on from a scene and finish a fic because you’re stuck on trying to find the right words, or stuck wondering why your writing doesn’t feel like other people’s does. 

I could go on about confidence and the drafting/editing process, but to be honest I’ve always found the best way to do something when you’re stuck is to just do it bad. When I first started writing fic as a teenager I would deliberately write my first draft as terribly as possible - bad spelling and grammar, random little inside jokes and nicknames - and then I’d go back and make it work. The reason I did this was that it made the process FUN. I’d have a laugh drafting the story, and it’d be ridiculous and incomprehensible to anyone else but I’d know all the beats I had to hit, all the conversations that would happen, etc. Now this is a bit of an extreme, but here are some ways to do your first draft ‘bad’ that will make writing it a lot more enjoyable.

just write the dialogue - I do this all the time (my fics tend to be quite dialogue-centred anyway, which is something I’m quite insecure about! but I think in conversations so that’s always easier for me to write than a lot of exposition). Just write out the conversation, maybe a tiny bit of action if you need it to move things forward, and then go back and flesh it out later.

write it out of order - if you get stuck on a scene, just leave it! You can come back to it later, just skip to the next scene and keep writing. Or if you’re excited to write a certain scene but still have to get through a bunch of other stuff to get there, just skip ahead!! 

write it as a list - start out with the main plot points you know you want, like I talked about earlier. Then just keep adding to it - first with the other things you want to happen, then when you’ve got your main plot points start breaking them down into what scenes you need to make those plot points happen, then a list of what needs to happen in each scene, etc. i don’t use this for fics much anymore but i DO use it for essays (side-eyes my many many uni assignments i need to do in the next few weeks). 

4: Talk to people!

I saw this post a few days ago and it genuinely changed my brain chemistry:

I think, once you’ve accepted the fact that you WANT people to read your stuff, you WANT them to enjoy it, it makes it a lot easier. Chat to your fandom friends about what you’re working on! If you’re stuck on something and not sure how to make it work, talk it out! Even if you’re just excited about something you’re writing, or proud of a particular section, share it!!! It’s so much more fun to work on something when you’ve got cheerleaders.

I said fandom friends, but if you’re not already friends with people who share the same fandom then there’s still lots of options! I’m always happy to answer asks or messages chatting about fics people are working on, and I’m sure a lot of my fellow carraville writers are too! There’s also the carraville discord server, which I would be absolutely lost without - we’re constantly chatting and developing plot ideas, and giving each other feedback and encouragement. Good bunch of people!

A couple of other notes and tips:

if you’re struggling to find the ‘voice’ of your characters, or worried that you’re writing them OOC - first of all, like I said before it can be fun to deliberately write things bad. But second, I’m constantly rewatching videos based on the vibe I’m trying to get across in any section - easiest way to get their voices right is to watch them actually speak!! 

have a 'brain dump' doc (I like onenote for this, since I can seperate it into tabs and pages, but i also just use the notes app on my phone) to put random snippets and thoughts and ideas into whenever they cross your mind. a lot of it won't make it to the final fic, but if you're like me and daydream your fics then it can help you not lose all your ideas!

And finally, if in doubt, refer to one of my favourite posts of all time:

How to Finish by incidentalcomics

[the-lincyclopedia]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Pretending I got tagged by @cricketnationrise!

How many works do you have on ao3?

As of an hour ago: 214. I just recorded a podfic tonight.

What's your total ao3 word count?

494,201. I really hope to pass the half-million mark this year. It won't take much. I just haven't had basically any writing energy lately.

What fandoms do you write for?

These days? The Queen's Thief, when I write fic at all. Historically also Check Please, Carry On/the Simon Snow trilogy, Sherlock, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Yuri on Ice, PJO, Boyfriend Material, Good Omens, and more.

Top five fics by kudos:

Love in the Time of Influenza - Carry On - Snowbaz sickfic

Face the Future with You - Check Please - autistic!Jack x ADHD!Bitty

The Aftermath of Angelic Assumptions - Good Omens - Ineffable Husbands sickfic

Man Oh Man, You're My Best Friend - Check Please - Zimbits fake dating

Nightmares - Carry On - Snowbaz hurt/comfort

Do you respond to comments?

Basically always.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

the only soul who can tell which smiles i'm faking - a Kent-centric ficlet set just after Jack's overdose

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

Most of my 200+ fics have happy endings, so I don't really know how to answer that.

Do you get hate on fics?

Not recently, but it was a pretty regular and normal occurrence when I was on FFN in my teens. Once, someone sent me flames on 18 separate chapters of a multi-chapter fic in a two-day period. It sucked. But also, comments with concrit were so, so common for me to receive in my teens that I figured they were a normal and expected part of the fandom experience, and I have so much cognitive dissonance when people say they're not and never have been. I've neither given nor received unsolicited concrit in quite a few years, and I fully understand that they're not part of the culture on AO3, but two of my longest-lasting fandom friendships began with concrit on FFN (once giving, once receiving), and I think "this has never been a normal part of fandom culture" is an overstatement. I also think there's a difference between hate (which I've received several times) and the majority of unsolicited concrit that I've received. Not everything that's rude is hateful.

Do you write smut?

I have written M-rated grinding once and E-rated sex once. Not sure if I'll write either again. I'm pretty darn ace.

Weirdest crossover:

A Little Help - Lizzie Bennet (firmly of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries canon, not the original P&P) meets Eric Bittle at Vidcon and the two of them become close friends.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. I know of at least three spinoffs of fics of mine, though.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not to my knowledge.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not exactly, but when I'm in a relationship with someone I share fandoms with, the alpha reading/cheer reading/yes-and-ing/etc can blur into co-creation. And honestly I've also had key alpha readers who I haven't dated.

All time favorite ship?

Gosh, I can't pick.

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

My Queen's Thief fic where the characters all study abroad together. I have a detailed outline and a few thousand words, but I've had so little creative energy for the past several months.

What are your writing strengths?

I usually say persistence, but I don't know if I've had as much of that lately. Um . . . clarity, SPAG, and like--I have a really clear memory of what it was like to be younger, and I think that brings life to the stuff I write about college/other parts of life that I've already passed through.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Describing things. I prefer writing dialogue, but I'm also never sure if my characters sound like people. Realism in general is tricky for me--I get too hung up on logistics and then completely fail at writing people with realistic motivations. So lots of stuff.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I almost never do it. I could maybe swing it with Swedish, although one time I tried and got corrected by a Finn (which was welcome and they were right, but it made me wary of trying again).

First fandom you wrote in?

I don't want to answer this publicly because I feel like the story of me getting into fandom/into writing in general is pretty unique, and I might tell it someday with my real name attached if I ever get published. (I just checked, and there are literally zero fics on AO3 for the book I first wrote fic of. The fic that I wrote is not on AO3, since I was ten years old and it was 2006, and I'm very grateful that, although I entered online fandom young, I didn't enter it quite that young.) The first fandom for which I posted fic was probably the wizard one that we're no longer naming. May have been Artemis Fowl or PJO, though.

Favorite fic you've written?

To Every Single Kid I Used to Be - an epistolary fic in which 25-year-old Jack Zimmermann writes letters to his younger self, one letter per year of his life. Featuring autistic!Jack and a whole lot of real details from my own life.

Anyone who wants to play, feel free to say I tagged you, but I'm specifically tagging @doggernaut, @eponymiad, @worldsentwined, @cartograffiti, and @the-knights-who-say-book!

[smallblueandloud]

2023 fic roundup

2023 was the year of the comeback. in 2021, i wrote about 25k; in 2022, i didn't even keep track. meanwhile, my total wordcount last year was 119,226 words. while that doesn't come close to my 200k from 2020, i am arguably prouder of last year and what it represented. my writing isn't dead! my abilities haven't vanished! i can have fun making art again :D

as always, the summer was the most productive for me. you can see that i wrote more in the spring than the fall -- this roughly corresponds to how i was doing during those times, lol. i had a Much Better spring semester than the fall. september was very rough, i had a very bad time, and it meant my mental health suffered for the rest of the year. but hey, at least i was writing essays :')

some more scattered thoughts:

i was arguably pretty consistent this year? may/june/july all had about the same wordcount (roughly) and i think that's cool. my goal isn't to be doing NaNos, it's to be writing consistently, so i'm very happy with this

ao3 says i published 67k in 2023. minus the first chapter of something out of a dream, which was published in 2020, i believe that's 65k or so total. i wrote 72k of fanfic last year, meaning that there's about 8k from last year still sitting in my google drive (a rough eyeball at my WIPs folder confirms this). these numbers don't QUITE make sense to me, since i used a fair bit of old material in what i published last year, but i'm not going to think about it too hard

i published fic for a whopping fifteen fandoms in 2023. nine of those were fandoms i'd never published anything for before! i am so, so proud of this stat. i remain multifandom as all hell and seeing that represented in my work makes me really :D

two fics -- be amazed by the sky and i got your back (and you got mine) -- were crossovers! i'd only ever written one crossover before (stay all day in the sun, which i still love dearly) and it was fun to play in these playgrounds (mostly by sticking the librarians into other universes, xD)

i published 25 fics last year! and five of those fics were less than 1k, which i also really love. this year i really tried to let go of my idea that my fics Had to be more than 4k (and super polished) before they could see the light of day. i think my writing has been more fun and less stressful because of that.

i polished off 4 multi-year WIPs last year: but the verse is sweet, something out of a dream, don't wanna see you go (but it's not forever), and all we can do today. it felt so, so good to finally get those out there. the only one i have left from The Great Hiatus of 2021-2022 is éponine de bergerac. i will finish that someday, but i'm letting her take her time, because she deserves it. (i DID make good progress on that fic, which is something at least!)

most popular fic of the year was sit there in your heartache, which. is a spirk fic written right after a relevant episode, so not a surprise lol. the fic that surprised me most is actually the sisterhood of the travelling main character plotpoints -- i kinda expected that one to vanish quietly, but the hatchetfield fandom is WAY more active than i expected! which is very cool :D

the fic with the fewest hits was sidenote, which doesn't surprise me, since the librarians isn't a very active fandom and it's a rareship within the fandom anyway. the people who DID read it were very sweet, so i am very grateful for them. (i'm doing fic with the fewest hits because i feel like it's better to focus on that than What Didn't Get Kudos)

i started 2024 with 5 WIPs. i actually already finished one (and then immediately started its sequel, whoops) (shoutout to the ds9 modern au, i'll make a real post about that sometime). none of these fics are particularly progressed, but i'll keep working on them and try to find the Finishing A Project Dopamine from ficlets if i need it.

i didn't really have any Writing Goals for 2023 aside from doing any writing at all, lol. i think for 2024 i want to try to get more consistent with my writing -- instead of doing x number of words per month (which usually happen over 3-4 Big Writing Days), i'd rather try to write for 5 days out of every week, or something like that. we'll see what i can get done.

in the meantime: thank you guys for listening. i'm proud of what i did last year, and i'm excited to see what happens next year :D

[captainderyn]

AO3 Meme

I am...horribly late doing this, mostly because I looked at it and went: "I'll do this when I get home from work!" and then in famous-last-word-fashion ~forgot~. But I'm here now!

Tagged by @greyias and @queen-scribbles

Tagging: @tiredassmage annnnnnd anyone else who sees this and would like to join in because I am again, very late on this lol.

--

Most Hits:

And They Were Couchmates, my Judy/V 'gay panic' fic from a prompt fill on here has the most hits with 1,266. The number is surprising, the fact its the one with the most hits is not lol. My Cyberpunk fics tend towards getting a lot of interaction on Ao3 compared to my usual fandoms.

What is surprising is that the #2 spot is still a Percy Jackson one shot I posted in 2020 that is a rewrite of a classic medieval-fantasy I wrote at the ripe ol age of 12 x_x...tumblr is weird. Shout out to Building Storm though, may your original iteration never be hunted down on the internet.

Most Kudos:

...I am realizing I am probably going to become a broken record on some of these so I'll keep doing honorable mentions. Most kudos is And They Were Couchmates with 152 kudos (people really like gay panic!).

And, to my fascination and delight, #2 is still held by a 2020 Check Please! fic I wrote out of spite and got me vague-post raged at on tumblr bahaha *blows a kiss to those 88 spiteful kudos*

Most Comment Threads:

The most comment threads is still my 2019 Fictober collection Moments in Time (which still has some of my all time favorite fics in it) with 141 comments, idk how many threads that is. It's my fictober collection that has gotten the most active engagement as far as an ongoing back and forth with multiple readers each time I posted, which is part of why I love it so much <3 (this is not shade to those who read and kudos or just read, I love you all as well, it's just a fun memory).

Most Bookmarks:

I'll give you a second to take a guess. C'mon, take a guess. Was it And They Were Couchmates? Because it's And They Were Couchmates.

Because that's boring, #3 and one of my favorite fics I've ever written for Mass Effect (it's actually Misfire but shh) is Dog Tags.

Most Words:

*Sigh* From the Ashes, bane of my existence, unfinished long-fic that haunts the back of my mind. My dip back into a multi-chapter work back in 2019 that hit 93,638 words before I wrote myself so far into a corner I couldn't see the light of day and ended up dropping it (as well as many other factors).

I am still so, so, tempted to resurrect this project and do it ~better~ lol, with actual planning and less overwriting. But I have no idea if anyone would be interested in that.

Fewest Words:

I feel like there might be a shorter one hiding somewhere, but I tend to stuff my short ficlets/one shots into one work because I don't like cluttering my Ao3 works page (I know that's not ideal, leave me alone) so it's probably Teasing Words from when I attempted to post my 2020 Fictober prompts separately. It is a wee little thing at 346 words.

[slusheeduck]

Grace Note

Part 4 - 2004

               Sebastián huffed as he adjusted the empty boxes in his arms. Today was the day, he decided, that they were going to get rid of all the bottles that kept piling up in Ruy’s apartment. He was pretty sure there were still some there from the first party he’d gone to, over a year ago. He’d brought it up for a while now, but Ruy had always waved him off with an easy smile and a ”Later, later, Seba.”

               Well, enough. Sebastián knew landlords well enough to know that even someone like Rodrigo Rivera was susceptible to being kicked out, and none of his other friends would give him the kick he needed to clean up.

               He reached the teal-sided house, propping up his boxes against his hipbone as he reached for the doorknob. He shut his eyes and hoped the knob would be stuck, then groaned as it turned easily.

“Ruy!” he called as he walked in. “You need to lock your door!”

               Normally, he’d get a call of “What, is someone going to murder me?” in reply, but nothing came. Sebastián frowned as he walked in and set the boxes down. Was Ruy out? Maybe he was taking Caprice out; she wasn’t settled in the main room like she normally was. He puffed as he looked around.

               “Ruy?” he called. “Oye, are you in here somewhere?”

               No answer. Sebastián puffed again, taking off his hat to push his hair back before he pulled it back on. The idiot probably didn’t have keys on him, and despite Ruy’s constant protests, he didn’t feel comfortable leaving the door unlocked. Well, he’d probably be back soon enough. And…well, there was a beautiful grand piano that Ruy had said he could use anytime.

               He made his way over to it, cleaning off a few scattered thank you notes and loose pages of sheet music. As he was about to sit down, though, he heard a loud whinny from the backyard.

               “Caprice?”

               Another whinny, and, as Sebastián got closer to the sliding glass door, he heard a few mumbles through it. He quickly slid the door open, catching sight of Ruy stumbling his way to Caprice.

               “Shh, shhhhhhhh, Preese. ‘Sgood. Ssssoy bueno.”

               Caprice let out a concerned-sounding nicker, then whistled as she caught sight of Sebastián. Ruy leaned heavily against her, then gave a vacant smile as he turned.

               “Seeeeeba!” he sang, pushing himself away from Caprice and drifting over to him. “Seeebasebaseba, mi chico favorititito!” He stumbled forward, dropping his glass to clutch at Sebastián, to keep from falling to the ground. “Whoops.”

               “Dios, you reek of tequila,” Sebastián said, trying to pull him up. He looked around with a frown. “Has anyone been over? Were you—” He was stopped by Ruy clapping a hand over his mouth.

               “Shhh. Sh sh sh. Doesn’t…don’t worry about that.” He looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “Whyyyy d’you worry so much anyway? You shouldn’ worry. None’a my friends should worry.” Ruy pulled himself up a bit, grinning at Sebastián. “Y’know what? I’m…I’m’na throw a party tonight. A big one. Then you can stop worrying.”

               Sebastián grimaced. This definitely wasn’t normal-drunk Ruy he was looking at. This was even worse than post-obligatory-family-party drunk. He hoisted him up to stand straight, then kept a hold on his shoulders as he swayed and almost fell over. “Rodrigo, I need…”

               “Dooooon’t call me Rodriiiigo. She’s the only one who makes it sound nice,” he argued, waving vaguely past Sebastián’s shoulder before he frowned at him. “Yooou make it sound like I’m in trouble.”

               Sebastián fought the urge to roll his eyes, instead snapping to get Ruy to look at him. “Fine. Ruy. Tell me what happened.”

               “Nothing happened.”

               “Mentira. You’re a wreck.”

               Ruy pushed himself away with a frustrated noise. “I’m not! I’m fffine!” He backed away from Sebastián, skull lifted and eyes shut. “IIIIIII am completely and totally FI—”

               Splash.

               Caprice whinnied frantically as Ruy fell back into the pool, and Sebastián lunged forward, looking over the edge with wide eyes. Maybe the dip would sober him up enough to…why wasn’t he resurfacing? All he could see was a dark, still shape in the water.

               For a half a second, Sebastián completely forgot they were dead, and he automatically plunged into the water after Ruy. Gripping his bony arms, of course, was enough of a reminder, but Ruy still wasn’t moving even while Seba pulled him back to the surface. He couldn’t…the final death didn’t work like that, right?

               “Ruy? Ruy!”

               Ruy finally let in a strangled gasp, eyes flying open and staring straight up. “I can’t…I can’t move…” He rasped.

               “Yes, you can! Mirame, mirame, Ruy!” It was a little difficult while he was trying to keep them both above the water, but Sebastián managed to grab Ruy’s chin and pull his head down to look at him. “Look at me. We’re dead. You’re fine now, you can’t get hurt.”

               Ruy’s breathing was still ragged, his eyes still wide and terrified, and Sebastián pulled his hand away to snap at him.

               “Look at me. You’re okay. You’re okay, Ruy.”

               Finally, Ruy’s eyes locked on Sebastián’s. He blinked a few times, then looked up as Caprice whinnied at them again. He swallowed hard, legs now kicking to keep himself afloat, then looked over at Sebastián miserably before he swam to the edge of the pool. Sebastián’s jaw tightened, and he grabbed his hat as it floated by before following him.

               This definitely prompted a talk.

~

               Clack.

               The sound rang out through the apartment as Sebastián nearly slammed the cup of coffee in front of Ruy. He set his hands on his hipbones as he watched Ruy stare down at the cup. The dip in the pool had sobered him up quite a bit, and now he looked…wilted—shoulders hunched, eyes glassy, hair still dripping onto the papers on the table. Sebastián honestly wanted to just cheer him up, but…he got the feeling that wasn’t what he needed.

               “Drink that,” he said, voice a little harsher than he meant it to be. “I need you to be sober before we talk about this.”

               “Do we have to talk about it?” Ruy asked in a small voice, still staring at the coffee. Sebastián rubbed one of his temples with a sigh.

               “Yes. We do. Because I have never seen you that bad…”

               “You haven’t known me very long.”

               “And I don’t want to see you that bad ever again.”

               Ruy’s gaze finally broke from the coffee cup, and he looked up at Sebastián with wide, surprised eyes. He swallowed hard, then picked up the cup and took a sip. He grimaced and screwed his eyes shut before he huffed a breath through his nasal cavity and mumbled something against the cup rim. Sebastián sat down across from him and leaned forward.

               “What was that?”

               Ruy kept his eyes closed, hands gripping the cup so hard they were shaking. He let out a long, slow breath.

               “My…ex visited last night.”

               Sebastián blinked, then rested his arms against the table. “Bianca?”

               “What?”

               Sebastián shrugged. “I dunno. I still see her sometimes and she’s…got that ex vibe whenever you get brought up.”

               Ruy puffed out a sound that was almost a laugh, shaking his head. “No, no. Bianca is a completely different story.” He tapped out a small tune against the mug. “Actually, yeah, let’s talk about Bianca.”

               “Ruy…”

               A pained grimace crossed Ruy’s face, and he looked up at Sebastián with wide brown eyes. “Please, Sebastián. Just give me a minute.”

               Sebastián. He was pretty sure Ruy hadn’t called him by his full name since his freakout a year ago; it must be serious. He sat back with a sigh, arms crossed. “All right. Tell me about Bianca.”

                 Ruy took a long sip of coffee. “I met her kinda the same way I met you. Got really drunk, think I played a few things for her—if I remember right, she was kinda shell-shocked about being dead, and I’m not gonna lie, I really liked showing off for freshies back then. Got their minds off things, y’know?” Told her to visit whenever, and she did.” He rubbed his face. “And I was an idiot. I should’ve seen the signs. I spent so much time with her—even more than you and I did at first—because she was…” He shrugged. “She was sweet? She said everything I did was amazing? And it was just…dios mio, it’s so nice to hear that, you know?”

               Sebastián frowned. “You said you hated people talking about you like that.”

               “I hate people talking about my music like that. Telling me how amazing my garbage work is, telling me what a genius I am with my concertos, all that. But talking about me like I was something amazing? I don’t get that very often.” He rubbed his eyes with a sigh. “And then she came in one day asking ‘What are we?’ And I just…I couldn’t answer her. So she left. And I did what I do best and tried to run from that. I talked to new people, threw myself into new music…did everything I could to avoid her.”

               “No wonder she thinks you target freshies,” Sebastián said before he could stop himself. He clamped his mouth shut, but Ruy shook his head.

               “No, you’re right.” He cradled his skull in his hand as he sighed. “And I still don’t know what I wanted. But no matter what, it would’ve ended badly.” He shut his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm against his brow ridge. “She’s not her.”

               “And…her is the ex.”

               Ruy nodded. He opened his mouth, then shut his jaw with a sharp click as he grimaced again. “I can’t…” he whispered. “I can’t tell you about her. Not today.”

               Sebastián gave a soft sigh before leaning forward. “Tell me something. Tell me what got you to that state.”

               “I…”

               “What if she comes again, Ruy? What if I’m not there to fish you out of the pool?”

               “It won’t be like this if she comes again. I just…” Ruy swallowed hard, eyes glistening as he finally opened them. “She has a kid, Seba. Probably has grandkids,” he said quietly, voice breaking. “Her hair’s gray now. She lived. And…and I should be happy about that, but…” He shrugged helplessly and started to turn to get up. Sebastián lunged across the table to grab his arm.

               “No. You’re staying sober for the rest of the day,” he said firmly, then softened his voice as he asked, “Why aren’t you happy about it?”

               Ruy stared hard at the table, obviously trying hard not to blink. Eventually, he did, and two tears dripped to the table.

               “She did it all without me,” he whispered. “Because I wasn’t good enough.”

               Sebastián sucked in a breath.  O…kay. This was harder than the other breakups he’d walked friends through…which weren’t very many. What did he do? “No, I’m sure you were fine,” sounded so fake, but anything else would sound like he was agreeing that Ruy wasn’t good enough. And…well, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he’d fallen apart…kind of like he was doing right now.

               But friends didn’t say that. Friends help make their friends be better. And he wanted to do that, but…well, he didn’t have the answer for that now. So, instead, he got to his feet. Ruy looked up at him as he did, tears still pooled in the bottom of his sockets, then swallowed hard.

               “I’m right, ar—”

               “Hey, shut up.” Sebastián walked over to the piano, gathering up the papers on the keys and setting them aside as neatly as he could. “Maybe you are. I dunno. I didn’t know you back then. But I’m already tired of you being a sadsack about stuff you can’t change.” He sat down at the piano and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m sorry you had such a bad visit with her. Break-ups suck.”

               Ruy puffed out another almost-laugh, wiping at his eyes. “They do, don’t they?”

               “So we’re not gonna think about her anymore. Not for the rest of the day, at least.” He cracked his knuckles. “Escucha. This was supposed to be your birthday present.”

               “I’d need a birthday for th—”

               “Shut up, Ruy, everyone knows it’s June 12th. Escucha.” Before Ruy could get another word in, Seba started to play, smiling a bit as he heard Ruy’s gasp.

               “Is this…?”

               “Mm-hm.”

               “You’re covering Selena?”

               “Yeah, and you better love it. It physically hurts me to play this.”

               It was like seeing a dead man come back to life…metaphorically. There was still an edge that said that Ruy wasn’t quite better, but…well, the most they could do right now was pretend. That was…kinda what friends did. And to be honest, that kind of friend was what Ruy needed, at least right now. No empty praises, no urging to be better. Just someone to spend some time with him and shake off a night he obviously wanted to forget.

               Maybe one day he’d be able to help Ruy get past the worst of…this. But there was all the time in the world to figure that out. For now…well, it took a pretty great friend to compose a Selena medley, didn’t it?

~End~

[theflyingfeeling]

thank you so much @ao3userxnowimnothing for the tag 🖤

rules: list your top 5 favorites of your fics, what they're about, and why you're proud of them, then tag some fic authors to do the same!

I'm tagging @percervall @neverrepent @milirii and @rosalba-robi 🌻

(see my choices under the read-more)

1. Room for one more troubled soul

I’m terribly proud of this fic, mostly because its length and immensity. I worked for it for months and had my ups and downs (e.g. it took me aaaaaages to finish the first friggin’ chapter?!), and while I did have an outline for the full story, there were also lots of plot lines that I improvised as the story developed and ended up working out quite by accident if I’m completely honest 😂 I had previously sort of abandoned a gigantic multi-chapter fic in the ski jumping fandom so I wasn’t sure if I could pull off a work that was this extensive, which is why I’m super proud of myself for having succeeded with this one, because I’m not the most patient of people. Now that I know I can actually finish a longer multi-chapter work, I have faith in myself to do so again 😇

2. But There’s Nothing To Be Afraid Of

Despite the horrifying styling of the title, I’m still proud of my first ever BC fic that I published a year ago (in which the guys go see Måneskin at a festival, in a nutshell). I was soooooo nervous about posting it that I decided to post the first two chapters at one go because nothing much happens in the first chapter and I was desperate to show the readers that hey! hey! this is actually more than Joel being sulky! just wait!! 😅 I don’t ship Joel/Damiano anymore, but this fic still holds a special place in my heart

3. The YouTuber AU, particularly Of rock, roll and dogs

I know I’ve said this at many occasions but I’ll say it again: I loooooove writing from Joel’s point of view, because he’s equal amounts of emo and dramatic, and it’s fun to play with that combo. I’m not afraid to boast my own trumpet here and say that this AU and especially the Joel POVs are funny af, and building the whole alternate universe was so much fun too!

4. You are the sun and I am just the planets

idk man, I’m just really fond of the College/University AU and I’m a sucker for pining, and as heartbreaking as it is, I also enjoy unrequited love as a trope. The mood of the fic changes gradually the more time Olli spends with Joonas, and I kinda like that effect; at this point his whole life wasn’t as consumed by his crush for Joonas (at least not to the extent it is in the main work in this AU), but you can clearly see he’s in too deep already… Plus I love the FOB song in the title/summary 💖

5. A nameless Olli/Aleksi prompt ficlet for my Valentine’s Day Fluff series (also on AO3)

Loosely based on the movie Just Like Heaven, which I've never seen myself but after reading the synopsis I made my own adaption of it in which Olli adopts Rilla when she was put in the shelter because Aleksi is lying in a coma in the hospital. I’m strangely proud of this one because I think it’s a really touching story and I did cry a little when writing it (NOT as in “omg I’m such a great writer” but as in “OMG DOGS!! 😭”) and I must say that I was a tiiiiiiiiiny bit disappointed it didn’t get as many notes as some of the other fics in this series that in my opinion weren’t as good. Yes, the ending is ridiculous and a little unrealistic but hey, it’s magic realism! Aleksi is a half-ghost for most of if, for goodness sake!! So please, if you haven’t read it yet, grab some tissues and do so, because I’m really proud of this one and I’m also very keen on making y’all cry (ohhh just WAIT ‘til you get to read the Gran Hotel AU!)

[bubblesthemonsterartist]

3,5,17,21 aaand there was one more I wanted to ask but I forgot so I'm just gonna ask again!^^

3. name three favorite writers

I’m going to stay within the obiyuki fandom for this one instead of going to my library shelves… *cracks knuckles* : 

@sabraeal, naturally. She is my writing buddy and I love her deeply. Plus, she knows EXACTLY how to murder my ass.

@infinitelystrangemachinex - Shares stories once in a blue moon but slays every single time I can’t even how do you do that? (pls do it some more?)

@xaphrin - Hnnnnnnggggggg, this woman. This woman destroys me ALL THE TIME with all the lovely goodness (She’s also one of my favorite readers! Because she gets SO MAD AT ME :D )

And here’s where I break the rules because AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MY BLOG I DO WHAT I WANT XD XD XD

In alphabetical order:

@akai-vampire - Putting out some of the SWEETEST stories that I feel like I need to book an appointment with the dentist. Girl is gonna give me some cavities, I swear.

@another-miracle - Has dared to put onto the screen the hurt/comfort follow up fic that we all wanted, we all craved. I have it saved in my inbox so I can have feelings about it regularly.

@azalearhoden - Writes some amazing prose of short moments glued together into something gorgeous and beautiful that I would have never thought of!

@codango​ - Freakin HOW DARE YOU WITH THIS COWBOY OBI THING THAT I DID NOT KNOW THAT I WANT BUT NOW I DO SO VERY MUCH (Also, newspaper editor Obi was v v hot :D )

@claudeng80 - Has a million ideas and puts them to paper in record time! There’s too many stories for me to wrap her up into one sentence!

@jaygirl987 - From short hot scenes to her first multi-chapter fic that is turning into something epic, I love her stuff!

@k-itsmaywriting - Freakin amazing woman who puts out the most beautiful AU’s. I love it when she can come to play and I hate to see her leave, but school is the most important, yo!

@kaedix - Writes the sweetest stories, from mama and papa Obiyuki to the Mall AU that I am still dying over almost a year later.

@krispy-kream - I don’t know how many times I have seen this one post and I have been LITERALLY TERRIFIED to click on the link because she DESTROYS ME WITH HALF A SENTENCE. (No, seriously, I still can’t get through this without tearing up)

@lalesath - Has written ONE GORGEOUS, FEELS INDUCING FIC for us, but there is more trapped away in her computer. I feelz it in my bones. Won’t you feed us? XD

@littleaverill - Puts out some amazing ficlets that have you begging for more! I wish I could write like her…

@maverae​ - Has written ONE fic to share with the class, BUT I KNOW SHE IS HIDING MORE FROM US. Give us your delicious prose! We are hungry little things!

@nebluus - Has STILL written my all time favorite Obiyuki fic, Blizzard. That story gives me all the feely feels in my little shipper heart.

@nonstopdoodle - Girl is filled with fantasy and writes the COOLEST AU’s. I love them all so much.

@obiisms - I lovelovelove her Meaning of Trust fic on AO3 you don’t even know how much. She takes hard subjects and just delivers.

@obiwannabemylover - Made a fantastic fic filled with everything that my little shipper heart could ever want. It was lovely and beautiful and WE ARE STILL HUNGRY FOR MORE :D :D :D

@onoheiwa​ - Hnnnnnnggggggggg writes some of the most amazing short stories. I die over her arranged marriage fic (Did not know this was a thing of mine, BUT I GUESS IT IS A THING)

@ruleofexception - I wanna say she is our FASTEST writer, throwing out some amazing fics within a day and cutting through ALL the BS!

@vivianwisteria - Our newest Obiyuki writer with such amazing characterization and execution of storylines, I am in awe

And I haven’t even begun to touch our amazing artists, editors, translators, scanners, and FANS. You are all so fantastic and make this fandom the beautiful thing that it is!

(I hope I didn’t miss anybody. If I missed you, tell me! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH)

5. since how long do you write?

Umm… I’ve written since I was very young, but I stopped writing fiction around 12 or 13 and only picked it back up within the last year.

17. favorite au to write

If we’re not talking about my canon-esk series on AO3, then I am a little torn. Hmmm…. Mob AU has a fantastic backstory, but so does Stumptowne. Ohhhh… I dunno? I think I really like my Bakery AU right now because it’s going to be the most challenging to write.

21. least favorite character to write

If you asked me six months ago, I would have said Zen, but I’ve spent a good amount of time writing with him now and I think I got the hang of him. Umm… I’m thinking I would probably have a hard time with Izana now, primarily because I haven’t spent so much time in his head.

lol. That was probably more than what you were looking for, but thank you for asking!