#but i am very much Not a fanfic writer lmao its completely out of my wheelhouse

[serizawasgamecube]

posted my fic for @anizinesinc's true colors zine! please check out the full release!

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

[ja3yun]

Maybe I’m naive or maybe it’s the brain rot… but am I being completely delusional in thinking that tumblr is almost 99.999% a fan site that artists (especially kpop idols) do not engage with and probably don’t even have much regard for? Like this is a space for the chronically online. Most people don’t use any of their own personal information/faces/identifiers bc this is not a real place; it’s a black hole. That’s not to say that your work here is insignificant (it’s helped me a lot to escape from everyday anxiety and stress so thank you 🙏) but it's not like you or any other adult writer are writing these stories and then spamming them on Weverse or any other platform where the members are active.

I guess my point is that we the adults that engage in 18+ enhablr are minding our business and keeping the fantasies in fantasy land and then going to work in the real world. Like we do not know Enha for real. Some people apparently don't have jobs or lives, so they send hate to people online and act like they are personally offended on behalf of adult men they don't know and never will. It's giving desperate fan that thinks going to the airport to get an interaction is more sane than staying at home, kicking your feet, and giggling at imagining meeting and knowing the boys in real life (95% of the time as non-idols anyways which is another degree of separation).

I'm sorry for ranting. I'm just a huge believer that fanfic is a very safe and respectful way of engaging in fandom because we leave the real people out of it. We're not screaming inappropriate things and sexually harassing the boys to their faces, which happens way too often. We're engaging in community fan-to-fan which to me strengthens the fandom. There are things we talk about as Engenes that will never make it back to boys and thats okay. What makes fandom fun is not always the direct connection to the artist, it's the community we build because of them.

I hope you and the other amazing writers on this site know how important you are ❤️ thanks for taking your time to write and engage 💐

anon this is so!! you get it exactly. i think a lot of us post here because why tf would enha know this place exists? and its a safe place really bc if you want smut, you come here or go to ao3.

i think hate to writers is so petty bc it is the one form of media you can easily avoid? like to see smut you need to seek it out yknow? i never write in the general tags or post inappropriately, so for people to find my blog must mean they are looking for smthn 💀

hate comes w any platform, esp to creators of any kind so i kinda knew what i was signing up for. some of it kinda makes me go??? like im not making the boys out to be horrible or bullies like i try and write them as nice as i can so some of the hate saying i 'tarnish' their name is so false lmao

thank you anon, i'm sure every writer here appreciates the kind words and also, just the fact that you understand is enough for us

ilysm <33

[picnokinesis]

Hi!

(A mild panic on the topic of: This is not a question, oh god, this is NOT a question. This is a recommendation of a fandom at BEST.)

So I was reading a fic one day and my brain went very quickly in succession:

a) /Oh/, this is the good stuff

b) No wonder you think so, remember spydoc telepathy edition (And you, Taka, are like an ambassador of that land in my mind)

c) Actually many fics from this fandom are like this

d) Do we think…?

So I had two facts:

1. This is a thing someone I have a great respect for would probably enjoy.

2. There was no indication Taka has seen or engaged in the fandom of Pacific Rim. Despite its notoriety in this neck of the woods due to the concept of drifting in particular.

And what I am doing with those facts is telling you this. I think you are great and I think you would like the fics of Pacific Rim. So if you feel like checking it out, it’s very low effort on entrance. Only one movie to see. Or two. Depends who you ask.

Here are two excerpts to judge for yourself. (Is this a spoiler? I know people for whom this would be a spoiler. For me it’s a tester.)

1) What’s a Little B&E Between Friends? By VoiceOfNurse (Part 20, Chapter 1)

No need to reach for the void, when he was so complete, nestled up against the part of Them that was Hermann. 

…safe… 

Newt was aware, in as much as Hermann was aware. It was difficult to separate himself out, when Hermann’s mind was locked around him like a steel trap made of numbers and chalk dust and spite. They were one organism in two parts- four lungs, drawing breath, two hearts beating in time. There was cold, and there was pain, but it was far away. 

There is no room for (masters-monsters-precursors) here. They are (insects-vermin-insignificant) when faced with (memory-language-connection). We are (brilliant-unstoppable-rockstars). We are (music-logic-science). We are (Newt-and-Hermann) and they are nothing. 

2) What’s a Little B&E Between Friends? By VoiceOfNurse (Part 20, Chapter 2)

They were Drifting. Tendo couldn’t quite work out the whys and hows of it, especially now that he was being bitten to within an inch of his fucking life, but he was certain. He’d hurt Hermann by moving too fast, probably jostled the guy’s leg, actually, which was folded weirdly under him with Newt on top, but the closest set of teeth bit him. Newt wasn’t even conscious in the traditional sense of the word, but Hermann was. Hermann was, and apparently Newt’s teeth were available to rectify the situation. Newt’s urges, too, because Tendo didn’t really picture Hermann as a biter. 

HELLO MY FRIEND oh my days I'm SO sorry but I'm laughing so much because this probably happened because tumblr search function is useless but 'no indication' sksksksk, oh my sweet summer child: here's the pacific rim tag on my blog LMAO - or, even better, the entire pacrim au I came up with for s12 of doctor who one time. Also. Also. Buddy. This is so funny, I love you so much. Are you aware that I'm obsessed with the works of one of the biggest Pacific Rim fanfic writers ever? I did, to be fair, literally take their name off my blog description yesterday to replace it with Bloodywood instead, and I'm more on the Stargate Universe side of things these days - but cleanwhiteroom is one of my favourite authors, and I read Designations Congruent with Things before I touched any of their Stargate material. If, my dear anon, you've not heard of cwr, then I really highly recommend their stuff, but I'll add a link below and see if I can dig up the other fic that I really loved from back in the day. Thank you for the fic rec though!! Those excerpts look excellent haha, I shall check that fic out when I get chance because you're absolutely right I love that kind of thing.

(also, absolutely DELIGHTED that you read this sort of stuff and thought of me - that is SUCH an honour oh my days! Like...rancid spydoc telepathy ambassador....what a title, I'm dead chuffed at this haha bless you!)

I think this is just so funny to me because - you couldn't possibly know this, of course, but like you know where I got this from? This love for writing weird, messed up mental connections between people?

Pacific Rim fanfiction HAHAHAHAHA

(and, later SGU - but I mean, mostly just cleanwhiteroom tbh. I was 16yo and I imprinted okay. But there were also other fics too, and they had an influence. Guh, Newt/Hermann post-drift fics are PEAK man)

Okay but actually let me tell you the story of how I got into pacrim because I think it's hilarious. So most people get into fandoms by like, yknow. Watching the film, reading the book, seeing the show, etc. I mean, how else would you do it? I'll tell you how. I was pottering about on deviantArt, back in the the grand old year of - oh, it must have been 2014. 2015? Something like that. Anyway, I stumbled across some Newt and Hermann fanart, and I didn't know the fandom but I was intrigued and REALLY liked the artstyle (I think the artist was feriowind?) - anyway I went on their profile and was MORE intrigued when I found they'd done some gorgeous cover art for THIS FIC, which got me so curious that I decided to read it. Without having watched the film. What I did was: read the plot summary on wikipedia, watched a couple of newt and hermann fanvids/clips (LIKE THIS ONE) so I could see them/hear their voices right, and then just blitz on through the fic with google images open in another tab so I could google thing like 'the shatterdome' and 'the LOCCENT pacific rim' and stuff like that for visual reference SKKSSK. Damn this is a throwback, I'm having a great time. ANYWAY. Read the fic. Loved it. Read the sequel. LOVED IT. Started looking for more fanart and stuff like that - and found a bunch of people kept on mentioning this fic called Designations Congruent with Things. Searched it up, found it on ao3, read the first 6 chapters and it almost melted my brain LMAO so I stopped. Then I couldn't stop thinking about it and I came back to it and oh my days. Oh my days. It fully rewrote my brain and DAMN I was obsessed. By this point I was vibrating in place at the mere thought of actually SEEING THE FILM, YKNOW. The film I'd read hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic about. Anyway, my friend who got secret santa for me that year literally had the easiest job on the planet HAHAHAHA so I watched it on Christmas Day and it was so so funny because like. You probably are aware of how much damn lore this film has. Like I knew the names of most of the jaegers that aren't even mentioned in the movie, I knew about Caitlin Lightcap and Sergio D'onofrio, but I had NO IDEA what was extended canon and what was fanon and what was actually. Y'know. In the film. So when I watched it I was like BUT WHERE'S LIGHTCAP for most of it HAHAHAH, but yeah it was great. SO GREAT. Guh I love the concept of the drift SO SO MUCH it's absolutely fascinating and just. AHH!! So so good.

Anyway. Absolutely losing it, bless. Sorry this is all over the place, I'm very tired but my goodness. Yes. Talk to me about drift bonds any day of the week, I'm here for it. If you want cleanwhiteroom fics, you can find them here. I linked the other one above, but there were a couple of others I read too...like I read a LOT of fics, and this was before I had an ao3 account rip so I don't have it in my fic reading history. There was one called Occam's Razor that I read a lot of, but I don't think I finished it. OH but I also liked this one (that i thought I found but it turned out to be the wrong one, am looking again now lol), from after Pacific Rim 2!! Which, as a film, I mostly consider to just be like. A fanfic with an exceptionally high budget ksksksks so yknow. I don't hate it because I don't consider it canon as much as I consider anything outside the original film canon. ANYWAY LOVE YOU

[01zfan]

lmao ninona, you are quite literally the cutest!!!! I don’t mind that you fujo out on ao3, so if you’re comfortable sending me your profile in private I’d very much love it.

I was just asking because ao3 has an option to download fics and I use it to put my favorite fanfics on my kindle so I can easily reread whenever I feel like. because if you didn’t notice yet, I’m kinda obsessed with your fics 🫣 and I’d love to have them on my kindle.

it’s super okay if you don’t wanna share it, tho, I’ll completely understand it (I tried to find you there and failed btw).

anyways… about the comments, I’m happy you like them. I honestly think I should comment more on ficblr lmao. but I know how important comments are for fic writers because I’ve been one myself (barely and briefly). so that’s why I try to always show your works some love, even though I think it’s not enough.

I truly love your writing and I hope that I show you exactly that. dragon teeth still has me seething with despair and sadness, omg. soooo damn good!

I hope you keep up the good work and give us more extra great fics for the eternity heheh. love you too, sweetie! have a good week ♥️

omg i will message you with my fujo ao3 but i also made another one here (syongseokfan) so if you ever want me to upload a fic on there so you can save it to your kindle just let me know! (also sorry it took me so long to reply to this i had to get an invitation from ao3 to make another account)

but your comments mean so much like seriously i can’t put into words how grateful i am just to see that people are reading my work and digesting it and stuff! its seriously more than enough for me SERIOUSLYYY!!!

also i hope you get back into writing if you want to! the briize writing community would be lucky to have you🧎‍♀️‍➡️thank you as always for reading and i’m glad dragon teeth stuck with you because i really enjoyed writing it seriously…agh i love you so much😭😭🫂❤️

[andromedadoesntwrite]

Twenty Questions: Fic Author Edition

Thank you @bodyelectric77 for tagging me! I always love participating in these fun things. I am quite new to fanfic though (two months more or less) so I'll do my best to answer as much as I can <3

1-How many works do you have on ao3?

2

2-What's your total AO3 word count?

23,538 words

3-What fandoms do you write for?

The Hunger Games. But I'm not closed to maybe writing for others.

4-What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Cold Coffee

Fated From The Start

I've only published two atm :)

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

yesyesyesyes

I absolutely love comments. No matter how long they are I appreciate them so much. To know that people read my stuff AND that they like it AND wanna let me know, it completely makes my day. So I try to answer all of them, even if its just to say thank you. I especially love when the commenter references a specific part of the fic that they liked or made them laugh. It hits a spot.

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

uhhhh.

at the moment I don't have any out. None of my fics have ended lmao. But something may or may not be in the works. Idk, not sure yet.

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

once again, none of my fics have ended but I think Fated From The Start's will be the happiest.

8-Do you get hate on fics?

No at the moment, no. But if I keep writing its possible I will. But we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it.

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

Nope. Not really my strong suit or focus when writing. I've written a few suggestive scenes but nothing too intense or graphic. It's very difficult to write good smut so kudos to all writers who do.

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

No

11-Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No and hoping it stays that way lmao

12-Have you ever had a fic translated?

No

13-Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No

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

Honestly Everlark. I really like both characters individually and think they're ship is pretty fitting. But if you had asked 12 year old me, she would've said Marshal lee from Adventure Time and me.

15-What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

There's a piece about Katniss not liking Peeta back till they were much older and both married sitting in my drafts buuuut I don't think I'll ever get to finishing it.

16-What are your writing strengths?

I actually don't know lmao. At least I'm not sure when it comes to fics. But I've been told I'm good at evoking emotion when it comes to sadness in other pieces I've written. I guess I still have to develop them.

17-What are your writing weaknesses?

I can get impatient quickly, leading me to sometimes not expand on something at first and just quickly writing it out. It sucks. And in the end slows me down even more. Since I have to come back and write things over. So a lot of times my descriptions fall short. It cringes me out when I read something back that I wrote in a hurry.

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

I would love to. I'm actually trilingual but Spanish is my first language so I'd love to write a fic in it. I think some things are just better written in Spanish, at least for me. Maybe one day I'll include it in one of the fics.

19-First fandom you wrote for?

The Hunger Games

20-Favorite fic you've ever written?

Fated From The Start! It's the one I spend more time in.

This was super fun and I'm tagging @thelettersfromnoone should they choose to do it, and anyone else who sees this since the rest of my mutuals have been tagged <3

[prettyboykatsuki]

ohhHh hi it is specialgradefckr from the other day! asking on anon because my main blog is in a completely unrelated fandom that i've totally lost the love for lmao.

honestly it was such a mood seeing your reaction bc YES. it was weird!! it was DIFFERENT! it was Some Kinda Mood going on in that fic!!!

sometimes you just. get a neat little idea. a little corner with all these nooks and crannies to mess around in. you light up and you just GO. and what comes out of it seems kinda weird, definitely not what you'd normally write but GUESS WHAT!!

this world has a place for funny little fics! weird stuff!! what is the POINT of being a writer if you are not making your dolls take off their clothes and smash after a suicide attempt and discussions of sexual slavery???

i actually came across your work wayyyy back when i first got into jjk. i read "How To Be A Dog" and i still don't know what to say about it.

the best way to describe my feelings towards that fic is that it's like i got there late to the party. there's some meat left on the bones i haven't eaten. i don't think i've gotten everything out of it.

for example, i had to re-read some sections over again to fully parse what was going on with the reader's curse (i think it was a snake and i am saying that from memory, scout's honor). and the fic spends a lot of time in gojo's POV, which I very much enjoyed!

but most fanfics, especially reader-inserts, stick to the reader POV and are written to be much more immediately digestible than other forms of fiction. you know the characters, you know the setting, let's get to the MEAT of it.

but your fic was like, the type where you really need to Pay Attention to each and every line, because each line does contribute something distinct to the characters or tone. it was so DENSE and i was NOT prepared to run into that while cheerfully looking for noncon gojo/reader porn skjfhglhdsg.

it's rare to find a fic that goes that hard. like if you want your fic to be That Deep you gotta commit to it, you know? and you don't have to do that for a fic to be good or enjoyable, you just do it For The Art, because you see what the fic could be and you want it to be that way. kudos to you.

it was an amazing work of fiction. maybe one day i will have the attention span to read the whole thing and actually feel like i'm understanding everything and the fic will stop haunting me whenever i think about it

anyways apologies for rambling in your inbox, i do hope you don't think i'm too weird lmao i just really like writing and fics. thank you for sharing yours <3

SDFKJSDJKFSDKJ i agree!!

i think like. i love the genre of absurd stuff so much in my media consumption but ive always had a hard time finding space for it in fanfiction. so writing that gojo dark comedy fic was an attempt to make some room for it and try my hand out and it ended up being a person favorite piece despite how insane it is

so i was really happy hearing other people enjoyed it and were rececptive to it bc really whats the point if you can't go and write something completely insane just for shits and giggles you know. sometimes u get a neat little idea and u just gotta go ham on it i agree

ALSO AAAAA !! A HTBAD READER IN THE WILD.... htbad is like. genuinely my magnum opus at least to me. its one of those things where i dont think im ever going to fully recover from it so when people tell me they've read it i automatically feel super emotional.

it is . super high praise to hear that you feel like you get something from it every time you read the fic. im not much of a planner but i really did pour my soul into each and every line of that thing so it means the world that it comes through!!

CHEERFULLY LOOKING FOR GOJO NONCON JHHDSJFKSD WELL YES ... i understand though i think that fic tends to jumpscare ppl in a similar way all the time since its extremely heavy tonally. it was definitely a fic i wrote For The Art if nothing else and definitely a fic i incidentally poured a lot into it. it genuinely always means the world to me to hear good things about it and im so so so elated to hear you talk so highly about it.

THANK YOU FOR READING. AND FOR LEAVING ME SUCH A KIND MESSAGE. i was basically dead on my feet last night trying to do anything but i was extremely happy seeinf this before bed. i hope today is kind to u

[warpedlegacy]

Fanfic Writer Questions

Tagged by @dreadfutures! Tagging @effelants and @kiastirling-fanfic.

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 47

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 739,512

3. What fandoms do you write for? Resident Evil/Biohazard, Dragon Age, Mass Effect

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Recovery, a post-RE2 Remake Leon/Claire smut (340) The Rise, part 1 of my DAI-timeline series that starts with the prologue and ends with the arrival at Skyhold (140) Bracing, a 350-word drabble for Dorian/Bull (71) A Terrible Bore (350-word Cullen/Theresa drabble) and An Evening In (one-shot Cullen/Theresa fluff) are tied for fourth (64) Fiercely Perish, which is essentially Die Hard in Thedas, with Bull as John McClain (56)

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I try to respond to everyone and try not to be overwhelming in my gratitude lol. I so rarely get comments that each one feels like Christmas Morning to me and I want to cherish it forever.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? The Black City - the second part of my post-Trespasser Cullen/Theresa series, which ends with their relationship in tatters and them coming to the conclusion that the only way they can heal from their grief is apart. One of the hardest things I've ever written. T_T

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Swept Away - my super indulgent Josephine/Isabela adventure romance. I wrote it as a combination of Pirates of the Caribbean meets Jane Austen. I adore them!

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, never! I've been very lucky.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yup! I've written one-shots as well as scenes incorporated into longer stories. It's almost never PWP though - I have tried and literally can't. For some reason it always ends up at least partly a character study lmao. And because it's me, there's also usually some angst worming its way in there. I am hopeless. ^_^;

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Nope. The closest I've ever come was D&DA Effect, which was me just taking the idea of "what if the plot of DA was actually just the crew of the Normandy playing D&D?" and cranking out a short dialogue-only scene. It reads like a transcript lol. It was definitely fun, but overall I don't have much interest in crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I've had a couple people ask if they can translate one or two of my fics, and I've always granted permission. If they ever completed the translations, I was never tagged in them.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? A couple times, yes. I've participated in a couple round robins with my fellow server members, and did a pinch hit on an exchange event with another writer.

14. What's your all time favorite ship? Oh gosh I have so many.... My favorite to write for is definitely Cullen/Theresa, Theresa being my OC Trevelyan Inquisitor.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Look. I really, REALLY wanna finish my Reprises & Reprisals series. I promise!!! I'm about to pick it back up in fact. But my worry is that once the fourth game comes out I may lose interest in writing for Inquisition for a while. And who knows when it'll come back. So I'm hoping to at least finish MOST of book two, which will at least get me to the end of the base game and the big revelation I've been sitting on for literal YEARS.

16. What are your writing strengths? Character and dialogue, and I've also been told that I write action well

17. What are your writing weaknesses? Repetition. Descriptive prose and scene blocking. Every time I have to describe what a character is physically doing in a scene, I immediately forget how to exist in a body or how to move one lol.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? If you are fluent enough to write in that language, write it out. Or if not, at least run it by someone who is. The more often languages other than English are included in stories shown to a primarily English-speaking readership, the less "other" it will become. Otherwise, it's best just to write it in English (WITHOUT writing the accent) and describe what language it's being spoken in. Conlangs and ciphers are definitely trickier, and I try my best not to lean too heavily on them, just because I don't feel I'm well enough versed in linguistics to really parse the nuances of such use without accidentally falling into unfortunate implications or stereotypes.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Mass Effect

20. Favorite fic you've written? As much as I love my Cullen/Theresa stories, I have a deep fondness and love for Swept Away. I poured a lot of time and effort into its writing, and it remains, in my opinion, one of my best-paced, best-written, and most engaging stories.

Blank form under the cut

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

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

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

8. Do you get hate on fics?

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

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

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

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

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

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

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

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

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you've written?

[cielsosinfel]

here are my thoughts on all BG3 companions up through the end of Act 1 and very beginning of Act 2:

Astarion: light of my life, I am actually spoiled for probably 95% of his story, he is such a disgusting and rancid poor little meow meow and I want to see him grievously mutilated and tortured and then gently put back together again (repeat). As a faggy bi man he is the best #representation I have seen yet from mainstream media lmao. If i speak too much about him this whole post will be about him, sorry. Guro noncon yandere kink fanfic material out the wazoo, tho (Also of course I have many many thoughts on his character's narrative around trauma and healing or the lack thereof, but, too many words)

Shadowheart: I LOOOOVE HER I love her. I kind of wish they'd kept her as initially hostile and cruel as in EA after viewing video of it, but I also enjoy how she seems low-key and almost normal, though an asshole, and then BAM suddenly she's waxing poetic about committing terrifying emotional and physical torture in the name of her beloved mommy goddess. She is such an asshole and I feel like she gets soft on the PC weirdly fast, but I also do enjoy how playing Dark Urge informs the relationship dynamic as her backstory and personality unfolds, how the fact she becomes Best Friends with them despite the whole blackout-frenzied-murder and urges to eat corpses plays into her own issues and desire for understanding and connection (the memory loss and disconnect from her previous life and sense of self, the god devotion, wanting to make herself an even worse person in the name of her god, how completely committed she is in the art of torture and causing suffering, how she's simultaneously disgusted by and intrigued by Dark Urge's whole murder cannibalism urges.) Anyway yes she's great, I love her turmoil about not living up to her potential as a Shar-loving religious zealot and expert torturer.

Wyll: Wylllllllllll I feel like he was done so dirty by the writers between Early Release and Release. They should have continued to let him be an asshole warring with living up to heroic ideals, who just made a deal with a demon out of desperation for respect and appreciation. But he's fun in release too, just too low-key for me? With Dark Urge it's interesting because he is truly the most morally Good-Aligned party-member, probably, and I think about how he must grapple his morals with aiding and growing close to a murderous gore-loving freak. He's constantly having to compromise his own deeply-held ideals in the name of getting the tadpole out of his head, and I wonder about that constantly. At the same time, he's so focused on doing good and the cause of justice but is REALLY REALLY DOWN FOR GOBLIN MASS-MURDER... Like OK Wyll!! They kept that from Early Access at least lmao. His relationship with Mizora and the angst and regret he feels at signing a contract with her, for making this one major ill-thought decision while in a high-stress "do or die" situation, gets me, the way he's like, so resigned to it... How he's so resigned to being transformed into the very thing he'd dedicated his life to culling existence of (demons.) (The constant metaphors to being a pampered pet on a leash get to me.) Though you know, it still gets me he's lamenting how ugly he looks with horns, claws and fangs, in the middle of a party full of Tiefling who just faced a lot of life-threatening discrimination for looking like demons... lmao... especially when he's venting these things to a Tiefling Durge lmao... oh wyll...... Anyway I think he's sweet, and I have even more thoughts on him and Astarion being foils who need to fuck. I want to learn more about his daddy issues so I can give him a proper daddy kink. Wow, how is this the longest part of this post.

OK THIS GOT TOO LONG AND ITS ONLY THREE CHARACTERS!!!! I am going to an indie comics and arts festival today, I will come back to do the rest of the characters later.

[stevebabey]

I'm the first anon, thank you so much for understanding. I have those feelings for months now and I'm going crazy lmao.

I wish I could get into character x character stuff, but unfortunately, my stupid brain loves to consume stuff through self insert, so x reader is my preferred outlet for everything :/ I just feel like I don't belong anywhere in this fandom rn in terms of content creation. I'm not into most x reader stuff and I like to explore more character things, but I also don't really belong in there because I'm not a shipper.

It's just so frustrating to see, and the other anon was right. The tiktokification of media and fandoms in general is insane to watch. Like I saw a tiktok that complained that the Poppy War by Rf Kuang was boring because it had no spice. M'am, this is a book about war? 😭 Or, like everything is described in tropes (that's a problem for books, not fanfic per se) for fast consumption, the plot doesn't matter if certain scenarios are not ticked off. Not to mention AI and things like characterAI where people just get quickly what they want without using really their imagination (plus them not caring that this is stealing from real people).

And yeah, the whole minor part. It's insane to tell 12 year olds, that virgins write the best stuff. I'm reading and writing fics since I was 14, and I'm "lucky" I wasn't really exposed to those things until I was 16. English isn't my first language, so fanfics were a bit limited, I guess (plus having a very nieche interest that didn't reach international fame and fandom). Also, I mostly consumed stuff from friends I know irl and we had a few spicy scenes because we were curious, but we never got exposed to hardcore smut. I'm not saying there should be no smut at all, everyone is free to express themselves. It's a problem if the fandom is only that because it creates a space not everyone has access to or gets messed up. Fandom is community and everyone should feel welcome. If I was a minor and all writer blogs tell me to fuck off because they only write mature things, idk if I would even wanna stay. Which is also another problem because fandoms die out so quickly as it is.

Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this exactly because you already said everything and I agree with you. <33

omg you say you don't know where you're going with this but brought up so many good POINTS

you're not crazy and you're definitely not the only one feeling that way!! i understand completely and it's infuriating that the topic of it is almost tongue in cheek in this fandom and lots of people feel they would be better off biting their tongue than expressing that frustration ://

character x character is something that takes a hot minute to get into i've found, i've honestly only just gotten into it within the last year or so (because i also struggle with like ocs and the like) but i am a long lover of the self insert i can't even lie <3

but there's like a difference between the way you describe this!! i think you're very much like me and it's like a genuine love for a character that drives your desire for writing self-insert- its like i love this dude so much and i want them to be happy and i want to be that source of happiness, i want to be that first kiss or gentle touch they need :D

andddd that's my problem with so much of the smut-leaning fics. where's the soul!?! where's the driving heart of the story? the best fics are the most self indulgent because you can see the best parts of someone in them !!!!

i'm really sorry that you feel like you don't have a place in this fandom but you do definitely belong here honey- fandom is supposed to be a community and there's no prerequisite to existing here at all and the fact there feels like there are certain amounts you have to succeed in to be a writer is so just bleh

tiktok is a goddam brainrotting place lmao and every day im not on it is a great one! the trope shit is SO true, like the idea that if you can check a few boxes (one of those things being smut) its the thing that makes a piece good instead of how it's written and the passion for the story like ugh and don't even get me started on ai 😭 that is a shitshow in itself and anyone who uses that to write fics or complete other peoples fics are absolute garbage people

the minor thing is yeah completely fucked and you raise SUCH a good point about how it limits the spaces that they can occupy which is so fucking stupid cos how many of us started in fandom at young ages??? everyone should feel welcome! and god the thought of someone trying to so hard to avoid nsfw content but just to have it shoved down their throat in every other post and also having so many writers telling them to fuck off ur so right, i wouldn't wanna stay either!

and it's just so so so sad because there are a thousand people who i WISH would write their ideas, write their fics, whether its bad or good first time around because THAT is the point of fandom. love for the source! new ideas! people's new takes on old tropes over and over :D

ah you opened the floodgate in me.... you didn't ask for advice but truly, write the most self indulgent stuff ever and it can't lead you wrong. i hope the culture of fandom changes and every time you ignore the urge to write for what u think people will like and just write what you want, we all get a little bit closer to that change :")

[the7thcrow]

i have no idea why i only just now decided to follow u on tumblr because not all that glitters is gold is literally one of the best fanfics ive ever read. it has to be in my top 3. its been my favorite ever since i had first read it in like december. everytime i get a notification that u have updated, its literally pure dopamine!!

i absolutely adore the mc. shes amazing and i loveee her. but damn girly has been through soooo much in such a short time, she really needs a break. like i have a list of all the things shes been through in my notes💀. the fact that she has to bare all her pain on her own, after so much trauma, just makes me sooo sad </3, like let me give her a hug.

anyway the enemies to lovers situation thats going on between her and woo is literally superior omggg. him slowly starting to care about her🤭🤭, the slowburn is immaculate!!! literally has me giggling and kicking my feet. its too good. i will forever stand by the opinion that nobody can write better enemies to lovers than fanfic writers!!!

san is 100% my favorite character. im literally obsessed with him omgg. the way hes just so strong and masculine while also being so fucking kind and empathetic to the mc??? so manly while being such a sweetheart??? literally the greenest flag ever. its just so attractive, like i want him😫. (and if he does have red flags, im ignoring them btw.) so yes i think im in love with him.

im very much looking forward to future updates. thank you for creating this story, its truly a masterpiece!! love u!!

omg one of your favourites?? stop i'm a pile of mush and fuzzy feelings right now. fortunately, I'm posting the next chapter today so I hope the dopamine is extra good after the months i have left you in waiting LMAO.

but please the mc list??? you gotta drop me an ask with it because even I am curious to see it all laid out 💀 homegirl has really been through it.

I'm glad you're appreciating the slow-burn, it's been extremely fun and satisfying to write. + i completely agree about san. I know I wrote him, but I'm in love with him too. how can u not be, it's san.

you're the sweetest. I truly love asks like this, and I can't wait to hear more of your thoughts and feelings going forward (but seriously pls drop the list of what mc has gone through im begging) <333

[etchedstars]

🎨 💘 and ✨️ for the fanfic writer asks if u please??

OHHFHFHHH THESE ARE QUESTIONS IVE ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABT REPEATEDLY THANK YOUUUUU

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

hfhghhhhhg okay i . whenever i write specific parts of my fics im always like. Huh this would make rlly good art . so now im going to go think abt each fic ive ever written and

ttds fic is . Chock Full of moments lmao id cry if someone drew art of the scarf scene actually. also the instagram parts ,,,,, i kept picturing them as actual posts in my head when i was writing it especially the byler post so id just be Very Very Happy if anyone ever actually drew those out

also just . anything from let the stars fall ? its literally one scene but i think if someone drew byler lying in a field while the stars fall from the sky i would completely stop functioning. holy shit. i can barely imagine it in my head without wanting to lose my shit completely so seeing that in art would mean The World to me

💘 Is it easier to write angst or fluff?

,,,,,,,, angst. i can safely say that writing captured ghosts was the easiest thing i wrote, and thats a chaptered fic around 40k words i think (now that being said im not writing pt 2 anytime soon). i think that is solely bc a) I Am Traumatized and b) ive had much more practice writing angsty shit bc . once again . i am Traumatized . this is a formal apology i couldnt help it

✨️ Out of the comments you’ve received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

OHHHH !!!!!! i have a section in my priv server abt this bc they bring me such joy. hold on .

OK IM BACK

let me preface this by saying. sheer fuckin poetry in my comments section. words cannot express the deep emotions i felt while reading this. i was. SO deeply touched. i could not function. aether0void if youre out there thank u for this i will think about it forever and ever

ALSO parker you leave THE nicest comments on my stuff they make my day this is like ,fdhgjdfhk, ,,,,, im normal ok! im normal. i promise. thank you for commenting on my shit ily screaming crying doing flips off the walls

[astrofiish]

Professor Layton, laywright, and carmine :)

001 | Send me a fandom (Professor Layton) and I will tell you my:

ok im prefacing first that im NOT including the Crossover, just cause this question would ONLY be about the crossover!

Favorite character: JEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN DESCOLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Least Favorite character: Minus the obvious bad guys who im supposed to hate, I must say Clark........... im sorry Clark fans but I do not like that man

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): desanton, ranlay, layclaire, (laywright even tho that's a crossover ship), laypaul

Character I find most attractive: JEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN DESCOL- *gets hit by a truck*

Character I would marry: Emmy Altava :3

Character I would be best friends with:

A random thought: Unfortunately i dont have any braincells atm but i must say i like luke triton a lot i adore that lil microorganism

An unpopular opinion: FUCK LAST SPECTER Im a last specter hater. Also Azran Legacy is good and the prequels and spinoffs actually slap

My canon OTP: It'd have to be Layclaire

Non-canon OTP: RANLAY

Most badass character:

Pairing I am not a fan of: *insert the many proship layton ships here* Yeah. Yeah I fucking HATE THEM why do some layton fans have to ship proship ships like what the fuck. Also Im obviously not a fan of Layclark (that is obvious given that I do not like one of the ppl in the ship LMAO)

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): FLORA. FLORA REINHOLD. they did not give her a character arc at ALL and then completely FORGOT about her and if she doesn't show up in NWOS we will fight

Favorite friendship: Layton and Luke and Emmy!!! Theyre the best friends ever.

002 | send me a ship (laywright) and I will tell you:

when or if I started shipping it: I think I started shipping it when watching plvspw the first time.

my thoughts: god they're so canon to me! Layton and Wright care about each others well-being and its so refreshing seeing Wright with someone who's calm and caring with him!!!

What makes me happy about them: I LOVE that Laytons kids have different aspects of Wright's character in their sprites, etc. And its just sooo fun to see how each of their kids (ofc just based on how they act in canon) act esp in how similar/not similar they are to either Layton or Wright. God I love love LOVE them!!!

What makes me sad about them: Theyre not canon and they're actually a rarepair

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: Makes Miles the wingman in the relationship like get this man OUTTA HERE this is not your SHIP

Things I look for in fanfic: Literally so much stuff man this is such a rarepair

My kinks: Ppl actually creating fanfics for them /j

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Phoenix? God Idk anyone but Miles. Layton? RANLAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY (I am truly just a multishipper for layton and that's it)

My happily ever after for them: Layton gets out of his lil cryo chamber and then lives happily ever after with his massive family of So many ppl

003 | Give me a character (Carmine) & I will tell you

How I feel about this character: hes soooo silly I love that he has nothing except that he gets hit by cars as his personality. Like there's SOOO much to go with from that- hes also VERY related to sholmes to me like they look SO similar. I think hes more serious than Sholmes is, but occasionally goofy and also waaaaaaaaaaay shittier at his job.

All the people I ship romantically with this character:  barnham (everyone knows this)

My non-romantic OTP for this character: rouge and carmine would get along just cause I said they would (platonically)

My unpopular opinion about this character: idk if I have any unpopular opinions??

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: he had at least one sprite

My OTP: Carbarn

My OT3: Carrrrrrrrbarnnnnnnnnnn ????????????????????????????? man idk if I have an OT3 gonna be honest

[blurrycow]

ok so i ended up watching the first three episodes w out my friends because I couldn’t wait (I feel bad now but aaaaaaa) and this is what I learned

- Diego is a shit dad: probably because he never really had a good model to look up to as a kid. I was surprised that his kid was white???? and not adopted??? How does a desi person and a hispanic person have a white biological child????? Please explain, netflix good lord

- on the related note of the child, stanley, he’s fucking fantastic. Kid can make a hell of a molotov cocktail. 

- Reggie is... surprisingly sad this season? He looked kind of like a drowned rat and I almost felt bad for him then i remembered that he locked Klaus in a maloseum

- I expected to like Sloane but she’s kind of manipulative. I don’t know what to think of her.

- Luther acted high the entire time but maybe that’s just how he usually is, I don’t remember. I haven’t watched the other seasons in a long time

- They handled Viktor’s coming out very very well! I loved the different reactions. My brother was talking when Viktor came out to Allison so I didn’t get to hear it, but I especially loved how enthusiastic Luther was about it. 

- Five!!!!!! Five five five. I missed seeing him so so so much. I’m so glad he’s back. I loved how he was able to take a step back and just enjoy! I also found it funny how it was the complete opposite than it was in my World’s Largest Ball Of Twine fic- in the fic, Five was on a mission, and Klaus just wanted to see some sights, so he was the one who yanked the wheel into the exit. In the actual episode, the roles were completely reversed!!! 

- Lila my beloved!!!! She is so so pretty. I will never not find it funny how she and Five can go from killing each other to casual conversation. (Also, the plaid skirt fit???? that was hot as fUCK) (Id let her kill me in a heartbeat) (maybe im just depressed though)

-I am so so so so glad that they are finally letting Allison lose her shit. SHE HAS BEEN THROUGH A HELL OF A LOT OF STUFF!!!! SHE DESERVES TO LOSE IT IF SHE WANTS!!!! and she does and thats fucking fantastic!!! Im so glad for her!!!!!

- klaus’s aunt was only in the show for like a brief two scenes but she’s awesome i love her

- Ben is an asshole, lmao

- I wish Marcus hadn’t died! You theorists got it right. I’m disappointed but not surprised. 

- I know Grace was religious in the comics but not THIS RELIGIOUS JESUS CHRIST WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ICONIC ‘HARGREEVES IS NOT GOD’ PANEL??? Grace honey the kugelblitz is not your lord and savior 

- (Gerard Way, please see a therapist)

- my immediate thought was JAYME THE RAINWING but she’s actually got a super cool power. The dance scene had me in literal tEARS

- on that note Five’s scene with Dolores!! Jayme that was cruel. 

- (does anyone else know what he was saying to Dolores? I know it was italian but I don’t know italian) 

- Alphonso was pretty cool! HOW on earth did all you fanfic writers predict the voodoo doll thing???? 

- HARLAN. I GUESSED HIM AS SOON AS I SAW THE CASSETTES. It made me so happy to see him!!! I missed him!!!! 

- AND ALSO MR. PENNYCRUMB. I saw the collar and immediatley went “THATS HIM THATS MY DOG” and he didnt end up belonging to Five but its oKAy (and then he fucking DIED)

- Luther child. people know what condoms are

- Christopher is so weird wtf. he dont even got a personality he just a cube

- if i have more notes ill reblog this post but i dont remember them rn

[sketching-shark]

LMK fandom: Oh, what do we do about this guy who has nothing but hurt Xiaotian, tried to replace Sun Wukong and his crew, hurt Tripitaka and ordered servants to cannibalize a monkey? Oh I know! We’ll turn him into our little meow meow~ he’s so innocent and Sun Wukong is obviously the villain!

What doesn’t help is this idea is perpetuated by multiple fan fic writers and artists for some reason. Especially some aus they make that turn SWK into a bastard for the sake of the story rather than considering cultural context and thinking they should be respectful.

And almost everyone lets them get away with it just because the art or fanfic is good and they get so popular that no one can point what is actually wrong without feeling like they’re going to get attacked.

I'm starting to feel like my blog is the one anons go to specifically to vent their frustrations about the Six Eared Macaque in his lego monkey show form & the associated fandom lmao. But I guess this makes sense, as I’ve had fun quasi-dragging him before & will in fact use this anon submission as an opportunity to have my own, to put it academically, bitch fest about not just this fandom's favorite protagonist-traumatizing meow meow, but about the way villains are often treated in not just fanon, but increasingly in canon works as well. But same policy as with the last anon; I'll post my opinions below the cut, and as fandoms love to say, don’t like don't read if you don't want to see me dunking on the six eared simian & common fandom tendencies towards villains.

Oh man I would say where would you even begin with this but anon you’ve pretty much started yourself with my main gripe with a lot of ways that the Six-Eared Macaque is portrayed in fandom; there seems to be this unspoken agreement that his acts of violence towards Sun Wukong, Qi Xioatian, and Qi Xioatian’s loved ones are either to be framed as somewhat or totally justified, to be immediately forgiven/excused, or to simply & completely be ignored. Like friends maybe this is just me not seeing the proper posts but while the fandom is inundated with art and fanfics of Macaque as a generally decent individual & a true member of team good guy, I have yet to see one person address the fact that this monkey literally kidnapped & mind-controlled Xiaotian’s best friend and father figures & forced them to brutalize Xiaotian while ol’ Six Ear looked on and laughed (X_X). Like this kind of fandom villain treatment is definitely not something that’s solely at work for Monkie Kid, but it is kind of nutty how fandoms will swing between yelling that people should be allowed to like villains without even mild critique, and then will just flat-out not address the villainous behavior, and will even bend over backwards to frame even characters who committed genocide as just poor innocent widdle victims who need a hug. At its worst, I’ve even seen tons of people in a fandom get really angry at other people who don’t like a villain, and will even start accusing those people of hating real-life mentally disabled or abused individuals all because they don’t like the fandom’s favorite literal war criminal. The Monkie Kid fandom is FAR more chill & better than a lot of other fandoms I’ve come across in that regard, but that is an exceedingly low bar, & the tendency to woobify certain kinds of villains-- as with Macaque and the extreme emphasis on his bad boy/sad boy thing--is very much at work.  

 I’ve also talked before about a kind of monoculturalization of certain character interpretations and story beats in fandoms, and one of the more popular ones that seems to be applied to Macaque a lot is the “hero actually bad, villain actually good” cliche, as observable from the general fandom assumption that Mr. Six-Ears he wasn’t even slightly lying or remembering things through a rose-tinted or skewed lens when he gave his version of his and Sun Wukong’s past. Like at this point it seems the possibility that people WILL NOT even consider is that Sun Wukong never did & still doesn't care that much about the Six Eared Macaque (in JTTW they weren’t sworn brothers & in Monkie Kid the only thing the monkey king really said to Macaque before attacking him was a pretty contemptuous "Aren't you ever going to get sick of living under my shadow?," & responds to his "beloved friend" getting blown up with "You did good, bud" to Qi Xiaotian, who did the exploding), or that their original fight may in fact have mostly been instigated by Macaque. After all, to repeat what this anon summarized & what I've said before about their original JTTW context (& in an example of the things that do feel like it's often lost in translation) is that the Six Ear Macaque was a villain not just because he beat up the Tang Monk, but because he wanted to take over Sun Wukong's entire life and identity so he could have all that glory, prestige, and power for himself. To quote the macaque himself from the Anthony C. Yu translation, "I struck the T'ang monk and I took the luggage...precisely because I want to go to the West all by myself to ask Buddha for the scriptures. When I deliver them to the Land of the East, it will be my success and no one else's. Those people of the South Jambudvipa Continent will honor me then as their patriarch and my fame will last for all posterity." And in order to do this, the Six Eared Macaque had apparently made Sun Wukong's "little ones," his monkey family, his captives through either trickery or force, and gotten a number of them to take on the appearance of Tang Sanzang and the other pilgrims. It's also made clear that in very direct contrast to Sun Wukong, he doesn't care about these monkeys beyond how they might serve him. In fact, after Sha Wujing kills the monkey posing as him the Six Eared Macaque not only all but immediately replaces him with another, but also "told his little ones to have the dead monkey skinned. Then his meat was taken to be fried and served as food along with coconut and grape wines." So this monkey is not only willing to risk the lives of a lot of other monkeys for his own personal benefit, but is also a literal cannibal. And yes yes, I know a lot of people have argued that Monkie Kid shouldn't be considered a direct sequel to JTTW & that's fair enough (for example, Sun Wukong probably shouldn't be smashing anyone into a meat patty in a children's cartoon lol). And of course, it needs to be noted that there are a buttload of really out there & really cursed pieces of media based on JTTW & that were created in China. Yet the above description is the oft-ignored in the west original facet of the Six Eared Macaque's character. And it is this selfishness, entitlement, and treatment of other individuals as tools for his own self-serving ends  that is, from where I’m standing, still very much present in Monkie Kid. Like besides repeatedly going out of his way to physically and psychologically traumatize Xioatian, with the last episode Macaque seemed to be going right back to his manipulative ways. I’ve seen people frame their last conversation as Macaque softening to Xioatian a little bit, but personally that read a lot more like that common tactic among abusers where even after they’ve hurt you they’ll dangle something you want or need over your head (in Macaque’s case, the promise of desperately needed training and information about a serious looming threat), with the implication that you’ll only get it if you do what they want you to, such as, in this case, Xioatian going back to Macaque as his student even after having been so terribly hurt by this monkey, which would give Macaque power over Xiaotian and probably Sun Wukong as a result. And it is this violence and manipulation that it seems the fandom at large has tacitly decided shouldn’t even be addressed, instead leaning more towards a (and this is an exaggeration) “Six-Eared Macaque my poor meow meow Sun Wukong has always been bad & has always been wrong about literally everything” reading. 

And while it is the case that I am not Chinese and feel that as such it would be best left to someone who actually comes from that background to provide more context into how common interpretations of the Six Eared Macaque from China may clash really badly with the stuff the western fandom creates, it also must be noted that, as much as we all want to have fun in fandom & in spite of all the out-there versions of JTTW from China, we westerners should recognize that there is a very long and very ugly history of western countries stripping other cultures’ important religious and literary works for parts & mashing them into their own thing while implying or even insisting that what they present provides a true understanding of the original piece. And while I trust most individuals in regards to Monkie Kid are able to step back and think “this is a lego cartoon and not a set guide for how I should understand JTTW” (especially given the insistence that JTTW and Monkie Kid should be considered there own separate works) there does nevertheless seem to be something of a tendency to take the conclusions people come to, for example, about Sun Wukong’s characteristic in his lego form & then assume that’s just reflective to Sun Wukong as a totality. I imagine a good portion of this is due to people not reading JTTW & especially to not having easy access to solid information or answers about JTTW’s many different facets (like geez awhile ago I was trying to get a clear answer on what is considered the most accurate translation of the names of Sun Wukong’s six sworn brothers & got like 5 different responses lmao), but that tendency to take a western fandom interpretation & run with it instead of doing any background research or questioning said interpretation is still very much at play. As such, & as made prominent in the way people have been interpreting the dynamic between Sun Wukong and the Six Eared Macaque in the lego monkey show, tbh it does seem kind of shitty for western creators & audience to sometimes go really out of their way to ignore all of this original cultural & narrative context for the sake of Angst (TM) in Macaque's favor, demonizing Sun Wukong, and shipping the monkey king with his evil twin (X_X).

And speaking of which, even beyond the potential inherent creepiness & revulsion that can be inspired by this specific ship given common interpretations of the og classic's original meaning (again, it's my understanding, given both summaries of translated Chinese academic texts I've been kindly provided with, my own reading of the Anthony C. Yu translation of JTTW, & vents from a number of Chinese people I've seen on this site, that the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China as having originated from Sun Wukong himself as a living embodiment of his worst traits, hence why only Buddha can tell the difference between them & why the monkey king is much more slow to violence after he kills the macaque), I'd argue that in the face of all the uwu poor widdle meow meow portrayals lego show Macaque is, especially if you include JTTW's events, still in the role of “Sun Wukong but worse” as he is very much a violent & selfish creep. Like he was basically running around in JTTW wearing a Sun Wukong fursuit, but there he had the sole reason of wanting to replace Sun Wukong wholesale so he could have all the good things in the monkey king's life without actually having to work as hard for them. But if you combine that with Macaque now claiming that he used to be best friend with Sun Wukong in his pre-journey days (something that's made funny from a JTTW context given that that status actually belongs to the Demon Bull King lol), his original violence has now blown into this centuries long and really unhealthy obsession with the monkey king. Like he's apparently gone from wanting to literally be Sun Wukong to being so obsessed with getting revenge on Sun Wukong that he's got basically nothing else going on in his life. Like he's only appeared in two episodes but...does he have any friends? Any family? A career or even a hobby that DOESN'T center the monkey king? Anything at all outside of his "get revenge on and/or kill Sun Wukong/use his successor as my personal punching bag” thing? Like dude! That is extremely creepy and extremely bad for everyone all around! As I’ve said before, this seeming refusal to see beyond the past or to do something that doesn’t involve Sun Wukong in some capacity is a trait that makes Macaque an interesting and somewhat tragic villain--he even seems to be working as Sun Wukong’s reflection in a mirror darkly, with lego show Sun Wukong pretty clearly not being able to heal from his own past which is hinted to be defined by one loss after another, and with Monkie Kid even kind of having these two characters somewhat follow their JTTW characterizations in that in the latter half of the journey Sun Wukong often gets sad & starts crying in the face of what seems insurmountable odds (& Monkie Kid Sun Wukong does seem to be hiding some serious depression behind a cheerful facade), whereas the Six-Eared Macaque retains a worse version of Sun Wukong’s pre-journey characteristic of getting pissed and lashing out if things don’t go his way--but it’s also what would make any current friendship or romantic relationship between these monkeys horrific. Although to be fair even the fandom seems to recognize this in an unconscious way, in that a lot of the art & fanfic seems to swing erratically between them kissing & screaming at each other in yet another example of bog-standard fandom adulation of romanticized toxic relationships lol.  

At the end of the day, of course, this is nothing new. You'll find versions of this dynamic across a ton of fandoms and now even canonical work. And as such, I can only look at this kind of popularized relationship dynamic with a kind of resigned weariness whenever it pops up, & my frustrated question with the popularity of this kind of pairing is the exact same one that I have for a multitude of blatantly toxic villain/hero ships, given common fandom discourse & the tendency to either ignore or justify the villain's actions & demonize the hero: if you're THAT convinced that everything is the hero's fault, if you believe THAT much that the hero is the one in the wrong for the villain's pain and their subsequent actions, then why are you so set on them not only becoming a romantic pair, but framing this get-together as a good thing? Like I know we contain multitudes but that's waaay too many contradictions for me to wrap my head around. And it definitely doesn’t help that one branch of underlying reasoning behind this kind of pairing seems to be the ever-present “you break it, you fix it” mentality, where the assumption is that if you’re in a failing, abusive, and/or generally toxic relationship (platonically or romantically), if you put in enough time and effort & attempts to compromise, you’ll be able to restore/have the relationship you dreamed of, even with someone who hurt you really badly. And this assumption isn’t limited to fandom: I’d even argue that it’s everywhere in the culture, hence why a lot of people feel like they “failed” if they have to get a divorce or make the choice to leave an unhealthy friendship. Personally, I feel like people could really benefit from more stories about how it is not only the case that the people you hurt don’t owe you their forgiveness & you can still become a better and happier person without the one you hurt in your life, & that while it can be really hard it can also be a good thing to leave a relationship, even if it’s one that once meant a lot to you. 

  But in all honestly, from my own perspective this kind of pairing is starting to read far less like enemies to lovers and far more like a horrible fantasy where you can pull whatever shit you want, even on the people you "love," & never be held accountable for your terrible behavior or even have to consider that maybe you were in the wrong. It's another facet that makes me larf every time I see people insist that fandom is an inherently "transformative" or "progressive" form of storytelling like friends you are literally just taking status quo toxic monogamy & rebranding it as somehow beneficial & romantic (X_X).

But as to anon’s last frustration, it is hard to know what is the appropriate response with this kind of thing...like for my own part I’m keeping my frustrations to my blog & now increasingly to posts that you would have to click on the “read more” button to see what I have to say, but I totally get the hesitation to give even a mild critique to big names in a fandom. Like I've now seen it happen repeatedly where someone who has a big name in a fandom will make something that's kind of shitty for one reason or another, someone will message them with some version of "hey, that's kind of shitty, you shouldn't do that," and the typical response is either to blatantly ignore the issue completely, or more popularly to make a giant crying circus that seems deliberately geared towards stoking emotions on both sides of the, for example, fiction does/doesn't affect reality issue so that something that didn't even have to be that big a deal gets blown out of all proportion, with the big name often framing what often started out as a very mild critique into a long crying jag about how the initial response to their kind of shitty thing was so mean/cruel and they're just a poor innocent & that YOU'RE the true racist/sexist/bigot etc. if you don't agree with their opinion. It must of course be noted that there have also been numerous instances of people taking it too far the other way & sending not just big names but smaller creators literal deaths threats over stuff like innocuous ships which like holy hell bells people that’s a horrible thing to do. But for the big names at least, the end result of all this fighting is usually that once the dust has settled they have more attention/fame/money/power in the fandom than before, and with anyone who might have a problem with their stuff feeling afraid to voice their opinion lest they be swarmed by that person's fans. In that way fandom does often seem to increasingly be geared towards presenting an “official” fandom perspective about various facets of a piece of media instead of allowing for a multitude of interpretations, and with criticism, no matter its shape or form or how genuinely warranted it may be, being hounded out of existence. I feel like a lot of this could be made less bad if there wasn’t this constant assumption & even drive to think that a different interpretation of or criticism of your favorite work of fiction or your fanwork isn’t a direct claim that you are a thoroughly loathsome individual (& maybe also if people cultivated an enjoyment of learning things about important works from a culture outside their own, even if what you learn clashes with your own initial understandings), but I guess we’ll see if that ever happens. 

So these are my general thinks about the Six Eared Macaque’s current fandom meow meow status & some of my bigger gripes with fandom tendencies as a whole. I stand by my idea that the most interesting & beneficial route for Macaque moving forward would be a kind of “redemption without forgiveness from the ones you hurt” arc--as I think was done pretty excellently with the character Grace in Infinity Train--and if for no other reason than gosh dern this monkey really needs to cultivate some sort of identity beyond his “Sun Wukong but worse” persona. 

[blue-pastel-cat]

Xiaobedo Fanfic Recommendation

Welcome to my personal “if you are new to xiaobedo peeps please read these” list. As said before this is my personal list so please feel free to reblog/comment/hit me for not including any gem here. I might miss a lot of them because I am drunk or blind. (mostly have them on my to read and then forgot as I am being assault by real life shit).

I would like to say first that so far there are 150+ Xiaobedo fics on Ao3. I can’t review all of them but I can say that I have read a majority of them. Most of them are just pure love and I would like nothing more than a thousands thank you for all the fic writers who spent their free time writting these gems for us to read for free. But these...these takes the cake as it finds a special landing spot in my heart that I would just thrust them into someone’s hand if they say “I am new to this ship can you recommend me?”

1. Orange dust by bobamilkteas (Wes)

In which Xiao learns to open himself up to the world a little more after the collapse of Rex lapis's contracts but it was not always easy for a soul doomed to eternal damnation. Meanwhile, Albedo liked to tempt fate where the extraordinary are concerned.

If only the traveler's comrades are made of saner bunch.

Comment: Long ago when I like both Albedo and Xiao as a character, I was wondering hmmm....will anyone actually even write about them lmao they never met each other. I am surprise to see this one as the 3rd fic in the whole 3 Xiaobedo fic on Ao3 (yeah back when there’s literally only 3 fic for this couple). I was like I’ll read it for the curiosity, I’ll probably won’t ship them. And that people is how I put my clown make up on my face upon finishing reading it. This ONE fic alone convert me into a devotee of Xiaobedo. Please consider joining me in this circus if you want to know what is Xiaobedo. I would put this as the first of my “Big 3″

Orange Dust also come with its compliation of short stories over the course of the game and a big sequel to it. Please also consider reading ALL OF THEM.

2. Solar Wind by birdpriestess (Sparrow)

For the yaksha, his duty was his life, and his life was his duty. No human could ever hope to understand the eternal war he fought out of sight and in silence.

So why, then, did he feel that Albedo would understand?

---

Finding himself at death's door once more, Xiao is saved by a surprising person, setting off the unlikeliest of adventures.

Comment: Do you like crying? Do you like the feeling of getting your heart ripped into pieces as the author destroy your emotions over the end of each chapter as the story picked up the climax? Yeah, this one is for you masochists. The action, the characterisation, the drama THE EMOTIONS OH WOW. I kid you not that it was so good I read this while workinng when I am not suppose to me. Also, this fic has my favourite characterisation of Gold ever. I love that dramatic queen Mad Alchemist. AND DAIN. I LOVE DAIN IN THIS FIC. Our dearest Sparrow manage to toy with our feelings like how I bully ruin guard for big numbers lmao. This is the secound of “Big 3″ of my Xiaobedo list.

Again, just like Orange Dust, Solar Wind comes with its own compliation of short stories of what came after that. Please also consider reading ALL OF THEM.

3. Castle of Glass by AlchemicalStardust (Morgie) 

A black shadow rises over Huaguang Stone Forest. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, Albedo flees the shaking ground and the crash of boulders tumbling form the sky. As the dust settles, Albedo finds a young man – an Adeptus – amidst the carnage. Despite the karmic agony ripping his body from the inside, Xiao’s only question is “How?” How did a human survive after witnessing his battle?

Comment: The last of the “Big 3″ of my Xiaobedo list. And it is still on going! Castle of Glass? More like I AM IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTIONS! Have you read a fic about 2 people yearning, longing, reaching out for each other so damn well that you just want to throw your phone in the air as they both had their impending doom coming down upon them? Yeah this is one of them. You will like want to be stuck in the moment they express how much they just yearn for each other’s love and care that you want to shake the author for what comes next. Like...everytime Morgie update I am expressing my gratitude at the end of the chapter by writing on Xiaobedo discord “MORGIE COME HERE AND LET ME BONK YOU WHY ARE YOU ENDING IT THERE”

trust me when you read you will def feel the same. With just Big 3 and their compliation alone that would give you like a LONG list of reading already LMAOOOOOOO

4. Find a place to call it home  by yamajiroo 

Our room, he said. Xiao’s brow twitches. Zhongli never said anything about this. But then again, perhaps he should anticipate this from the beginning...

Xiao looks over at Albedo, who is now tilting his head, his look as innocent as ever.

“Are you not okay with sharing a room?”

Comment: College AU for Xiaobedo! One thing that I love this is the slow burn and what made me LOVE LOVE LOVE this fic more is how cute Klee is in this fic. Their relationship in this one is very simple, but that simplicity highlight why their chemistry work. Xiao is someone who was just very gentle, who was largely misunderstood by his lonesome nature. Albedo was someone who like peace and quite in his introvert bubble. And how they respect that bubble that each other has actually made their relationship work. I love it when fic highlight this and this one captures it.

5. I Can't See Your Face From the Other Side of the Classroom by MissWeaver  

When Albedo and Xiao unexpectedly start eating lunch together, they begin to find that they have more in common than anyone would have realized. They both struggle in their own ways with blossoming feelings, too many assignments, and annoying classmates as they navigate a relationship for the first time.

Comment: I’ll be honest, I usually hate high school au just because its so cliche. I don’t even watch and drama/anime surrounds high school student anymore LMAOOO (unless it’s very good). So if there’s an high school AU that I actually keep come back and read after a couple of chapters, it means that the cliche that I hate wasn’t there or barely was there at all. The pinning in this fic makes me want to bang their head together sometimes LMAOOO The tag wasn’t kidding when they said both Xiao and Albedo are bad at feelings. Also that’s a lot of heart broken caused by these two idiots XD

6. new world, same me, same bullshit  by  bobamilkteas (Wes)

At the belly of Dragonspine, Albedo lost control to the festering corruption that permeated his senses and watched, from the recesses of his mind, as his devoured body turned his allies into enemies. Before his rampage reached its climax, he is sealed in a crystalized confinement by the last hand of Reindottir, where he then reawakens centuries after, in a rebooted Teyvat.

Comment: Yeah I know it was list in Orange Dust but here me out. This sets out in an entirely different universe. And if you like Polyamory, this one has Zhongli joining the duo and I love it because I also love ZhongXiao with my life. Time Travel is my biggest kink. Especially when I am the person who love it when people explore Archon War era/ Alatus!Xiao. So this one hits double of my kink. Of course it is still on going and I will bully Wes whenever I can to see that new chapter. Albedo is a total fucking badass in this story and I completely agree from using him in Abyss so often. Everyone should write badass Albedo.

7. misplaced heart of mine by  inkburn           

“If you are ill, then you should be resting at home. In Mondstadt.” He emphasized Mondstadt with a pointed look in his direction.

“I assure you I won’t be troublesome, Adeptus Xiao,” Albedo said, “You’ll find I’m a rather low-maintenance traveler.”

“Travel,” Xiao scoffed, “without airstep?”

Albedo looked him up and down. “Are your legs just for decoration?”

(albedo is sent to liyue on mandatory vacation. xiao is his unfortunate bodyguard.)

Comment: Most of the time you will see Albedo and Xiao starting their relationship with one of them taking interest in another. But this one took another approach, they starting off by make them hating each other’s guts LMAOOOO and I live for every second of it. There’s only 1 chapter so far but wow it was SOOO GOOD. I am really really excited for next chapter and is waiting patiently ;w;

8.  Blossom of Grace  by birdpriestess  

One day in Liyue Harbor, Albedo watches a street performance by an enigmatic dancer named Xiao. And he becomes completely obsessed.

Comment: Have you ever look at Xiao fight and thinking that he’s one of the most beautiful deadly thing ever? How it was like he was dancing around the battlefield? How about actual dancer Xiao being so absolutely beautiful and perfect and that slow burn of Albedo falling in love with that beauty with a touch of Modern AU and cute Ganyu as the Wing woman. Yes, Sparrow delivers yet again another beautiful slow burn and while it’s still ongoing it is worth the read.

9. i think we could make this work (could get used to this) by outspaced               

“Xiao? What are you doing out here?”

“I—”

“It’s raining,” Albedo says, as if it isn’t obvious. “You could get struck by lightning.”

“What are you doing out here then?” Xiao does the only thing he knows how to do, he challenges Albedo. “It’s raining.”

Albedo just hums. “If I get struck by lightning, it’s for science.”

Comment: A short one-shot where I read the summary and went “This is it... this is their relationship.” I am sold immediately. Oh god Albedo why are you like this.

10. Ephemeral by criedprinz        

“It’s not for your investigation, is it?” Aether asked mildly.

Albedo traced a finger around the sketchbook, considering the question. “No,” he admitted finally. “I... I just want to see them again.”

He opened the sketchbook to reveal the drawing he’d just finished. Aether nodded, clearly recognizing the sharp golden eyes.

“Xiao,” he said. “You were rescued by an adeptus.”

When a visit to Dragonspine goes horribly wrong, Albedo is rescued by an unknown stranger, wielding powers he's never heard of. Led on a search to find out who it is, he finds himself in the middle of an unforgettable encounter..

Comment: A really really well written one-shot that I love. The yearning oh godddd the yearning from Albedo side is just so so much that I have to put it here. (I think you can see the trend here lmao. I am a sucker for yearning). And the moment they get to meet each other again is just chef kiss. MWHAA

11. Idle Yaksha, Brilliant Yaksha by Pit0fTheEarth

Alatus didn’t have a lot of responsibilities to keep. He spent most of his days dancing across the sky and eating away all nightmares that plagued a person’s sleep.

But one fortunate encounter led to too many unfortunate ones, taking his carefree existence and plunging it in darkness. His wings, stripped from him. His gentle touch, replaced by an unforgiving grip of destruction.

There was a lot of blood on his hands. With each passing moment, it became harder for Alatus to recall the last time someone gently held him.

Comment: This is one of the ongoing fic where I am very very much excited on the take of Naberius. And the way the author portray Xiao when he’s still the innocent Alatus is just *clench fist*. Baby ;w; Baby why do you have to lose all that innocence. Also the fic has long LONG flashback to Xiao past and his relationship with Naberius. We are unwielding more what happened to both of them and why perhaps does this have to do with Albedo.

That’s it for now, might add more later! Thank you <3